A teacher of young men

CEDAR RAPIDS – The last guy who wants to talk about Mark Carlson is Mark Carlson.

The Cedar Rapids RoughRiders head coach and general manager won his 500th United States Hockey League regular-season game last weekend but typically deflected questions about the accomplishment. It's just Carlson being Carlson.

You work as hard as you can, take things day by day, espouse humility and praise others. It's why he has been able to compile a 500-319-87 record in 16 seasons, the fifth coach in USHL history to reach half-a-thousand wins.

The RoughRiders have road games Friday at Chicago and Saturday at Green Bay.

'For me, I've just been real fortunate to be here since day one,” he said. 'I look at it as the organization's 500th win, the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders' 500th win.”

Carlson is an East Coast native who was an assistant at Northeastern University in Boston when he took the RoughRiders job in 1999. It was a leap of faith, considering the club didn't even have a home arena.

The Cedar Rapids Ice Arena was under construction as the 1999-2000 season began, and the RoughRiders had to play roughly the first half of their schedule on the road or at neutral sites.

They weren't very good, though that quickly became the exception and not the rule under Carlson. He has won a Clark Cup championship, two Anderson Cup titles for most regular-season standings points, sent countless players on to college and professional hockey.

Thirteen former RoughRiders have played in the National Hockey League.

'Carly was just a really, really good motivator and taught us little details at a maturing age that helped immensely down the road,” said Edmonton Oilers forward Teddy Purcell, (2004-06), who has played over 400 NHL games.

'I wouldn't be where I am in my career without him,” said Pittsburgh Penguins center Jayson Megna, a RoughRider in 2009-10 and 2010-11. 'I am extremely lucky to have played for Coach Carlson. Playing a team game, trying to lead by example, putting in the extra hours, not taking a shift off, those are all things I still incorporate in my game and are things I learned from Coach. To get 500 wins in a league like the USHL is an incredible number, but I'm not surprised. He will win wherever he coaches.”

Carlson has had opportunities with colleges and pro teams over the years but has remained with a program he built from scratch.

'He is a teacher,” said USHL President and Commissioner Bob Fallen. 'Because he is such a good teacher is why he has been so successful.”

Fallen's son, Tommy, is a senior defenseman and team captain at Yale University but played three seasons for the RoughRiders prior to that. His USHL career didn't exactly get off to a flying start.

'He spent about the first 10 games in a sportcoat,” Bob Fallen said. 'When he left home that year for the first time, my wife and I vowed we would give him his space, wouldn't talk to him. We just told him ‘Whenever you need us, you call us.' Well, we weren't hearing from him, and it was driving my wife crazy.”

Finally, one Sunday, Tommy called home. Bob Fallen was sitting on an easy chair watching football.

'He just went off, (saying) ‘I don't know what the eff I have to do to get in the lineup ...'” Fallen said. 'I finally hung up on him. He called me back and asked me why I did that. I just told that, one, I couldn't get a word in. Then I told him there were two people who controlled his ice time, him and Coach Carlson. That was a defining moment for Tom.”

What you hear from his former players is Carlson doesn't give you a thing. You earn what you get.

You buy into what he is teaching and telling you, or you don't play. You likely don't last with the RoughRiders, either.

'Playing for him was incredible,” said former Riders goaltender Cody Campbell, an assistant coach for the Odessa Jackalopes of the junior North American Hockey League. 'He is demanding but truly, 100-percent cares about all of his players and always has your best interest in mind … Playing for him is part of the reason I decided to coach junior hockey. And I have called him multiple times over the first few months to ask his advice, and he is always willing to help.”

'He expects a lot,” said current RoughRiders forward Andrew Oglevie. 'He doesn't accept mediocrity when it comes to how hard you work and things like that. He definitely expects a lot of you, and you'll know it if you don't give him what he wants.”

The Mark Carlson Doghouse is a place many players have spent over the years, probably no one more than Phil Axtell. One of the more popular RoughRiders players because of his immense size (6-foot-6, 250 pounds), Axtell was here from 2004 through 2006.

He moved on to Michigan Tech for a year, then Northern Michigan, before embarking on an equally short professional career with the minor-league Quad City Mallards.

'Definitely a tough-love type of coach,” said Axtell. 'He pushed me harder than any other coach, not only on the ice but off the ice. He had me in a pool at 6 a.m. for the first couple of months and spin classes at 9 at Aspen a couple times a week, every week for both seasons I played in C.R. He pushed me to do everything the right way.”

Doing everything the right way proved very difficult for Axtell. Alcohol was the reason.

He was forced to retire from hockey in 2011 after crashing his truck and severely injuring himself, suffering a broken arm and multiple fractures to his face and skull. He was drunk.

'Everyone knows about my drinking problem when I played in Cedar Rapids. Everyone knows I had a drinking problem at MTU, everyone knows about my accident four years ago,” Axtell said. 'What people don't know is that Coach took me to a substance-abuse counselor when I played in C.R. He tried and tried and tried.”

Axtell said Carlson was constantly by his side in the hospital as he convalesced.

'Once I started to recover, we would talk on the phone often,” he said. 'For months, I would cry when I spoke to him. One day, he asked me if I was crying as an act … I answered no, but never told him it was because I had let him down so terribly.”

Like Campbell, Axtell has decided to teach others the lessons he learned from Carlson. He's a youth hockey coach in the Quad Cities.

'I can no longer play,” he said. 'I coach now, and I try to be just like him in how I teach the players I work with. It's about paying attention to the most-minuet details, that no matter what, we don't need a rear-view mirror in life and hockey because we're never looking back.

'He still pushes me to this day to lose a few pounds and to be better today than I was yesterday. He may not feel the same way, but I consider him to be one of my best friends. We talked maybe once a week, I've known him for more than a third of my life … I've let him down, but he always has my best interests in heart. And he's ALWAYS just a phone call away. I know I've said a lot, but he's pretty special.”

l Comments: (319) 398-8259; jeff.johnson@thegazette.com