The University of Detroit Mercy will induct seven new members into its Hall of Fame in December. The Class of 2014 includes: Perry Watson (coach), Lisa Blackburn (basketball), Lee Knorek (basketball), Mary Latham (Parker) (soccer), Jorge Ferreira (soccer), Kim Hemstreet (cross country) and the 1972 NCAA National Championship men's fencing team. As we count down to Hall of Fame weekend from Dec. 12-13, DetroitTitans.com will feature each of the seven inductees.
 
Maybe no one exemplified Detroit basketball better than the person who helped put the Titans back on the map in head coach Perry Watson. A Detroit native, he turned Detroit Southwestern into a high school power with more than 300 wins, 10 trips to the Class A Final Four, back-to-back championships in 1990 and '91 and nine city titles, and he was determined to do the same at the academic institution on West McNichols and Livernois.
 
"I was elated to say the least when I was called about the Hall of Fame," said Coach Watson. "It is an honor to be recognized for the accomplishments throughout the years that was not just me, but my assistant coaches, staff and the players and it is as much a tribute to them as it is to me."
 
For 15 years, he roamed the sidelines at Calihan Hall and built the Titans into one of the most feared mid-major teams in the country. A team that won in the postseason. A team that no one wanted to play at home. A team that was built on the blue collar, tough mentality just like the city it is located in, and the city he calls home.
 
Coach Watson was hired in 1993 to revive a program that had just two winning seasons in its previous 14 years and a program that had not made the postseason since 1979. All he did was win three conference titles, including a conference tournament championship in his very first year en route to posting 10 winning seasons and 261 career wins, second in school history. He also led Detroit to a school-record tying 25 wins in a season three times.
 
He was selected the MCC Coach of the Year in 1998, coached 11 different All-League players during his tenure, three conference Players of the Year (Willie Green, Jermaine Jackson and Rashad Phillips, the latter a two-time winner) and three Newcomers of the Year (Derrick Hayes, Phillips and Brandon Cotton). Three Titans in Green, Jackson and Desmond Ferguson would go on to play in the NBA and a number of others would continue there playing careers overseas, but most importantly, his players achieved a better than 90 percent graduation rate.  
 
"I always said Jermaine Jackson was the cornerstone of all the success we had. It starts with the leadership of the point guard and winning the first championship, it got the attention of the Detroit people and all the high school coaches were guys I coached against. They knew my history and they knew what I wanted to accomplish at Detroit so it wasn't a hard sell," added Coach Watson.
 
In that 1993-94 campaign, the Watson-led Titans gave some foreshadowing of what was to come with shocking upsets and a will to win. After starting the season 0-3, which included a loss to Wayne State, Detroit would finish the regular season at 13-13 entering the MCC Tournament. The fourth-seeded Titans took it to La Salle in the first round, 87-70, before winning the conference tournament by ousting top-seeded Xavier, 79-75, and the number two seed Evansville, 72-63.
 
"In my first year, we didn't run guys off the team like some coaches do," said Coach Watson. "We had some ups and downs, but we pecked away by teaching them how to be a team and how to be winners. I remember before the championship game, Boyz II Men was big at that time and I told them that this game signifies us going from boys to men and lets go out there and show what we learned. It is a shame that the league didn't have an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, but nothing can take away the fact that they won a championship ring."
 
After winning campaigns in two of the next three years, the Titans were ready to make themselves known on the national scene with four-straight 20-win seasons, three of which saw Detroit reach 25 wins.
 
In 1997-98, Detroit was 25-6 and 12-2 in the MCC, tying for the regular season crown and earning a bid to the NCAA Tournament. Seeded 10th, Detroit squared off against a senior and star-laden St. John's squad that was seeded seventh and the Titans used their defensive mindset to knock off the Red Storm, 66-64.
 
"I remember looking up in the stands in Chicago and seeing all the Titan faithful fans and how much they love this program," said Coach Watson. "I remember the big message I sent to those guys was that we belong. It was going to be a city street fight and they might be hard-nosed, tough players, but so were we. Every thing was going to be hard fought, every rebound, every loose ball, every layup, but somewhere, we are going to make a run that is going to give us separation. We weren't just happy to be there."
 
The following season, Detroit was 25-6 again and 12-2 in the conference, this time winning the regular season outright and capturing the MCC Tournament crown with a 72-65 victory over Butler. The Titans reward was a 12 seed in the NCAA Tournament and a date with the fifth-seeded and No. 15 UCLA Bruins. Detroit again did not let its opponent's history dictate the outcome as the red, white and blue suffocated the Bruins defensively to the tune of a 56-53 victory.
 
"We all know UCLA and its history," said coach Watson. "That team had five or six players that went to the NBA. We knew what they were capable off doing if you allowed them to be in their comfort zone and score. When I came to Detroit, we had to decide what we wanted to be, how we wanted to win championships, and it was toughness, it was rebounding, it was defense, and that was our trademark. We challenged our guys not to give up any dunks, no breakaways, no free looks at the basket and everything has to be challenged. We frustrated them and it was our guys talking and telling them, 'your not getting your average tonight'. You talk about being proud of your kids and program that we didn't let any of their mystique get in our way."
 
The next two years saw two more trips to the conference tournament championship game and a 25-12 campaign in 2000-01 that resulted in a bid to the NIT. In that postseason, no one gave the Titans a chance again as they became just the sixth team in NIT history to reach the semifinals with three road wins, defeating Bradley (68-49), Connecticut (67-61) and Dayton (59-42) and sending the Motor City to the Big Apple to play inside Madison Square Garden.
 
Along the way, the Titans defended their home court and made teams pay for their trips to historic Calihan Hall as Detroit held the nation's longest home court winning streak at 39 games in a row between 1999 and 2002.
 
"The home court advantage was unbelievable, but it was a double edge sword in that no one wanted to play us," said coach Watson. "We couldn't get teams to come here and play us. We had a tremendous home court advantage that we took pride in. Guys would come back and tell the team in the locker room 'we don't lose here', and challenged the guys to defend their home court."
 
The Titans' storied history has seen its share of great coaches from the legendary Bob Calihan to Dick Vitale and now the Titan Hall of Fame will welcome one more great mind into its fold with Coach Watson's induction.