Athletic Director Mueh announces plans to retire in 2015 Published May 22, 2014 By Troy Garnhart Athletic Communications U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. -- The Academy's athletic director announced this week that he'll retire in 2015, after more than a decade overseeing all the institution's athletic programs. Since taking the position in 2004, Dr. Hans Mueh, a retired brigadier general and an Academy graduate, has been credited with streamlining the athletic department, overhauling the institution's flagship football program, and taking the men's basketball and hockey teams to their first-ever post-season playoffs. Mueh took the Academy's football program through a major transition, starting with the hiring of current head coach Troy Calhoun, a move credited with taking the Falcons to a 9-4 overall mark and a second-place finish in the Mountain West Conference in 2007; qualifying for their first bowl game in seven years and playing in the Armed Forces Bowl that year. Since then, the program has gone to a school-record six consecutive bowl games, averaging more than 9,000 bowl tickets sold. During Mueh's tenure, the Academy was one of three schools (including Michigan State and Boston College) to reach post-season play in football (2007) and men's basketball and ice hockey (2006-07); marking the first time a service academy team competed in the post-season in all three sports. The men's basketball team has played in another NCAA tournament and the National Invitational Tournament's Final Four; and the ice hockey team advanced to the NCAA tournament five times. Mueh was on the selection committee hiring current head coach Frank Serratore and leading the Academy's move into the Atlantic Hockey Association. "I've been blessed to have the opportunity to be in the chair as athletic director of the best Division I program in the NCAA," he said. "These 10-plus years have flown by because athletics is a nonstop business, and we've had so many changes in coaching staffs, construction projects, a whole new corporation to help keep us competitive and thousands of home contests." Mueh restructured the department with an internal/external model to streamlined resources, making the transition to a federally-chartered non-profit organization in the summer of 2013, leading to more fundraising opportunities. He was heavily involved in Academy athletics before becoming director of athletics as the Academy's faculty athletic representative from 1996-2004 and a longtime member of the Air Force Academy Athletics Association board of directors. Mueh has also been active within the conference and the NCAA. He was recently selected to be a part of the NCAA Division I Amateurism Cabinet and has been active on the NCAA's academics-eligibility compliance cabinet, the men's golf committee and the region 7 postgraduate scholarship committee. He's been equally engaged within the conference on various leadership committees; he's currently on the awards and recognition committee and previously served on the joint council executive committee, and committees on championship, television and sportsmanship. Before serving as the Academy's vice dean, Mueh was permanent professor and head of the department of chemistry here. "I could not imagine that there's a better, more committed, more competent, and more professional staff anywhere in the NCAA," he said. "They've made my job easy, so I've had the chance to enjoy watching these future Air Force leaders display their courage, stamina, self-confidence, self-discipline, teamwork, and that indomitable will to win at the highest levels of competition. To quote Lou Gehrig, 'I'm the luckiest man on the face of the earth.'" The Academy has announced plans to seek an eligible replacement for Mueh.