An hour after his Valentine’s Day victory, Palm Beach Atlantic head coach Stephen Tempone sat in a chair in the corner of his assistant coach’s office.

“Did that really just happen?” he asked in disbelief.

It did.

His team, in just their second year of existence, had beaten then-No. 7 NYIT 17-11, easily the biggest win in the program’s short history.

But for Tempone, the win meant so much more.

“It was kind of bittersweet. If it wasn’t for New York Tech, I’m not where I am today,” he said.

Tempone will tell you he bleeds blue through and through. Not just Sailfish blue, but Bear blue too.

In 1997, Tempone, endearingly called “Temp” by his players, won a national championship at New York Tech, setting the NCAA record for most goals in a championship game in the process.

As the offensive coordinator at NYIT for four years, his offense ranked 10th in all of NCAA Division II before heading to South Florida to build the newly formed Palm Beach Atlantic program from the ground up.

Now, Temp had not only toppled his alma mater, but he also put his team on the map.

“It’s been such a whirlwind of fun,” he said. “I ask my guys all the time, ‘Are you smiling? Are you smiling?’”

And after their big win, Tempone’s players were smiling from ear to ear. Not just for the monumental result, but also because he was about to get his ears lowered.

In the locker room before the game, with the team enjoying its tradition of blasting Hall & Oates in the background, Temp made a deal. Beat this team, his blue blood team, and they could give him a haircut just like all of them have, a very fashionable mullet.

“Oh it’s clean. It’s really clean,” said sophomore attacker Jackson Miller.

“I told them they would get a couple days out of it,” Tempone said. “At first, my wife said she was going to text the captains and tell them, ‘Take it easy.’ But then I came home and she said, ‘It’s not bad. You actually look pretty good.’”

Now, with his mullet and a lightning bolt shaved into one side of his head, Tempone is leading Palm Beach Atlantic on their quest to become a force to be reckoned with. He's making sure this win, this big win, wasn’t just an outlier, but a message for what regularly is to come.

“It was definitely an unmatched feeling,” Miller said. “There was something about it that just really showed us how great we can be. I think it really opened our eyes to say, ‘We’re not done here. This is what we’re capable of.’”

“Do I pinch myself and say, 'I’m in the sand and the surf and the sun and the palm trees and 80 degrees' almost every day? Yes,” said Tempone. “As a young program, I’m going to push them to excel on and off the field, but I also want them to understand that you’re still just playing a game with a stick and a ball and to have fun and enjoy it.”