Erickson bury's another team
Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:02 am
Erickson buries one more team in his wake
By Bud Withers
Seattle Times colleges reporter
In a scene becoming all too familiar, Dennis Erickson starts at ASU.
You're kidding, right? This didn't just happen: Dennis Erickson strode to another podium at another school Monday, gazed upon expectant, beaming faces and said he could win big.
What's that old saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 16 times, shame on me?
Dennis Erickson, Coach Mayflower, is at it again. Call the moving company, and get his stuff from Moscow to Tempe, pronto. Then again, all he really needs is a willing president, a compliant athletic director and another dry-erase board to do what he does best — scheme offenses to win against zone blitzes and cover-two.
Here's the tally now: In 21 years, Erickson has held nine head-coaching jobs — Idaho, Wyoming, Washington State, Miami, Seahawks, Oregon State, 49ers, Idaho again and Arizona State. He's the coaching equivalent of the baseball gimmick, when on the last day of the season, the utility player works an inning at all nine positions.
This is three schools from one conference now, enough to give Erickson a head start on a book when he finally hangs it up: "Football Offices of the Pac-10." He's an Army Ranger with headphones, parachuting into the next hot spot.
He was at Idaho 10 months this time. Ten months. He never saw a Christmas there, or a January. He gave new meaning to the term one-and-done.
In April, Idaho athletic director Rob Spear told me he was well aware Erickson left Wyoming after one year and Washington State after two.
"I'd be silly to say it didn't cross my mind," Spear said. "But I really think Dennis is sincere about wanting to contribute back to the University of Idaho."
After his firing by the 49ers, Erickson sat out the 2005 season, creating an unprecedented void in his life. He went to movies, worked out a lot, played golf and collected a couple of million dollars, part of what San Francisco still owed him.
He was miserable.
There were a scant 10 Division I-A coaching openings after that season, hardly anything that fit his profile. But post-2006 would be a regular job fair. If Erickson was remotely torn, it was between two impulses: Doing what he has to do, or waiting another year, and nearing 60, risking becoming irrelevant on the coaching landscape.
So he leaped at Idaho. The Vandals were too infatuated to do what they should have done: Demand, say, a $500,000 buyout clause in his contract instead of settling at $150,000. Preposterous, you say? They had leverage — Erickson's compulsion to coach — and after all, it was 49ers' money they'd essentially be putting in escrow.
They didn't. But this is what it's about today: As much baggage as Erickson carries, there's some other school out there that has to win now, that's persuaded it has enough controls to rein him in. All those who decry the abuses of the system — misguided boosters, bent admission standards, skewed priorities — just acquired another round of ammunition.
For his part, Erickson is a likable guy whose ability to win at the college level rationalizes for him — more tellingly, for his employers — the open sores of his resume:
• The WSU football team pulled a 1.94 grade-point average in the semester when it won the 1988 Aloha Bowl.
• Erickson won two national titles at Miami, where he left behind NCAA probation that cost the Hurricanes 31 scholarships over three years. Much of that was due to the malfeasance of an athletic-department employee in calculating Pell Grant money, but there also was abuse in discipline of drug-test violators and a lack of institutional control.
• At the 1991 Cotton Bowl, the Hurricanes' 46-3 romp over Texas was so overshadowed by 16 penalties for 202 yards — nine for personal fouls or unsportsmanlike conduct — that the Miami president, Edward Foote, was moved to call it "a most unfortunate end to an otherwise outstanding season."
• According to an expose in the Oregonian newspaper, at about the mid-point of Erickson's Oregon State tenure (1999-2003), OSU players began a precipitous decline academically after the athletic department abandoned mandatory study sessions. Over a four-year period, the GPA of African-American players dropped from 2.57 to 1.9.
• In its signature victory over a 30-year period, a 41-9 lacing of Notre Dame in the 2001 Fiesta Bowl, Oregon State amassed 18 penalties for 174 yards, including one for a personal foul and three for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Can we call this a pattern?
Back when Spear and Erickson were discussing the vacant Idaho job early in 2006, Erickson won his prospective boss over with this promise: "I can take you to the next level."
He was just going to get around to that.
By Bud Withers
Seattle Times colleges reporter
In a scene becoming all too familiar, Dennis Erickson starts at ASU.
You're kidding, right? This didn't just happen: Dennis Erickson strode to another podium at another school Monday, gazed upon expectant, beaming faces and said he could win big.
What's that old saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 16 times, shame on me?
Dennis Erickson, Coach Mayflower, is at it again. Call the moving company, and get his stuff from Moscow to Tempe, pronto. Then again, all he really needs is a willing president, a compliant athletic director and another dry-erase board to do what he does best — scheme offenses to win against zone blitzes and cover-two.
Here's the tally now: In 21 years, Erickson has held nine head-coaching jobs — Idaho, Wyoming, Washington State, Miami, Seahawks, Oregon State, 49ers, Idaho again and Arizona State. He's the coaching equivalent of the baseball gimmick, when on the last day of the season, the utility player works an inning at all nine positions.
This is three schools from one conference now, enough to give Erickson a head start on a book when he finally hangs it up: "Football Offices of the Pac-10." He's an Army Ranger with headphones, parachuting into the next hot spot.
He was at Idaho 10 months this time. Ten months. He never saw a Christmas there, or a January. He gave new meaning to the term one-and-done.
In April, Idaho athletic director Rob Spear told me he was well aware Erickson left Wyoming after one year and Washington State after two.
"I'd be silly to say it didn't cross my mind," Spear said. "But I really think Dennis is sincere about wanting to contribute back to the University of Idaho."
After his firing by the 49ers, Erickson sat out the 2005 season, creating an unprecedented void in his life. He went to movies, worked out a lot, played golf and collected a couple of million dollars, part of what San Francisco still owed him.
He was miserable.
There were a scant 10 Division I-A coaching openings after that season, hardly anything that fit his profile. But post-2006 would be a regular job fair. If Erickson was remotely torn, it was between two impulses: Doing what he has to do, or waiting another year, and nearing 60, risking becoming irrelevant on the coaching landscape.
So he leaped at Idaho. The Vandals were too infatuated to do what they should have done: Demand, say, a $500,000 buyout clause in his contract instead of settling at $150,000. Preposterous, you say? They had leverage — Erickson's compulsion to coach — and after all, it was 49ers' money they'd essentially be putting in escrow.
They didn't. But this is what it's about today: As much baggage as Erickson carries, there's some other school out there that has to win now, that's persuaded it has enough controls to rein him in. All those who decry the abuses of the system — misguided boosters, bent admission standards, skewed priorities — just acquired another round of ammunition.
For his part, Erickson is a likable guy whose ability to win at the college level rationalizes for him — more tellingly, for his employers — the open sores of his resume:
• The WSU football team pulled a 1.94 grade-point average in the semester when it won the 1988 Aloha Bowl.
• Erickson won two national titles at Miami, where he left behind NCAA probation that cost the Hurricanes 31 scholarships over three years. Much of that was due to the malfeasance of an athletic-department employee in calculating Pell Grant money, but there also was abuse in discipline of drug-test violators and a lack of institutional control.
• At the 1991 Cotton Bowl, the Hurricanes' 46-3 romp over Texas was so overshadowed by 16 penalties for 202 yards — nine for personal fouls or unsportsmanlike conduct — that the Miami president, Edward Foote, was moved to call it "a most unfortunate end to an otherwise outstanding season."
• According to an expose in the Oregonian newspaper, at about the mid-point of Erickson's Oregon State tenure (1999-2003), OSU players began a precipitous decline academically after the athletic department abandoned mandatory study sessions. Over a four-year period, the GPA of African-American players dropped from 2.57 to 1.9.
• In its signature victory over a 30-year period, a 41-9 lacing of Notre Dame in the 2001 Fiesta Bowl, Oregon State amassed 18 penalties for 174 yards, including one for a personal foul and three for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Can we call this a pattern?
Back when Spear and Erickson were discussing the vacant Idaho job early in 2006, Erickson won his prospective boss over with this promise: "I can take you to the next level."
He was just going to get around to that.
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