Winning, sometimes at a cost
February 12, 2003
In hiring Dennis Erickson as their head coach, the 49ers are getting a man with a long record of success along with enough baggage to fill a steamer trunk.
That the 55-year-old knows his football is beyond question. He was a highly successful college coach for 17 years, winning two national championships at Miami and reviving an utterly moribund program at Oregon State.
However, in the second of his "dream" jobs (Washington State was the other),
Erickson went 31-33 in four years with the Seattle Seahawks and was fired for the first time in his career following the 1998 season.
For someone lured back into the NFL by the 49ers, Erickson's comments to the Seattle Times in 2000 might seem surprising:
"I regret taking the Seahawk job. It was for the wrong reasons. I wanted to be back in the Northwest. I didn't know the NFL would be so cutthroat. I was miserable."
In Miami, Erickson's home was destroyed by a hurricane while his Hurricanes wreaked their own damage on and off the field. From 1989-94, Erickson went 63- 9 with players who were loyal to him but often lawless away from the field. Twelve of his players were arrested in 1994 and two were suspended.
Amid reports of sexual misconduct, alcohol-related incidents, fights, academic fraud and cover-ups regarding sexual assault and failed drug tests, the graduation rate for Miami players quietly rose from 59 percent to 80 percent in Erickson's six years in Coral Gables, Fla.
"I think he's a very good football coach," said Dave Maggard, the former Cal athletic director who served in the same capacity at Miami when Erickson was there. "Dennis has not been a good disciplinarian. Here's what he is good at: Players understand his competitiveness. He will get the players ready to play.
"They will understand there is an urgency, a drive."
This driven man often found his release in alcohol. On April 15, 1995, three months into the Seahawks' job, Erickson was arrested for driving under the influence on Interstate 5 near his hometown of Everett, Wash. His blood- alcohol level was .23, more than twice the legal limit in Washington state.
To his credit, Erickson didn't try to hide after his DUI. In fact, Erickson took the extraordinary step of informing others of his transgression.
"Before it came out, he was the guy who told everybody," said Gary Wright, vice president of communications for the Seahawks. "He walked in the press room and told the writers. I think that really, really hit him hard. I think he was embarrassed for his family and the (Seahawks') organization."
A court-ordered chemical-dependency evaluation determined Erickson had a "significant" drinking problem. On the advice of his attorney, Erickson opted for deferred prosecution on the condition that he abstain from alcohol for two years in order for his record to be cleared. He attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
Said one former college and pro coach: "That was an issue with him. It doesn't make him a bad guy."
Erickson grew up in blue-collar Everett, a former mill town a half-hour north of Seattle, where his maternal grandfather once ran a tavern. His father,
Robert "Pink" Erickson, was a legendary high school football coach in the area.
"I was watching film on Saturday when most kids were watching cartoons," Erickson told the Portland Oregonian.
It was natural, then, that Erickson became a football coach after his playing days as a quarterback at Montana State were over. After a run of assistant coaching jobs in his 20s, he became a head coach for the first time at Idaho in 1982. Erickson has been a head coach every year since then.
Along the way, Erickson's career has been marked by success (his overall record is 175-90-1) and sudden moves. Saying he "always wanted to be a Cowboy, " he left Wyoming in 1986 after one year for Washington State, where he said he "always wanted to be a Cougar."
Washington State was Erickson's first "dream" job. He was back in his home state at a school where his father once coached on Jim Sweeney's staff. The dream lasted all of two years, including his first losing season as a head coach (3-7-1 in 1987), before Erickson bolted for Miami and fame, fortune and the occasional felonious behavior on the part of his players.
At Miami, defensive tackle Warren Sapp tested positive for marijuana four times yet was allowed to continue playing. (Miami has since strengthened its drug policy.) During his tenure there, a woman claimed Erickson encouraged her not to file a police report after a player allegedly sexually assaulted her, a charge Erickson denies.
"A lot of that was going on before Dennis got there," Maggard said. "Some of that stuff was exaggerated by people on the outside. There was truth to other parts."
Erickson spent six wildly successful years in Miami before the Seahawks extended him the offer of another dream job -- a chance to return to his roots in the Northwest after having conquered the college game.
Some dream. During his four years in Seattle, the Seahawks were maddeningly mediocre, going 8-8, 7-9, 8-8 and 8-8 from 1995-98.
And now he's back in the NFL, dragging that steamer trunk of baggage along with him.
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