By Mark Emmons
Mercury News

For all his success in college, Dennis Erickson failed in his first foray into the NFL when the Seattle Seahawks fired him in 1998. And so, if nothing else, he has an unvarnished sense of what he's getting into as he becomes the 49ers' new coach.

``When you're at college, you're dealing with people who have a great respect for you and love the game,'' Erickson told the New York Times in 2000 after he landed on his feet at Oregon State. ``When you're in the National Football League . . . it's the opposite sometimes.''

What the 49ers are getting into is less clear. Erickson, 55, is a coach with baggage.

He is regarded as a skilled offensive coach with few peers. He led the University of Miami to two national titles. He later proved to be a miracle worker as he resurrected Oregon State's moribund program.

But Erickson has been harshly criticized as someone who cares more about wins than character.

At Miami, he allegedly tolerated renegade behavior. After his departure the program was placed on NCAA probation for a wide variety of offenses that occurred on his watch -- even though Erickson was not cited in the wrongdoing. And in his first mini-camp with Seattle in 1995, he was arrested for DUI.

Now he arrives in Niner-land, to complete what he feels is unfinished business.

``I wanted to be able to compete for a world championship. That's the itch I had to scratch,'' Erickson said Tuesday night. ``That's basically what it boils down to.

``It was very difficult to turn down. I guess there's a little piece of me missing from my time in Seattle to have the opportunity to win a world championship. Dealing with Terry Donahue and Bill Walsh and John York, it was just the right thing.''

Erickson is a guy who, in many ways, was bred to be a football coach.

He grew up in Everett, Wash., the son of a coach. He would haul water buckets to players at his father's practices. A star quarterback who later played at Montana State, Erickson would begin his own vagabond coaching career where he switched jobs so often that it seemed like he always had a plane ticket in his back pocket.

There were stops at six colleges as an assistant. In 1979-81, he was San Jose State's offensive coordinator -- where he learned the spread offense from Coach Jack Elway. The spread -- which uses four or five receivers to create mismatches -- would become his bread and butter.

``You could tell that he was going places,'' said former SJSU quarterback Steve Clarkson, who now runs football camps in Southern California and has a son playing at Oregon State. ``He would do anything that he thought would give you a jump on the competition.

``The 49er players will have more free rein. He's a go-for-the-throat type of coach. Players like Garcia and Owens and the defense are going to like his brand of coaching.''

At 35, Erickson became a head coach at Idaho. From there he quickly moved up to Wyoming and then Washington State. His second -- and last -- team in Pullman went 9-3. But there was also embarrassment when that team had a cumulative 1.94 grade-point average.

When he left for Miami in 1989, there would be more of the same: wins and controversy. Picking up where Jimmy Johnson left off, his teams went 63-9 in six seasons and won national championships after the 1989 and '91 seasons.

That was the good. The bad was that during his years there, Erickson's teams only enhanced the image that Johnson had started -- the perception that the Hurricanes were an out-of-control program that embodied everything that was wrong with college athletics. The criticism only intensified when Erickson left for Seattle.

In his wake, the NCAA investigated numerous charges of impropriety that included fraud in distributing college grant money to players, a pay-for-play scheme involved rapper Luther Campbell and accusations that positive drug tests were covered up. All that led to NCAA probation.

Erickson's Northwest homecoming in 1995 was as clouded as the climate.

After he took the Seahawks' job, Erickson was arrested for DUI on the first day of the team's mini-camp. He was placed in a deferred-prosecution program after agreeing to stop drinking for two years and to undergo in-depth treatment.

``It was an awful mistake,'' Erickson said at the time. ``I regret it. It's embarrassing. . . . It's been a tough learning process, and it'll never happen again. All I can do is apologize.''

On the field, he transformed the Seahawks from a bad team to a mediocre one, posting a 31-33 record in four seasons. Erickson had to field questions about his grasp of the NFL and if he had the respect of the players. But he also came into a difficult situation because the franchise ownership was in flux and the team was threatening to move to Los Angeles.

Still, his last team missed a playoff berth only because of a season-ending loss to the New York Jets in which quarterback Vinny Testaverde was awarded a touchdown when the ball never crossed the goal line -- a play that helped spur the NFL to reintroduce instant replay.

Erickson was then fired by new owner Paul Allen to make way for Mike Holmgren. Less than a month later, Erickson accepted the Oregon State position and began arguably his best coaching job yet.

The Beavers had endured an NCAA-record 28 consecutive losing seasons before Erickson's arrival. But they went 7-5 in his first year and then stormed to an 11-1 record his second season, which culminated with a 41-9 victory over Notre Dame in the 2001 Fiesta Bowl and a No. 4 finish in the final Associated Press poll. That bowl win was somewhat tainted by the Beavers' 18 penalties and taunting.

He compiled a 31-17 record in four seasons at Oregon State, and in recent years his name has surfaced in connection with other college jobs, including USC. But Erickson said he was happy in Oregon, in the Willamette Valley.

At least until now.

---

Tell us what you think on the new 49ers Clubhouse message board.