49ers Clubhouse

San Jose Mercury

Club's choice carries both promise, baggage

February 12, 2003

By Mark Purdy
Mercury News
Your head tells you that Dennis Erickson came out of nowhere -- defined in this case as Corvallis, Ore. -- to become the 49ers' new head coach.
Your gut tells you that Erickson's hiring was no shock, because he was the sort of person the Niners wanted all along.
Your head nods Tuesday afternoon when someone inside the 49ers' hierarchy confirms what you always believed -- that on the day Steve Mariucci was fired last month, the team's front office was seeking a man with head-coaching experience who knew how to win aggressively and viciously, with no regard for the niceties of his profession or for how those wins were accomplished.
Your gut gives you a slightly queasy feeling about that.
Your head tells you that, if the 49ers were not going to make a huge splash by hiring a big NFL name like Jimmy Johnson, then choosing a man who has won two college national championship and three major bowl games is not the worst idea.
Your gut wonders about the four years Erickson spent in the NFL coaching the Seattle Seahawks, and about the unsightly 31-33 record he compiled there.
Your head tells you that 49ers fans do not need to be on heightened alert, that the franchise will survive, that the 2003 season will be played as scheduled, that we can all go about our normal daily lives with no fear of the Arizona Cardinals.
Your gut wonders if, when all is said and done, Steve Mariucci will still have the last laugh. It will be a bitter wind-chill factor laugh, to be sure, because he is now in Detroit. But it will be a laugh, nonetheless. If only Mariucci had caused Cal to go on NCAA probation when he was head coach there. Maybe he'd still have his 49ers job.
Your head tells you that Dennis Erickson is a big, big winner. His friends say he is as competitive as any man they know. He has had only three losing seasons in 20 years as a head coach. When he was with the Seahawks, Erickson once laid a 38-9 defeat on a 49ers team coached by Mariucci.
Your gut keeps nagging you about all the sleazy stuff that occurred at the University of Miami when Erickson was head coach there, the stuff that ended up landing Miami on probation for three years.
Gee, do these qualify as mixed feelings, or what?
Yes. They definitely do. But here is what you should know: The 49ers muckity-mucks were having these same mixed feelings Saturday morning, when Erickson entered the team's interview process under the media radar. General Manager Terry Donahue and owners' representative John York brought up all of the above baggage. They asked Erickson about the Miami slime, the show-boating Hurricanes players, the DUI conviction in Seattle, and the player in Corvallis, Ore., who four months ago was charged with possession of injectable steroids. Erickson answered all those questions satisfactorily. And he certainly deserves to start with a clean slate here.
But here is my guess: In the end, those baggage questions weren't really that important to most 49ers fans. Mariucci was as good a human being as you'll find in coaching, but it did him no good when his team lost in the playoffs.
No, what matters is winning, winning and winning. As we've seen over the years, fans don't care about the gory details. Jimmy Johnson, whose Miami teams had just as many taunters and excessive celebrators as Erickson's Miami teams, was never afraid to cut corners. Johnson also bailed out on the college kids he recruited shortly after signing day, as Erickson did this week.
Funny, though. No one seemed to mention Johnson's slimy side issues when he was holding the Super Bowl trophy for the Dallas Cowboys. In fact, Johnson was the preferred candidate of some Niners fans for this year's opening. Erickson was probably the closest thing to Johnson out there, so those fans should be happy.
But that wasn't the primary reason Erickson got the 49ers job. He got the job because he could talk football best with Donahue, who put a lot of stock in Erickson's head-coaching stripes. The conventional wisdom was that the 49ers' position would go to one of the two African-American defensive coordinators who interviewed for the position -- Greg Blache of the Bears and Ted Cottrell of the Jets.
But as soon as Erickson sat down with Donahue over the weekend, at an undisclosed location in the Bay Area away from 49ers headquarters, Blache and Cottrell were out of the picture. Erickson, who has known Donahue for a while if not well, was immediately on the same page. Erickson said he was eager and hungry to show he could do much better as a pro coach than he'd done in Seattle.
``I don't think Erickson was No. 1 on Terry's original list,'' said one highly placed voice in the 49ers' front office. ``But you could sense that after Terry talked to him, he was very impressed. Terry has said he's interested in someone coaching `ball.' And Erickson presented himself as the best football coach that was interviewed in the search process.''
After that, Erickson merely had to convince York, whose chief concern was how Erickson would fit into the team's organizational structure about which we've heard so much. Erickson welcomed such concern. During his tenure in Seattle, he became frustrated because the team was in the process of being sold by owner Ken Behring, who was never around and was instead trying to move the franchise to Los Angeles.
``I'd love to have an owner to talk to,'' said Erickson, or words to that effect.
With that, York was on board. Now, what about the team? The 49ers' two most important players are quarterback Jeff Garcia and Terrell Owens. But Owens should love Erickson, because if anything, some of the Oregon State players and Miami players he coached were even more demonstrative than T.O.
And Garcia? He should also be ready to embrace Erickson, who runs a fast-break spread offense that will be modified to fit the West Coast system but basically uses the same philosophy of trying to create mismatches. Erickson's 1997 Seattle team had the NFL's top-rated passing offense and threw for 274.4 yards per game.
The potential downside, it would appear, is on defense. Erickson needs to find an effective coordinator. But if he is as competitive as advertised, he has probably got phone calls out to assistant coaches who may have just as much baggage as he does.
Your head says that we shouldn't care about that, because football is a cruel business where civility and virtuous behavior often take a back seat, and in some ways that makes this an excellent hire.
Your gut says that in those same ways, it might have been too good.

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

By Mark Purdy
Mercury News

Your head tells you that Dennis Erickson came out of nowhere -- defined in this case as Corvallis, Ore. -- to become the 49ers' new head coach.

Your gut tells you that Erickson's hiring was no shock, because he was the sort of person the Niners wanted all along.

Your head nods Tuesday afternoon when someone inside the 49ers' hierarchy confirms what you always believed -- that on the day Steve Mariucci was fired last month, the team's front office was seeking a man with head-coaching experience who knew how to win aggressively and viciously, with no regard for the niceties of his profession or for how those wins were accomplished.

Your gut gives you a slightly queasy feeling about that.

Your head tells you that, if the 49ers were not going to make a huge splash by hiring a big NFL name like Jimmy Johnson, then choosing a man who has won two college national championship and three major bowl games is not the worst idea.

Your gut wonders about the four years Erickson spent in the NFL coaching the Seattle Seahawks, and about the unsightly 31-33 record he compiled there.

Your head tells you that 49ers fans do not need to be on heightened alert, that the franchise will survive, that the 2003 season will be played as scheduled, that we can all go about our normal daily lives with no fear of the Arizona Cardinals.

Your gut wonders if, when all is said and done, Steve Mariucci will still have the last laugh. It will be a bitter wind-chill factor laugh, to be sure, because he is now in Detroit. But it will be a laugh, nonetheless. If only Mariucci had caused Cal to go on NCAA probation when he was head coach there. Maybe he'd still have his 49ers job.

Your head tells you that Dennis Erickson is a big, big winner. His friends say he is as competitive as any man they know. He has had only three losing seasons in 20 years as a head coach. When he was with the Seahawks, Erickson once laid a 38-9 defeat on a 49ers team coached by Mariucci.

Your gut keeps nagging you about all the sleazy stuff that occurred at the University of Miami when Erickson was head coach there, the stuff that ended up landing Miami on probation for three years.

Gee, do these qualify as mixed feelings, or what?

Yes. They definitely do. But here is what you should know: The 49ers muckity-mucks were having these same mixed feelings Saturday morning, when Erickson entered the team's interview process under the media radar. General Manager Terry Donahue and owners' representative John York brought up all of the above baggage. They asked Erickson about the Miami slime, the show-boating Hurricanes players, the DUI conviction in Seattle, and the player in Corvallis, Ore., who four months ago was charged with possession of injectable steroids. Erickson answered all those questions satisfactorily. And he certainly deserves to start with a clean slate here.

But here is my guess: In the end, those baggage questions weren't really that important to most 49ers fans. Mariucci was as good a human being as you'll find in coaching, but it did him no good when his team lost in the playoffs.

No, what matters is winning, winning and winning. As we've seen over the years, fans don't care about the gory details. Jimmy Johnson, whose Miami teams had just as many taunters and excessive celebrators as Erickson's Miami teams, was never afraid to cut corners. Johnson also bailed out on the college kids he recruited shortly after signing day, as Erickson did this week.

Funny, though. No one seemed to mention Johnson's slimy side issues when he was holding the Super Bowl trophy for the Dallas Cowboys. In fact, Johnson was the preferred candidate of some Niners fans for this year's opening. Erickson was probably the closest thing to Johnson out there, so those fans should be happy.

But that wasn't the primary reason Erickson got the 49ers job. He got the job because he could talk football best with Donahue, who put a lot of stock in Erickson's head-coaching stripes. The conventional wisdom was that the 49ers' position would go to one of the two African-American defensive coordinators who interviewed for the position -- Greg Blache of the Bears and Ted Cottrell of the Jets.

But as soon as Erickson sat down with Donahue over the weekend, at an undisclosed location in the Bay Area away from 49ers headquarters, Blache and Cottrell were out of the picture. Erickson, who has known Donahue for a while if not well, was immediately on the same page. Erickson said he was eager and hungry to show he could do much better as a pro coach than he'd done in Seattle.

``I don't think Erickson was No. 1 on Terry's original list,'' said one highly placed voice in the 49ers' front office. ``But you could sense that after Terry talked to him, he was very impressed. Terry has said he's interested in someone coaching `ball.' And Erickson presented himself as the best football coach that was interviewed in the search process.''

After that, Erickson merely had to convince York, whose chief concern was how Erickson would fit into the team's organizational structure about which we've heard so much. Erickson welcomed such concern. During his tenure in Seattle, he became frustrated because the team was in the process of being sold by owner Ken Behring, who was never around and was instead trying to move the franchise to Los Angeles.

``I'd love to have an owner to talk to,'' said Erickson, or words to that effect.

With that, York was on board. Now, what about the team? The 49ers' two most important players are quarterback Jeff Garcia and Terrell Owens. But Owens should love Erickson, because if anything, some of the Oregon State players and Miami players he coached were even more demonstrative than T.O.

And Garcia? He should also be ready to embrace Erickson, who runs a fast-break spread offense that will be modified to fit the West Coast system but basically uses the same philosophy of trying to create mismatches. Erickson's 1997 Seattle team had the NFL's top-rated passing offense and threw for 274.4 yards per game.

The potential downside, it would appear, is on defense. Erickson needs to find an effective coordinator. But if he is as competitive as advertised, he has probably got phone calls out to assistant coaches who may have just as much baggage as he does.

Your head says that we shouldn't care about that, because football is a cruel business where civility and virtuous behavior often take a back seat, and in some ways that makes this an excellent hire.

Your gut says that in those same ways, it might have been too good.

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