Erickson missing integrity gene
Dennis happens.
I hereby copyright this phrase and transfer ownership to the University of Idaho, which should launch production immediately to emblazon it on bumper stickers, T-shirts, mugs, hats, stadium blankets, key chains, beer snuggies and anything else that can be peddled to the suckers in the seats. I mean, to the masses.
Not just in black and gold, either. There’s a market on any number of campuses.
And with the windfall profits, the Vandals can pay for a new football stadium, a new basketball arena and have enough left over to hire the next guy who’ll treat them like dirt.
Dennis happens.
Sometimes he happens good – two national titles and a couple of programs resurrected. Sometimes he’s utterly devastating – betrayal and probation are the words that come to mind. But Dennis Erickson always happens and he always will – somewhere.
Now that somewhere is Arizona State. But where next?
Will-Coach-for-Ego-Food University?
In any case, that isn’t Idaho’s problem anymore, though Erickson certainly leaves others.
Until Erickson told Idaho athletic director Rob Spear early Saturday evening that he was indeed accepting an offer to become the head football coach at ASU, a handful of Vandals may have held out hope that he’d grow a conscience at the last second and stay. But why? Just by flirting with the Sun Devils, Erickson did more to undo the excitement and goodwill his hiring in Moscow generated 10 months ago – 10 months! – than any foot-dragging the university may be doing on a facilities plan.
Actually, we knew it was a done deal before Spear did. We had a reliable source – Erickson, who told one of our reporters that it wasn’t.
Lucy is never going to yank the football away as Charlie Brown tries to kick it, either.
Now, we’re all grown-ups here, and surely we can comprehend the many rationalizations that will ferry Erickson to Tempe. This is no Chip Hilton tale, but instead the real – OK, surreal – world of college athletics, in which character and decency are punchlines often as not and disingenuousness is something to be cultivated.
Still, this might be a record.
Actually, it is for Erickson. For those of you old enough to reference the Wyoming interlude between his first stay at Idaho and his drive-by at Washington State, that lasted 13 months.
Dennis wasn’t at Idaho long enough this time to get a W-2 stub.
It’s silly to rail about college coaches being soulless mercenaries when such behavior is encouraged and rewarded. It’s instructive that the supposed runner-up in the Sun Devil sweepstakes was none other than Erickson’s old Everett chum Mike Price, who after his Alabama disgrace three years ago couldn’t get hired to cook grits at a Waffle House until UTEP made a leap of faith. Now apparently Price feels he’s paid that debt in full – and to be fair, yes, three seasons is far more reasonable than 304 days. But if Price was truly the ultimate stand-up guy he’s always portrayed as, he’d stand up and tell any suitors, “Thanks, but I have my team.”
But these guys are different. They’re wired for winning, and not just on the scoreboard but at the pay window. Erickson may not need the money – though his 49ers buyout runs out after next year – but he apparently does need the fix. After all, one of the things that makes him attractive – to Idaho and ASU – is the fact that he won those two national titles at Miami.
Did we have any reason to think he didn’t want to win more?
No, Erickson is simply equipped with this odd gene. Unfortunately, he also seems to be missing an integrity gland.
How else could he be entertaining recruits on campus with a straight face Saturday while negotiating his leave-taking? How could he, barely a week ago, blast some of his players for lack of commitment? Good lord, the man told Spear, when the Idaho job was floated to him, “I’ll take you to the next level.”
Well, yeah. If he meant kicking the Vandals from the car to the curb, I guess that is the next level.
Spear said last February he would have been excoriated as the “dumbest A.D. in the country” if he hadn’t hired Erickson, and he’s probably right. Likewise, Vandal supporters had no choice but to get jazzed over what Erickson’s return could mean – even if hope unleashed meant obvious risk. Yes, anybody thinking Erickson would never leave let their naivete get the best of them, but surely they had reason to believe it wouldn’t be in 10 months. Surely he owed Idaho more than that – for giving him his head coaching start in the first place, and taking him back when he was looking at a second year of nobody wanting him.
Surely he wouldn’t hurt Idaho, right?
Well, he has. He has reinforced the toxic cynicism that surrounds Idaho’s athletic struggles. He has given the better recruits the Vandals desperately need a signal that the school cannot hang on to a coach or a vision. He has given donors an excuse to stop caring and keep their checkbooks in their holsters.
And, of course, it’s just not his fault. He’s a victim. If these darned other jobs wouldn’t open up and these A.D.s wouldn’t throw themselves at him, he wouldn’t have to say, “Hello, I must be going” all the time. It’s simply out of his control.
“There are times in life and we all face it,” he said 10 months ago, when asked about Larry Brownish proclivities, “when things just happen.”
Just like Dennis happens.
Once again.