Comments (0) Best Failure - 2010
ASU Football's Dennis Erickson
What's the point of Dennis Erickson? When he was hired to replace embattled coach Dirk Koetter back in 2007, eyebrows raised. But not nearly enough among alumni hungry for a head coach who could bring Arizona State University the consistent gridiron glory it longed for. As we pointed out in a cover story back then, the veteran coach brought baggage, including a dozen scholarship players getting arrested at the University of Miami, where he'd been coach in the 1990s. Miami's sins became so bad that Sports Illustrated published a feature in '96 with the cover headline "Why the University of Miami Should Drop Football." He was with the NFL Seattle Seahawks by the time the NCAA stripped 34 scholarships from Miami's football program and placed the school on three years' probation, which meant it was banned from bowl-game participation during the period. The thuggery of players while Erickson was at Miami was particularly troubling since dismissed ASU coach Koetter had coddled a thug of his own, Loren Wade, whose erratic behavior escalated until he killed a former player in an argument over a girl in a nightclub parking lot (he's now serving time in Arizona). But none of this mattered to a majority of alums, who only cared about Erickson's two national championships at Miami. Okay, now ratchet forward three years and ask yourself: Was Erickson — after two losing seasons in a row at ASU (the first such sorry succession in six decades at the school) and little hope of posting a winning season this fall — a good hire? Clearly, Athletic Director Lisa Love must be kicking herself over this boneheaded blunder. Hmm, maybe Erickson didn't bring in enough sociopaths this time around.
