Local legend Erickson ‘enjoying life’ as Utes’ RBs coach

Over the many years and the many stops in his long coaching career, one thing has remained unchanged for Dennis Erickson.

Whether in the NFL or at the college level, and whether as a head coach or as an assistant, Erickson has never lost his love for football nor the joy he gets from working with players. It is the reason Erickson, who was once the head coach of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers, and likewise the head coach at college programs like Washington State, Oregon State, Arizona State and Miami, is content — no, thrilled — to be the running backs coach at Utah.

“I’ve never had an ego,” said Erickson, speaking by telephone from Salt Lake City. “All my life, ever since I was raised by my father Pink (who coached years ago at Ferndale, Everett and Cascade high schools), being a coach is all I ever wanted to do. I wanted to be a high school coach like him, and that’s how it started.”

As his career progressed, “we had some success, some fortunate breaks, and I was able to move (up the coaching ladder),” Erickson went on. “But it was never that I wanted to be in the NFL. I just wanted to coach.

“So having the opportunity to be involved (as a Utah assistant) is great. And as I sit here right now, I’m happy with what I’m doing,” said Erickson, who will be in Husky Stadium on Saturday for the Utes’ 4:30 p.m. game against Washington.

The 68-year-old Erickson, who graduated from Everett High School in 1965, is easily old enough to be the grandfather of the players he coaches. But he denies the age gap is an issue, beyond the fact that “I don’t listen to their music like maybe I used to back in the day.”

Otherwise, said Erickson, who is also Utah’s assistant head coach, “they’re still the same. They’re young people that need direction, and if you’re fair with them, if you listen to them and if you talk to them about their problems … you can help shape their lives. And if you can help them, they’re going to listen.”

One player grateful for Erickson’s guidance is running back Devontae Booker, who transferred to Utah from a California community college before last season and was a first-team All-Pac-12 selection in 2014. “He’s helping me out a lot and I just love him for it,” Booker told Salt Lake City’s Deseret News early in the season. “Because when I got up here he’s just been like another father, I guess you could say, for me.”

Erickson has coached in 46 of the last 47 seasons, sitting out only in 2012 following his firing after five years at Arizona State. He has coached 13 different schools or NFL teams in eight different states, and his longest stint was the six seasons he spent at Miami from 1989 to 1994.

“The thing I regret about that is (the impact on) my family. On my kids,” he said. “If I had the chance to do it over again, I probably wouldn’t have moved around like that. … They were all good experiences (living in different places). But if I have a regret, it’s that I moved my family around more than most people.”

The obvious question for Erickson, of course, is how long he wants to continue coaching. And the answer, he said, is unclear.

“I don’t know that I can put a number on it,” he said. “But I’d like to think five or six more years at least. Right now I feel like I can do that. I feel good physically. I probably have more energy than I’ve had in a long time. And I’m not very good at retiring. I was retired for a year (after leaving Arizona State) and you can only hit golf balls out of bounds so many times. … So I’ll take it a year at a time and see what happens.”

Erickson said he would like to be a head coach again, “but they’re not hiring too many 68-year-old head coaches in this business.” Still, the specific job is not all that important, he said. What matters “is that I just want to be involved in football. … It’s still about the thrill on Saturdays, the opportunity to win and lose, and that competitive stuff that we’re all built around in our lives.

“I’m coaching, I’m enjoying life, I’m enjoying being around these people, and to me that’s what it’s all about,” he said. “So I’m going to keep doing it as long as I can and as long as I can contribute wherever I’m at.”