Coug Track
& Field
Teigen,
Kaili Keefe qualify for NCAA Championships
UPDATED:
Sat., May 26, 2018, 11:06 p.m. Spokane S-R
Washington
State 1,500-meter runners Chandler Teigen and Kaili Keefe qualified for the
NCAA Championships Saturday during the third and final day of the NCAA West
Regional track and field meet in Sacramento, California.
Teigen, a
junior, finished the men’s race in 3 minutes, 43.41 seconds, just off his best
time of 3:43.13, set at the Stanford Invitational this spring.
Keefe, a
sophomore, ran 4:16.57 in the women’s event. Her time was 4 seconds faster than
her previous best and ranks second in program history.
The NCAA
Championships begin June 6 in Eugene.
::::::::::::::::
Brad Rock: Dennis Erickson hopes to make history in new
league, not teach it
By Brad
Rock, Deseret News, Salt Lake City
SALT LAKE
CITY — The farther Dennis Erickson went as a coach, the farther he got from
what he really wanted: actual coaching. Now he says he’s found something closer
to his beginnings.
Plus
there’s a bonus.
“I don’t
have to teach history,” he said.
The man
who won two collegiate national championships, and was head coach at four power
conference schools and two NFL teams, says his new job resembles the one he
took at the Montana high school where his career began.
No side
teaching required.
“I coach
to coach,” he said.
Don’t
flinch, but yet another pro football league is on the way. The Alliance of
American Football begins in 2019, with teams in eight cities. Erickson will
direct Alliance Salt Lake. Set to run February through April, the AAF will be
comprised of borderline NFL players and former collegians.
Some will
be there so they can keep playing — this time for pay. Others will be good
enough to play in the NFL, but just need work on the pro game’s nuances. For
instance, read-option quarterbacks will get the chance to run a pro offense.
Erickson
says the AAF isn’t like other ill-fated leagues such as the XFL and Indoor
Football League. This one will involve only moderate rule changes. Among them
are the elimination of kickoffs and PATs, no TV timeouts and an option to call
an “onside kick,” whereby a team takes the ball on its own 35 in a
fourth-and-10 scenario.
Most
intriguing about the new league, though, are the names: Rick Neuheisel, Mike
Singletary, Steve Spurrier and Brad Childress. Childress and Singletary are
former NFL head coaches, while Neuheisel and Spurrier are legendary college
figures.
It’s safe
to assume they’re all joining the startup league for the same reason as
Erickson, namely job satisfaction.
“I know
Steve (Spurrier) is,” Erickson said. “ He’s a good personal friend of mine. I
know what he’s doing it for.”
Erickson
says the mistake leagues such as the long-ago USFL make is trying to compete
head-to-head with the NFL. The AAF will work with the NFL to place talent that
has been overlooked or undervalued. That too is a refrain that often has been
echoed. But the perpetually struggling Arena Football League is an amped-up
game with little to no rushing. The Indoor Football League had fans call plays
via their cell phones. The XFL was a TV trash sport.
“Oh, no,
no, no, no, no — it’s not going to be a gimmick deal,” Erickson said.
Although
coaching in a startup league might seem beneath a coach who won two national
titles at Miami, and coached at Arizona State, Washington State and Oregon
State, as well as the Seahawks and 49ers, Erickson doesn’t get uppity. He
gladly joined Kyle Whittingham’s staff at Utah as an offensive coordinator in
2013, saying at the time, “It’s a load off me. I was a head coach for however
many years (29), and there are so many other things you have to deal with; now
it’s just back to coaching.”
This time
it’s more of the same, except as a head coach.
Erickson
speaks fondly of his simple days as a young coach. Before landing his first
head coaching job — at Idaho and later Wyoming — he was an assistant at Montana
State, Idaho, Fresno State “and on and on until it sounds and looks like an
obituary.”
At San
Jose State, under the legendary Jack Elway, he even moonlighted as a bowling
teacher, because assistant coaches were required to instruct classes.
“Glad they
didn’t have any video,” Erickson said. “I was a terrible bowler.”
In his new
job, he won’t have to do booster club sessions or a ton of TV appearances. The
new league is “a six- seven-month” commitment, with a simple overall plan. But
the best part of all is that he’ll never have to master the 7-10 split.
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