In the middle of February, with baseball gloves not yet fully oiled up, the Olympics ready to launch (or more appropriately sputter), the NBA being, well, the NBA, and hockey about to take its international hiatus, there isn't much to dive into besides a hodge podge of B-level sports news stories. However, some of these stories leave room for a little levity, open themselves up for a little poking. Hell, who am I kidding? They are just asking to be bitch slapped. As time permits throughout the rest of the week and now and again through the blog's tenure, I'll take a shot at some of them under the theme name, The Decleated (the headlines will link to the articles):

Erickson Named Head Football Coach at Idaho

Dennis Erickson started his head football coaching career at the University of Idaho in 1982. We'll refer to them by their nickname -- the Vandals (based, of course, on the rampant graffiti and tee-peeing epidemics enveloping the Moscow, ID area). He toiled his way up the ranks, as any good coach would, and ended up the head coach of the Miami Hurricanes. We'll just call them "The Convicts." At Miami, Erickson took over a powerhouse program and arrested (no pun intended) two national championships during his tenure. He then went on and took an Oregan State program out of utter obscurity and got them in a BCS Bowl, where they promptly spanked Notre Dame, 40-9. We'll just call them "The Beavers," well, because that's their name and there just isn't any better name that I know.

After sufficiently succeeding at the college level, Erickson moved on to coach the Seattle Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers, where over 6 seasons as a pro coach, he never celebrated a winning record and finished at 40-56. Like Steve Spurrier, his offensive ingenuity simply didn't mesh well with the speed of the NFL, but it doesn't mean that he isn't still a great college coach. The Niners promptly kicked him to the curb with 3 years remaining on a five year deal, so Erickson has been golfing since the end of the 2004 season, and will collect $2.5 million a year till his contract runs out.

Is that why he went back to The Vandals and took the head coaching job he had in 1982 yesterday? I understand that Erickson is a Northwest native, but don't people who are forced to start doing anything in Idaho do so with the goal of getting out, and never going back? When Erickson's contract runs out with San Fran, he'll be enjoying a $200K per year salary in potato country (with incentives). So, essentially, with $200K being a pretty nice salary in today's world, he just lost 11.5 jobs equal to the one he took. You can't tell me there weren't better opportunities out there for a guy with this kind of college pedigree.

I guess life takes you on a strange trip, but for Erickson, it's just a little surreal. How many guys do you know start out a mere Vandal but get caught and end up a Convict, then get released and embrace as much Beaver as possible before panning for professinal gold with the 49ers? And after all that escalation to become one of the gems of coaching, after earning himself a reputation, he's regressing back to his Vandalizing days in The Gem State. Sad irony, Dennis. Have fun getting your ass kicked by Boise and Fresno State.