Tuesday, December 21
Erickson, Jones believed in their teams
HONOLULU -- It was a matter of faith for June Jones and
Dennis Erickson.
Jones left the San Diego Chargers, taking a steep pay cut to
come to Hawaii and help resurrect a dormant football program that
hit rock bottom in 1998 when it went 0-12.
Erickson was fired by the Seattle Seahawks and went to Oregon
State, where he had to bury a long history of losing -- the school
hadn't had a winning season since going 6-5 in 1970 and hadn't been
to a bowl since losing to Michigan in the 1965 Rose Bowl.
Their players believed, winning followed and the two most
surprising teams of the 1999 college football season will play
Christmas Day in the Oahu Bowl.
"Everybody is just ecstatic over what's happened," Beavers
defensive tackle Aaron Wells said. "Thirty-five years is a long
time to go without any kind of bowl appearance and 30 years without
any kind of winning season. Everybody wants us to win and get the
program back on its feet."
For Erickson, the first task was to end the culture of losing at
Corvallis.
"When you lose for 30 years like we have it's pretty much
imbedded in a lot of areas," Erickson said. "When you've been
losing for a lot of years it's just there and you've got to break
it. We were able to do that."
The coach changed the losing attitude the first day with his
players.
"He just brought intensity. He came in and the first thing he
told us in the first meeting was that we were going to go to a bowl
game," Wells said. "Since he said that at the beginning, it set
in on all of us...and everybody kind of realized that we are here
to win."
Restoring faith was also the first task for Jones.
"Coach Jones told us last spring that we had to unite as a
team," quarterback Dan Robinson said. "There was a lot of
dissension on this team, but he brought us together and got us to
start believing in ourselves."
For Hawaii, the game also is a chance to earn some national
respect. While the team's turnaround has garnered some national
attention, doubters point to the Western Athletic Conference team's
schedule and the fact it lost to USC and Washington State, the only
two Pac-10 teams on its schedule, both of which finished behind
Oregon State.
"We look at this as a great opportunity to get some national
respect," Rainbow Warrior linebacker Jeff Ulbrich said. "The WAC
doesn't get too much respect nationally.
"The Pac-10 has gotten a little more respect than us. I think
there's some rivalry, but I think it's more on our part than on
their part."
