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WEEK IN REVIEW
Sunday
Lotto ticket worth $6.5 million sold in Lake St...
Count drags on long after the election's over
Nurse seeks help healing hidden wounds of wars
Saturday


Nearly 30 kids adopted during annual event in S...
Gold Bar couple admit animal cruelty in puppy m...
Arlington area man's arrest in alleged burglar'...
Friday


Victim of alleged burglary now a suspect in kil...
Couple pleads guilty in Gold Bar puppy mill case
Nearly 2,000 turn out for Stevens Pass opening day
Thursday


Safety long a concern for road involved in fata...
State budget's $2 billion hole will require dee...
County considers building for disaster response...
Wednesday


Jury will decide accident or murder in girl's s...
Marysville rejects idea of a much later start f...
Flu’s full force shocks an Edmonds man an...
Tuesday


Year in jail for fired principal who kidnapped ...
State senator's ex-in-law threatened to kill hi...
$2 billion short, state will find tax talk hard...
Monday


Friends mourn 2 killed in Lynnwood crash
'No Child' law sees more students transferring ...
"Nutcracker" is link to family history for 6-ye...
 

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Kevin Brown, Sports Editor
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Published: Friday, August 1, 2008

Coaches followed in their fathers' footsteps

While most of the kids in his neighborhood were watching Howdy Doody or cartoons, 5-year-old Dennis Erickson spent much of his free time sitting in front of a screen that provided a different kind of entertainment.

X's and O's.

As the son of a high school football coach, Erickson was learning the game by osmosis for much of his childhood. Coaching wasn't just in his blood, it was also in his childhood home.

"There's nothing else I wanted to do from as far back as I can remember," said Erickson, whose father, Robert "Pinky" Erickson, coached at Ferndale and Cascade high schools.

"When you're in the locker room as a 5-year-old, watching football film when other kids are watching other stuff on television, you feel like that's what you want to do."

Erickson is one of several sons of local coaches who learned from high-profile fathers.

Mike Price, who went on to play football alongside Erickson at Everett High School before making it as a big-time college football coach, is the son of Everett Junior College football coach Walt Price.

Hall-of-Fame high school football coach Terry Ennis learned from his father, Jim, who coached at Everett High and Everett Junior College.

Local basketball coaching legends like Norm Lowery and Marv Harshman had sons who went into the business, while current Seattle Seahawks assistant Keith Gilbertson Jr. is the son of longtime Snohomish High coach Keith Gilbertson Sr.

It's no coincidence that many of the second-generation coaches have been just as successful as their fathers.

Joe Ennis, whose grandfather (Jim) and father (Terry) are among the greatest coaches this county has ever seen, is not surprised by the number of second-generation coaches.

"You meet kids that are positively affected by your father, and you realize you can make a difference in someone's life," said Joe Ennis, a mortgage broker who got into coaching last fall as the defensive backs coach at Archbishop Murphy High School.

The Herald's countdown of the Top 25 most successful coaches in Snohomish County history already includes a father-son combo: The Gilbertsons came in at Nos. 18 and 20.

"In my case, people thought my dad was a very fine coach," said Gilbertson Jr., who is in his fourth year with the Seahawks after a short stint as head football coach at the University of Washington. "He had the respect of a lot of people in the community and in Snohomish County. At the same time, he was pretty demanding on us as kids. But he was very fair.

"I think Mike Price would say the same thing about his dad, Dennis would say it about his dad, and Terry Ennis would have said the same thing about his dad. That's part of it."

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7. Kwan never golden, but sometimes transcendant
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