Photos: Courtesy of USF ATHLETICS
verge of becoming the 16th active NCAA Division I softball coach to complete the 1,000-win feat, and just the 25th all-time. To get Eriksen to this point, USF has totaled 16 seasons of more than 40 wins, including six with 50-plus victories and a 60-win campaign in 2004, all while consistently facing the nation’s best of the best. “It goes without saying that the thanks for all of the milestones and accolades goes to the players who believed in our program,” Eriksen says. “We just happened to accumulate a lot of those W’s in a short period of time against a tremendous schedule that we play. I think that’s one of the important parts to remember.” Even a team-first kind of guy can still take pride in some groundbreaking accomplishments as an individual. He probably won’t tell you, but Eriksen is the first person in USF history to participate as a player and serve as an assistant, then as a head coach, in the NCAA tournament. He is also the first Bull to win a conference title as a player (1982) and as a head coach (1997). Since putting on a USF uniform, he’s been a part of 1,437 victories. “It’s really an amazing story,” he says. The book of Eriksen also is filled with several chapters on the world stage. Eriksen started coaching for the USA Softball Women’s National Team in 2002 and won Olympic gold as a Team USA assistant in 2004. By 2011, he took the helm of the USA Softball WNT and was named head coach of the U.S. Olympic Softball Team in May 2019. He gets to chase gold again now that the sport of softball is back in the Olympics for the first time since 2008. Eriksen will head to Tokyo ranking second all-time among USA
Ken Eriksen, USF’s all-time winningest head coach in any sport, will resume his role as leader of the Bulls’ softball program for the 2021 season. Softball WNT head coaches with 59 career wins in major international competitions – Olympic Games, World Championships and Pan American Games. In total, he has been part of 23 gold medal wins as a USA coach. “I think one day when I look back on it, it will be like, ‘Wow, that was pretty cool,’ ” Eriksen says. “But right now, it’s like, ‘OK, what do we do to get ahead of the next team tomorrow? What do we do tomorrow to get ahead of the next team the next day? You’re in such a bubble of continuous ‘try to get better tomorrow type of mentality.’ ” Staying laser-focused is the norm for not only a dedicated coach who has been living the “bat-and-ball” dream for more than five decades but also a dedicated family man who met his wife at USF, where they both graduated from. The key to making it all happen – trusting and empowering staff members, like Eriksen’s mentors once did. “I don’t have to stress out about things not going well at USF. I don’t have to stress out about things not going well with Team USA when I’m not with either one of those teams when I’m away,” he says. “I’m lucky. I’m fortunate to be surrounded by a really, really good group of people.” – TOM ZEBOLD
| USF Athletics
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