Head Coach Ken Eriksen Will Lead USA World Championship Roster
OKLAHOMA CITY (April 9, 2018) – USF head coach
Ken Eriksen will lead the WBSC World Championship roster in 2018, USA Softball, the National Governing Body of Softball in the United States, announced.
Eriksen will lead his team as it competes in tour stops and international competitions. He will be joined by Howard Dobson (Baton Rouge, La./assistant coach at LSU) and Heather Tarr (Redmond, Wash./head coach at Washington). All three return to the WNT program after guiding the U.S. to the Gold at last year's Pan American Championship in the Dominican Republic.
Eriksen has been at the helm of the Women's National team since 2011 and is the first male in the history of the program to represent USA Softball both as a player and a coach. He has been directly involved with USA Softball in a coaching roll since 1997.
After hanging up his cleats as a player, his first Head Coach role came in 1997 when he led the USA Softball Junior Men's National Team at the WBSC Junior Men's World Championship in St. John's, Newfoundland. Five years later, he joined the Women's National Team as an assistant coach in 2002 – the same year the team captured a Gold Medal at the WBSC World Championship.
A highlight of his Team USA coaching resume includes being an assistant coach in the 2003 Pan Am Games which won Gold and going on to coach at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens where the U.S. Olympic Softball Team would put on one of the most dominant performances in Olympic history. Eriksen tacked on another Gold Medal as an assistant coach at the WBSC Championship in Caracas, Venezuela. In 2011, Eriksen took over the Women's National Team Program and ushered in a new era of USA Softball with a roster comprised of international rookies. Eriksen continued the legacy established before him, leading a strong U.S. roster which produced a Gold Medal at the 2011 Pan Am Games in Guadalajara, Mexico.
In his tenure with the Women's National Team Program, Eriksen has amassed two WBSC World Championships Silver Medals before reclaiming the Gold at the 2016 WBSC World Championship in Surrey, B.C., Canada. He also boasts four World Cup of Softball titles and a Silver Medal from the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
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The USF softball program has been one of the most successful on campus, making 12 NCAA tournament appearances, including a trip to the Women's College World Series in 2012.
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