Dale Brown: Erhardt had the brightest football coaching mind ever

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It was quite the coaching tandem back in the day at what is now Minot Bishop Ryan High School with Ron Erhardt and Dale Brown. They coached together: Erhardt was the head football coach and Brown his assistant and Brown was head basketball coach and Erhardt was his assistant.

I talked to Dale for a few minutes this morning in the wake of Erhardt’s death Wednesday morning. The two had kept in touch periodically over the years, and Brown was unaware that Erhardt was in poor health in the last few weeks. Brown, of course, went on to a highly-publicized coaching career with LSU.

“The brightest football coach I had ever run into and I couldn’t even name you a close second,” Brown said. “He was so far ahead of everybody. His mind: he just had it.”

Think of those kids who played basketball and football at Ryan for those three years. Their coaches weren’t too shabby.

 

3 thoughts on “Dale Brown: Erhardt had the brightest football coaching mind ever”

  2. RIP to Ron Erhardt. He was a fabulous football coach at EVERY level.
    He brought great credit to Minot Bishop Ryan, NDSU, New England, the Giants,
    the Jets, and the Pittsburgh Steelers and most of all, to his family.
    Thank you Coach for putting North Dakota on the map and giving a positive image of North Dakota to people out East who think all we do here is shovel snow.