Jon Erickson joined the Vanderbilt staff after being named Director of Women’s Basketball Operations in October of 2013.
A tireless worker, Erickson’s responsibilities include coordinating all areas of the women’s basketball team’s travel, including transportation, lodging, scheduling practice and shootaround times, and making arrangements for team meals.
Prior to arriving at Vanderbilt, Erickson served as the Director of Women’s Basketball Operations and Sports Information Assistant at Yale University, where he was the primary sports information contact for women’s basketball and baseball.
In his three seasons at Yale, Erickson was part of a staff that guided the Bulldogs to their first-ever WNIT appearance in 2011 and to a 16-win season for just the third time in their 40-year history in 2011-12.
Erickson has more than 10 years of experience in the game of women’s basketball, including six years of working alongside the women’s basketball team at the University of Connecticut and 10 seasons of working with the WNBA.
During that time, Erickson has had the honor of working alongside Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame members Teresa Edwards and Geno Auriemma, Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Jennifer Gillom, as well as Olympic gold medalists Seimone Augustus and Diana Taurasi.
Erickson served as a team statistician and game day public relations assistant for the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun. In this role, Erickson served as the team’s primary scorekeeper during all home games while working as a secondary media contact for the Sun’s media relations department.
Prior to his time at Yale, Erickson was the Public Relations Manager for the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx for the 2007 and 2008 seasons under head coach Don Zierden. During his time with the Lynx, Erickson more than doubled the media coverage for the team despite back-to-back losing seasons in a sports landscape in which the team competed with the Minnesota Twins (MLB), Minnesota Vikings (NFL), and University of Minnesota athletics for media coverage. Erickson directed all publicity efforts for the Lynx, traveled with the team to all road games, and managed the team’s website and social media efforts.
Before moving into public relations with the Lynx, Erickson spent 12 years as a sports writer, with the last nine years as a sports staff writer for the Journal Inquirer newspaper, a daily newspaper in the Hartford-metro area. While at the Journal Inquirer, Erickson assisted with the paper’s coverage of the UConn women’s basketball team, which included reporting assignments at the NCAA Women’s Final Four in 2002, 2003, and 2004, which coincided with UConn’s three consecutive national championships.
Erickson first discovered his passion for women’s basketball as a member of the Varsity Pep Band at UConn during the Huskies’ 35-0 season in 1995, which ended with the school’s first-ever NCAA national championship in basketball.
Erickson married his wife Melanie in 2001. They have four children: Taylor, Madison, Cailyn and Andrew.