The fundraising people at the University of Idaho say they always dreamed of the time when alumni across the state would someday wake up and tell their spouses, "'Honey, I think we should give some money to U of I today.'"

As if it would ever come.

But it did, on Feb., 8, 2006, the day Dennis Erickson took the head football coaching job at Idaho.

"I got 102 calls on my cellphone that day," said Mahmood Sheikh, a development coordinator for the Vandal Scholarship Fund. "We sold 500 season tickets the first day," said athletic director Rob Spear.

By all estimates, Erickson paid for his $215,000 annual salary that first day and has been paying dividends — at the bank and on the field — ever since.

The Vandals come to Aloha Stadium for Saturday's game with Hawai'i as the surprise first-half team in the Western Athletic Conference. At 4-4, they've already won more games this season than any of the five previous campaigns. Their 3-1 WAC record equals the combined total of conference wins in two years.

Instead of being consigned to already planning its post-season banquet, Idaho is playing the Warriors for second place in the WAC. Something hardly imagined before Erickson, whose first head coaching job was at Idaho (1982-'85), made a surprise return.

"Outside of Vince Lombardi, I don't know if we could have gotten a bigger name," Sheikh said. And, Lombardi wasn't available.

Officials say season ticket sales more than doubled, alumni donations are up 35-40 percent and a new policy had to be put in place to handle student ticket requests. Talented walk-ons — players better than some recruits Idaho had been getting — showed up. All reflecting the hope, for the first time in a long time, surrounding a football program that has experienced six consecutive losing seasons and three coaching changes since 1999.

In Idaho, Erickson is big potatoes. "An aura came with his (Erickson's) name and, all of a sudden, there was hope," said Berto Cerrillo, Idaho student body president.

"Some people were skeptical and said they didn't know how one man could do it. But he's an excellent, experienced coach who knows how to rally the team to play better than they ever hoped to."

Moreover, since the 49ers are paying Erickson a reported $2.5 million through 2007, the Vandals got Erickson cheap. And they didn't have to change their nickname or school colors.

In his climb up the coaching ladder to two national championships with Miami and NFL stints with Seattle and San Francisco, Erickson was never forgotten in Idaho. Adoration remained in a place where Erickson's teams went 32-15, winning a Big Sky Championship and ushering in an era of resurgence in Idaho football.

But few dared to believe he might one day come back. The closest the 58-year old Erickson and his 144-57-1 college coaching resume figured to get to the Moscow campus anytime soon was his retirement home in Coeur d'Alene.

When the 49ers let Erickson go, Spear, on a whim in 2005, said he asked Erickson over dinner if he might consider returning to coaching some day. When Erickson said he was done with the NFL, Spear persisted. Would Erickson consider a non-Bowl Championship Series school? One like Idaho, perhaps? "Sure,'' Spear said he was told.

Still, when Nick Holt was preparing to resign as Idaho's coach in January, Spear said caution told him Erickson had probably just been polite. Common sense told him not to get his hopes too high. "When I called him and reminded him of the conversation we'd had eight months prior, I said, 'well, I think the job is going to open up, coach, what do you think?' "

Spear said, "The exact words out of his mouth were: 'I'll take you to the next level.' "

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.