Saturday night, the Southern California Trojans ended one of the most tumultuous weeks in their storied football history with a 41-31 loss to longtime rival Notre Dame. That dropped USC to 3-3 on the season. However, whether or not the Trojans can right the ship is probably the least of their problems. Six days earlier, second-year coach Steve Sarkisian was fired when it became apparent that he was unable to get a handle on a serious drinking problem. The Los Angeles Times revealed details through a simple public records check that raise serious questions about whether athletic director Pat Haden should have hired him in the first place.
Last Sunday, Haden got word that Sarkisian wasn’t present for the Trojans’ first scheduled practice following a disappointing 17-12 loss to Washington. Sarkisian had presided over a team meeting, but hadn’t stayed for practice. Later that afternoon, Haden announced that he had placed Sarkisian on an indefinite leave of absence. Haden said that based on a phone conversation he’d had with Sarkisian, it was obvious that Sarkisian was “not healthy.” Haden named offensive coordinator Clay Helton as interim head coach until Sarkisian returned.
While Haden didn’t elaborate, a source close to the program told ESPN that Sarkisian’s own assistants told him to go home when he showed up at the meeting drunk. According to a USC player, it wasn’t the first time that Sarkisian, who is going through a bumpy divorce, had been intoxicated at practice. Later that day, Scott Wolf, the USC beat reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News, tweeted that several players smelled alcohol on Sarkisian’s breath when he arrived at Sunday’s meeting.
The next day, Haden fired Sarkisian. Helton will lead the team for the rest of the season. He went into further detail at a press conference the next day, when he said that he’d spent the 24 hours since putting Sarkisian on leave reviewing the situation, and found evidence of behavior that “did not meet USC’s standards.” Haden had tried to call Sarkisian and tell him that he had to leave immediately, but at the time Sarkisian was on the way to an out-of-state rehab facility to get treatment for his drinking problem.
According to ESPN, Haden had put Sarkisian on what amounted to a zero-tolerance policy regarding alcohol use after Sarkisian showed up drunk to a booster event in August. At that meeting, Sarkisian was yanked off the stage when he yelled “F*cking Fight On!” and slurred his words. He later admitted that his behavior was the result of mixing alcohol with medication. According to ESPN, Sarkisian was fired for cause, meaning that USC believes it will not have to honor the remainder of his three-year contract.
Multiple outlets reported that Sarkisian’s assistants believed he may have been drunk during the Trojans’ blowout victory over Arizona State on October 3. Apparently, none of the assistants told Haden about this. Zero tolerance policy or not, being drunk during a game is grounds for being summarily fired at any school that doesn’t have its head up its rear end. However, his apparent intoxication on Sunday would have been grounds for termination under the reported zero-tolerance policy.
Haden has come under fire for not putting Sarkisian on immediate leave after the August incident. But the Los Angeles Times has discovered information that suggests Sarkisian should have never even been considered for the job in the 2013-14 off season. Before coming to USC, Sarkisian had been head coach at Washington from 2009 to 2013. Several people who were close to the Washington program during that time, including several players, told the Times that Sarkisian frequently showed up drunk at practices and meetings, frequently drank in his office, and showed signs of intoxication on team flights. The Times obtained some 800 pages of receipts, expense reports and hotel folios that detailed numerous purchases of alcoholic beverages by Sarkisian and his assistants.
While Haden claimed that no red flags came up when he vetted Sarkisian in 2013, he admitted that he never did a public records search, which is how the Times discovered the heavy bar tabs and expensive alcohol purchases during his tenure in Seattle. Had he done so, he would have found what amounted to an announcement in capital letters that Sarkisian had a drinking problem. Even without that to consider, if an athletic director puts a coach on a zero-tolerance policy for alcohol issues, wouldn’t you think he would have made it his business to know whether that policy was being followed? Apparently Haden didn’t.
If it does turn out that Sarkisian was drunk on the sidelines, his coaching career is likely over. Given the evidence that Haden didn’t do enough to check Sarkisian’s background, it would be a travesty if his career doesn’t end as well.
