FauxMo

October 12th, 2015 at 5:46 PM ^

Pat: "Steve, we are going to put you on a leave of absence."

Sark: "OMG, this is terrible! Really, a leave of absence?"

Pat: "No, just kidding, YOU'RE FIRED!"

Sark: "That was really mean, Pat."

Pat: "I know, sorry."

 

P.S. All joking aside, I really do hope the guy gets help with his addiction. It is a monster, and I know from lots of experience...

Tater

October 12th, 2015 at 5:28 PM ^

I was wondering the same thing as Wolverine1987.  My guess was that if Haden had just fired Sark without the leave, it would have been fine.  But it may present a problem now due to the obvious acknowledgement of a health issue.

My ultimate guess: he gets a nice payout, goes to rehab, rebuilds his rep and eventually gets another D-1 job.

JamieH

October 12th, 2015 at 5:53 PM ^

Sark already showed up at a booster event earlier this year drunk, and supposedly was drunk during the ASU game this year.  I'm pretty sure if you are showing up drunk on the job, especially when your job is coaching kids, you can be fired regardless of why you are drunk. 

ken725

October 12th, 2015 at 5:06 PM ^

Looks like Haden was wrong.

stephenrjking

October 12th, 2015 at 5:31 PM ^

I don't consider Haden to be a problem on the level of Dave Brandon or anything.

But he hired Sark. Even if you give him the benefit of the doubt in the vetting process--that despite all of the information turning up about Sark's drinking in Seattle, he somehow did a thorough vet that did not detect it--the way he has handled this is awful.

Even if he knew nothing of the problem before the drunk speech incident (which, given the new ban on alcohol in the locker room that the incident prompted, is virtually impossible), Sark was publicly put on a short leash after it happened.

Even if all of these best-case defense interpretations of Haden's behavior are true, Sark was pulled out of a huddle because the coaches he spends 50-60 hours per week with (minimum) thought he was drunk. And it was not addressed in any way.

Now, the fact is, Haden knew much more than this best case (for him) scenario. And he did nothing. Haden is not stupid; he has seen what happened at Michigan, and Florida, and Tennessee. He has seen problems at USC before; he knows coaching turnover is terrible for the program. Further, more importantly, he knows that the Sark hire is completely on him.

And he probably knew within months of the hire that it had been a mistake. That Sark's rampant alcoholism was out of control.

But he had committed. He had no choice but to cross his fingers and hope that Sark would somehow make things work. To save the program and save Haden's job.

And instead it's disaster.

Sark's alcoholism is not in any way on the same level of awfulness as the repugnant crimes of Jerry Sandusky. But Pat Haden's enablement is very much the same kind of behavior. He has betrayed his beloved university, the players and the families that entrusted those players to his department, and Steve Sarkisian. He cannot be in that position any longer.

Ty Butterfield

October 12th, 2015 at 4:37 PM ^

Stop trying to make the Pete Carroll coaching tree happen. It is not happening. Sucks for Sark hope he can get his life in order.

Asgardian

October 12th, 2015 at 5:44 PM ^

Kiffin & Sark are offensive guys that worked under Pete, but Pete is a defensive guy by upbringing.

I think you can draw their roots back to Norm Chow (BYU '75-'99, USC OC '01-'04) / LaVell Edwards and the heyday of BYU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm_Chow

This is a different branch of the same tree that developed the "Air Raid" offense, lighting it up in college football today (Baylor, TCU, TTU, WVU, Oklahoma, Cal, WSU, ECU, Bowling Green):

"Note that Mumme, Leach, and company famously made many pilgrimages to BYU during this time, including back when Mumme was still at Copperas Cove as a high school coach. There they studied everything about BYU’s system and essentially stole it verbatim, except they eventually began adding their own wrinkles based on their experiences: they began using more and more shotgun, more spread sets, ceased flipping their formations, and generally tailored the offense to what their players — high school and small college athletes — could do."

- See more at: http://smartfootball.com/offense/the-air-raid-offense-history-evolution…

#themoreyouknow