October 12th, 2015 at 4:35 PM ^
Wow... That was a short leave
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...
October 12th, 2015 at 5:52 PM ^
I got this both right and wrong.
Right: that he'd never coach there again.
Wrong: that it would take an additional incident before he was actually fired.
October 12th, 2015 at 4:35 PM ^
Pat Haden needs to go next.
October 12th, 2015 at 4:45 PM ^
Pat Haden is a former USC player with no prior experience as AD, who loves to fire people suddenly. What can possibly go wrong?
October 12th, 2015 at 4:49 PM ^
I used my first ever upvote thingy on you.
October 12th, 2015 at 4:55 PM ^
You lost your UpVote Virginity Today. Welcome to the Club.
October 12th, 2015 at 9:27 PM ^
the best
October 12th, 2015 at 4:49 PM ^
Are you seriously saying bothe Kiffen and Sark did not need to be fired?
October 12th, 2015 at 5:00 PM ^
But you don't give a dude a leave of absence to work on his problem and then fire him the next day. The AD should have fired him yesterday. Seems bizarre.
October 12th, 2015 at 5:02 PM ^
Perhaps Sark went on a bender last night and drunk texted Haden?
October 12th, 2015 at 5:06 PM ^
You up?
October 12th, 2015 at 6:34 PM ^
in the face of evidence of his problem, fired him today when it became clear that the recent behavior amounted to a fireable offense--e.g. they learned something more he'd done or got a clear read from their lawyers that they had good grounds.
October 12th, 2015 at 5:11 PM ^
Don't mistake me, i would have. But isn't there some law or something about not doing that for someone that has what many people see as a disease?
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.
October 12th, 2015 at 5:28 PM ^
in his case during games or press conferences, my guess will be yes, and this probably will also save USC a lot of money (breach of contract), but what do I know?
October 12th, 2015 at 5:39 PM ^
But it also says that if you can't acomplish your job, they can fire you. If you have a problem, say you get drunk at a booster event, the boss calls you in and takes steps to help you, you don't comply and continue to show up at work drunk, unable to do your job they can let you go.
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.
October 12th, 2015 at 7:18 PM ^
spot on
October 12th, 2015 at 9:12 PM ^
Breach of Contract, number one ...
Private University, number two ...
Let Sark try to sue ...
I think everyone knew "leave af absence" was euphemism for "He Gone"
October 12th, 2015 at 5:04 PM ^
He must have been channeling his inner David Brandon....
October 12th, 2015 at 5:55 PM ^
Sark needed a Brandon to tell him what to do
October 12th, 2015 at 6:52 PM ^
and it never gets any less creepy.
October 12th, 2015 at 7:01 PM ^
I'd like to smack the crap out of him for just looking like that
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October 12th, 2015 at 8:04 PM ^
What's wrong with his mouth?
October 13th, 2015 at 9:29 AM ^
It's full of lies.
October 12th, 2015 at 5:44 PM ^
Former athletes as ADs have worked so well in the past for USC.
October 12th, 2015 at 5:48 PM ^
"No former USC player ever made a terrible decision." O.J. Simpson
October 12th, 2015 at 7:15 PM ^
to be fair...I don't think Sarkisian's alcoholism was known when he was hired...the move was widely celebrated. Seems unfortunate, but unless this was known around UW, then I don't know how you blame Haden for this
October 12th, 2015 at 7:48 PM ^
A lot of breaking of things that ain't broke.
October 12th, 2015 at 4:48 PM ^
my sentiments.
October 12th, 2015 at 5:06 PM ^
Looks like Haden was wrong.
Here's what Pat Haden said to me the day he hired Steve Sarkisian: "I might be wrong. We'll see.'' #USC
— InsideUSC (@InsideUSC) October 12, 2015
If you are keeping score, this is third major sport coach Pat Haden fired in midseason (Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian, Kevin O'Neill) #USC
— InsideUSC (@InsideUSC) October 12, 2015
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.
October 12th, 2015 at 4:36 PM ^
Chop-chop!
October 12th, 2015 at 6:02 PM ^
Did anyone else catch Matt Millen's Flintstones reference?
A Judo. A chop-chop-chop.
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.
October 12th, 2015 at 4:50 PM ^
Dan Quinn is looking pretty good so far.
October 12th, 2015 at 5:07 PM ^
Quinn is part of his Seattle coaching tree. His SC coaching tree is not really a thing.
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
October 12th, 2015 at 10:14 PM ^
Seriously. People forget how innovative BYU was offensively, back in the day.
October 12th, 2015 at 4:37 PM ^
That's really unexpected
October 12th, 2015 at 4:37 PM ^
Might be Jeff Fiisher time.
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October 12th, 2015 at 4:39 PM ^
No successful NFL coach ever goes back to coach college, don't you know that?
October 12th, 2015 at 5:18 PM ^
And if they did go back to college, they would hate recruiting!
October 12th, 2015 at 6:47 PM ^
Their wives will never let them move. They love it where they are.
October 12th, 2015 at 4:37 PM ^
Dantonio?
October 12th, 2015 at 4:44 PM ^
Urban Meyer?
October 12th, 2015 at 4:57 PM ^
Stranger things have happened. He's behind Saban and Harbaugh on the highest paid ranking. Pretty sure USC could load up a truck for him.