You’re the CEO of a multi-million dollar company, a brand so strong it towers over those in its industry.
Then one day, while celebrating the beginning of what you hope to be another banner year, your Director of all things multi-million dollar company gets on stage and embarrasses himself, you and your company in front of the very people who pay his salary.
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This is what USC athletic director Pat Haden saw in August — and he chose to keep Steve Sarkisian as head coach, anyway.
You want Sarkisian fired? Haden should be first in that line, bub.
Sending Sarkisian away to Siberia — or, in this case, a forced leave of absence — isn’t going to make everything go away. It only makes what happened in August look even worse.
What Haden did then after Sarkisian’s embarrassing behavior at a booster event was not only blatant disregard for his job and position as caretaker of USC athletics, it was reckless. He allowed a man who clearly has a dependency problem announce that he doesn’t — and say he’ll “stop drinking” — and then resume normal operations as head coach of the behemoth that is USC football.
That’s giving in to the dependency, giving in to Sarkisian, and giving up on USC. Or basically, everything the fine folks at Al-Anon say is the worst thing you can do for someone who is dependent.
Basically, Haden made a bad situation worse by enabling it — and now a team that was full of talent and primed to compete for big things this fall is languishing in more coaching turmoil. It makes you long for the days of Kiffin.
The worst part of all is Haden, a sharp guy and former Rhodes scholar — and an alum who truly loves USC like few could – should have known better. As soon as Sarkisian, in the middle of his press conference to apologize for his behavior at the Salute to Troy booster event, said he didn’t have a drinking problem but that he’s going to quit drinking, Haden should have pulled him off the dais (again) and told Sark it’s over.
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The reality is, Haden was looking at a man who was in the middle of a very public divorce, a depth-of-your-soul pain that isn’t temporary. He then watched that same person implode on stage at a booster event, in front of the school’s heaviest hitters.
What in the world did Haden expect?
Is it really that shocking that Sarkisian showed up at practice Sunday not fit to work? Is it really that shocking that USC is dealing with this again, less than two months after the first incident?
Haden had a chance to end this in August — and more important, truly help Sarkisian deal with his demons -— and chose not to. That’s the real sin in all of this.
Not a coach who refuses to admit he has a problem.