The USC Trojans have fired Steve Sarkisian one day after he showed up to practice intoxicated and forced to take a leave of absence.
One day after USC athletic director Pat Haden made head coach Steve Sarkisian take a leave of absence to seek treatment, Haden fired Sarkisian midway through his second year with the Trojans.
"“After careful consideration of what is in the best interest of the university and our student-athletes, I have made the decision to terminate Steve Sarkisian, effective immediately, Haden said in a statement via the school’s website.“I want to thank Clay Helton for stepping into the interim head coach role, and I want to add how proud I am of our coaching staff and players and the way they are responding to this difficult situation.“Through all of this we remain concerned for Steve and hope that it will give him the opportunity to focus on his personal well being.”"
Sarkisian has had a very public battle with alcohol in the past, including his slurring of words and swearing at the Salute to Troy event in August and reportedly drinking so much he’d pass out on team flights. The last straw for USC happened Sunday when Sarkisian showed up to a special teams meeting appearing to be intoxicated, this coming after assistant coaches believed he was drunk during the win against Arizona State earlier this year.
Source on why #USC & Pat Haden made the move now to fire Sarkisian & was told they'd learned that more bad behavior had occurred/may surface
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) October 12, 2015
He may have been fired regardless of his off-field behavior as USC continued to underachieve this year with two losses, including the stunning loss to the Washington Huskies on Thursday night. The Huskies, coached by Chris Petersen, who was turned down for the USC job that went to Sarkisian, were a 17.5-point underdog but dominated the Trojans.
USC had no choice but to fire Sarkisian today and he left them no choice based on his behavior off the field because he couldn’t be trusted.
Sarkisian is 12-6 with a 7-5 record in Pac-12 play in one-plus seasons at USC and has a career record of 46-35 after coaching at Washington for five seasons.
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