We had two more sports-related cases this week of adults being unable to follow through on their primary responsibility – teaching young people how to live. The first happened at the University of Southern California, where football coach Steve Sarkisian lost his job just a couple of years into it. Why? He allegedly showed up for work intoxicated. Here is a man who is paid millions of dollars a year to run an organization filled with about 100 college kids, roughly half of whom are legally not even allowed to consume alcohol. On the example scale, that would be about a “1” out of 10. Sarkisian clearly has a problem. Remember, right before the season started at a social function attended by the biggest of the big-wig boosters of USC Football, Sarkisian had to be pulled away from the microphone during an alcohol-enhanced, profanity-filled speech that was supposed to fire up the core of Trojan Nation. They were alarmed instead. So after starting the season 3-2 and losing at home to his former team, the Washington Huskies, last weekend, Sarkisian couldn’t help but slip on the banana peel and fall directly on his play book. He missed practice, and when he did show up it was reported that he was not in any condition to coach. And the school put him on a leave of absence Sunday. Well, two days later “Sark” was out of work. Why? Because the stories started to come out that this was not an isolated incident. Former players from Washington started to tweet things like “seems like Sark hasn’t forgotten how to party” and “this is not a surprise to us.” If that is true, and it sure seems like it is, then we know two things: 1) Steve Sarkisian is sick and needs professional help and needs not to be coaching college football; and 2) USC has some explaining to do on how they hired this guy who clearly and openly had a major problem like this. Let’s focus on the second part of that. USC Athletic Director Pat Haden says they were not aware of alcohol-related problems that the former players we mentioned from Sarkisian’s days at Washington. HOW? How could they NOT have seen it? They either didn’t try very hard to do their homework or they DID see some of it and swept it under the rug in hopes it would just go away. Those kinds of things never do. Haden admitted that the coach showed up for work “in an unhealthy state.” Seriously? I always have liked Pat Haden, but he clearly can’t be the AD at USC anymore. He certainly can’t be part of the search for the next coach. Remember, it was Haden who boldly proclaimed that the defiant rule-breaking Pete Carroll era of Trojan football that cost USC a probationary period was over. Looks like the same lack of leadership to me. The other example of adults failing kids comes from the other end of America, where Steve Spurrier announced that he was resigning as football coach at South Carolina Tuesday. They are 2-4, and 0-4 in the SEC. It’s been a hard season, and things have not gone anywhere near to plan in the last two seasons for the Gamecocks. But Spurrier just flipped his famed visor on the microphones at the podium and walked out on his team at the midpoint of their season. If losing moments are learning moments, there was clearly a lot for these young people to learn. And the person charged with teaching them took a tee time instead. That’s bad enough, but then yesterday he started his press conference by making sure we all understood that he was “resigning, not retiring.” He what? OK, so he hadn’t decided that he was tired and not up to coaching anymore … he just didn’t want to coach THERE anymore. Stunning. Spurrier went on to say he didn’t know where he might coach again, suggesting that having more fun would be a big part of what that next job would entail. Wow. So “the ole Ball Coach” got tired of losing, and quit. Someone will hire him, but can you imagine that conversation between him and the parents of a top-level recruit? Is Spurrier going to really tell those people he expects a commitment to the school when he couldn’t keep his own promise to South Carolina? I wouldn’t, and I am betting you wouldn’t either. And we wonder why kids quit on stuff.
