I’m no fan of Junior, but even I thought this was a little cold at the time:
Haden fired Kiffin hours after the game, when the team arrived back in Los Angeles at 3 a.m. Kiffin was called off the team bus that was preparing to head to campus from Los Angeles International Airport and taken to a small room inside the terminal where Haden told Kiffin he was being dismissed.
Yeah, that’ll humble a guy.
But Haden managed to top that with his abrupt firing of Steve Sarkisian.
Yecch.
The amazing thing is that Pat Haden, who hired Sarkisian who hired and fired both of them, not only still has a job, but the confidence of his boss.
That should come as a real comfort to the next guy Haden hires.
Get The Picture 
I thought Mike Garrett was the AD who hired Kiffin at USC and Haden fired him.
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Shit, I think you’re right.
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Otherwise, you’re absolutely right about his handling of both matters being some really cold shit. Anyone who has been in management and had to terminate an employee will tell you he handled it about as poorly as anyone could’ve done it. Try to show a little class/decency USC and Haden.
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See below…conveniently pathetic reporting by Schad, a guy I’m surprised anyone here would give an ounce of credibility to.
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Now wait, now…I read that Haden tried to contact Sarkisian but that Sarkisian did not respond. Maybe that doesn’t excuse firing him so quickly, but he apparently did try to do it in a more civil way. http://espn.go.com/losangeles/college-football/story/_/id/13880068/usc-athletic-director-pat-haden-says-decision-fire-steve-sarkisian-was-very-difficult
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What exactly was Haden’s rush to can the man? Sark had already been suspended, so the team had a temporary head coach already in place.
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Sark was already on thin ice with Haden, who placed him on a zero-tolerance policy relating to alcohol after the embarrassing Salute to Troy event. Sark showed up drunk Sunday morning for practice, but Haden was at a basketball event elsewhere. Haden then had a conversation with Sark on the phone, and told him he was placing him on leave.
It would have been insanely stupid to fire him without doing at least a little due diligence, hence he took the 1-2 days to do all the fact finding, including finding out from USC coaches that Sark seemed inebriated at the ASU game, from which he could proceed with firing. Yes, he was suspended, but again that was only done so that Haden could investigate, meet with USC lawyers, etc. before proceeding. Remember, all of this went down early Sunday morning and not exactly during normal business hours.
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Sark wasn’t coaching another game for USC (IMO).
I’m guessing he was fired for cause and they struck while the iron was hot.
Don’t you think this one will be played out via the court system?
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Yes, I agree.
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(–in response to the Senator’s question about Haden’s rush…Yes, I agree, it appears he could have waited as long as necessary to get in touch with Sarkisian.)
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Correct. If you think Haden is bad (he’s not, but did make a huge blunder in hiring Sark), you should have seen Garrett. That guy was the sole reason why USC got hammered as much as they did by the NCAA a few years back.
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Sounds to me like the only thing worse than hiring coaches from the Pete Carroll coaching tree is hiring ADs from the former USC football player tree.
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Well, to be fair to Haden, Sark was probably black-out drunk during his meeting with the AD so no wonder he didn’t remember it.
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LMAO!
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AY OH!!!!
Cue the drum symbols!
LMAO!!!!
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What typically horrible reporting from Schad; just patheitic. I’ll defend Haden here (though imo he probably should step down as AD), as he made over a dozen phone calls to both Sarkisian and Sarkisian’s agent, with none of them being returned. As was speculated in the LA Times and such, their (Sarkisian/agent) strategy appeared to be to starve off a firing as long as possible until Sark started/completed treatment, which would then apparently give them better footing for the inevitable legal action that is to come.
Thus, their shenanigans left Haden no choice in the matter, which ironically enough actually helped to booster Haden’s very fragile standing among the USC elite just a bit.as for Lane’s firing, yea, that was cold….but this is the Laner we’re talking about here, so Haden gets a doff of the cap from me for that.
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I think Haden was right to fire Sark, perhaps should have done it Sunday. No one can blame him for firing Junior but it is questionable about firing him in the middle of the season. Neither of those actions should be questioned, the huge black mark on him is hiring Sark. Haden is a USC guy, and a pretty good guy (friend of a friend), but not sure why he should be considered on the chopping block for basically one really bad hire, which he has now corrected.
USC is so insulated against major fall offs, they may have a temporary dip but they will remain near the top out West despite this cluster.
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I am guessing his Rhodes Scholarship never covered a course in personnel management, and a career in private equity probably doesn’t delve deeply into those issues, either. They dropped $1 mill on a search firm to come up with Sark. Let’s face it, when someone like Haden looks like an idiot trying to run an athletic department, maybe there’s a larger problem in play.
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Right. It’s an insular, country club atmosphere over there. Haden took a huge paycut to take that job because of his love for all things USC.
As mentioned, the search firm should be held accountable as well, as that 1 mil somehow didn’t provide enough resources to file a FOIR with Udub, as the LA Times did I getting all those restaurant/bar tabs within a matter of a few days.
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Sark has been in and around USC for most of his adult life. USC had to of known that he had a drinking problem.
They thought that they could either cover it up, control it, or he would win enough so it didnt matter.
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From one who sadly has had experience with alcoholics, I can affirm that that they certainly can hide their addiction quite well without anyone knowing it. Often times for years.
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I agree. Most addicts are decent at hiding it. But seems like he wasnt one of them based on the stories coming out. And if you spent $1million to figure out if you should give someone a multimillion dollar job and you couldnt find out that he was drinking too much, you didnt do your due diligence.
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I concur. I worked next to a functioning alcoholic for awhile who hid it expertly until the day the wheels fell off.
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I worked with a guy who seemingly hardly drank, would only have 1-2 drinks when going out to eat, etc. Then one day we were exhibiting at a conference together and both drinking diet cokes (can). I mistakenly picked his up, took a sip, and it was straight vodka. And this was during the morning hours on a weekday while working. Around the same time he started slipping up with others too, and shortly after his life seemingly collapsed all at once.
I consider myself a very perceptive guy, but he totally fooled me for several years until the coke can incident.
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Well, apparently his drinking really increased when he went to Udub. It was those years that we went off the rails, which led to his inevitable divorce, etc. His pre-Udub days are seen as him being more of a casual drinker no public drunken episodes.
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Two words for you: Dana Holgorsen
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“It’s an insular, country club atmosphere over there.” I thought this thread was about Southern Cal….oh…wait. 🙂
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My take:
Sunday news caught USC by surprise, so all the sock puppet AD had power to do was suspend Sark.
Real decision-makers get in the loop and AD gets permission to fire him.
AD really doesn’t care about how it’s done, he just wants the embarrassing fool gone.
Sark’s people probably didn’t get back to USC because they were circling their wagons and figuring our strategy and/or sobering up their client.
I feel really bad for Sark. I never like to see folks stumble. However, this whole episode is a great example that not all sporting sycophants live in Alabama.
Have a good one,
BD
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When Hayden said he had health issues I felt they were locked out of firing him, most big companies are until the rehab is given a chance. Obviously the USC attorneys felt they had a case for termination with cause despite the health issues. It will get negotiated out. USC needs to clean this up as they approach recruiting deadline so this is worth moving Sark out and paying the price, imo.
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Not to engender any more sympathy for Lance Kiffin, but I’m friends with folks in So Cal that are friends with Layla and according to her, a tow truck was at Casa Kiffin 7am the morning after he got fired to collect one of the vehicles that was included with his compensation. Meaning Layla had to drag out the car seats, boogie wipes and all the other accoutrements of parenthood with a tow truck in the driveway like she’s some dead beat.
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They landed on their feet.
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Sark was on a plane on the way to rehab apparently. That’s why Haden couldn’t get in touch with him. Still no excuse for Haden. One would think he would know what his coach is up to.
Its a sad story handled poorly.
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In deference to the title of the topic, and not necessarily the content, I support 100% the resignation of Spurrier. Sorry, I just cannot control my fingers.
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