Tanner’s Take: USC should feel embarrassed by mishandling of Sarkisian situation

Like any good sports fan, I grew up knowing one of the most important rules of fandom: Revel in your victories, but revel a little more in your rival’s failures.

For Bruin fans, there’s just something gratifying about watching the Trojans – the preseason darlings of the Pac-12 – stumble towards mediocrity while the red-and-gold bandwagon collapses in early October.

And yet, as much as I love the schadenfreude that comes with Los Angeles’ crosstown rivalry, I found myself extremely uncomfortable as I watched the Steve Sarkisian drama unfold in real time on my Twitter feed Sunday afternoon.

The USC football program was collapsing, dragged down at a dizzying speed by its now-former head coach’s all-too-public drinking problem.

Sarkisian’s past struggles with substance abuse are easy fodder for jokes on social media, but the stark reality of the situation isn’t funny whatsoever. Neither is the handling of the whole fiasco by the USC administration.

My discomfort gave way to confusion when USC announced Sarkisian’s termination, just one day after athletic director Pat Haden forced him to take an indefinite leave of absence while voicing his support for the embattled coach.

Firing Sarkisian may end up being the best outcome, but Haden’s handling of the former coach is an absolute embarrassment to the university and everybody involved.

This is the story of a man who was unable to seek help on his own, while the people around him ignored far too many red flags before finally taking action. Sarkisian is certainly responsible for his own mistakes, but the blame does not sit with him alone.

The most public red flag this year came a donor event in late August at which the coach made a drunken appearance and was promptly removed from the stage by Haden. Following the event, Sarkisian said he would get treatment, but the subsequent windfall this week shows that little was actually done.

Alcoholism is a disease, and USC exhibited stunning incompetence in addressing its ailing coach.

As soon as Sarkisian was put on indefinite leave, reports of his past drinking problems at both USC and the University of Washington began popping up. To assume that Haden had no knowledge of these struggles would be naive. And if Haden really didn’t know? That’s a bigger problem in and of itself.

Looking at everything that led up to the past couple days, it is clear that Haden did not handle this well. He should have intervened immediately following the August incident and removed Sarkisian from his day-to-day head coaching duties.

Sunday’s indefinite suspension at least felt like Sarkisian had support from USC, while he began the long road of recovery. The Monday afternoon firing, however, once again threw the whole situation into flux.

Just last week, New York Yankees’ starting pitcher C.C. Sabathia checked himself into alcohol rehab on the eve of the Major League Baseball playoffs. When he approached the Yankees’ manager Joe Girardi and general manager Brian Cashman, Sabathia was encouraged to put his personal health above the team’s upcoming games.

“When someone comes to you with the issue that he came to us with and said that he needs to get help and he needs it immediately, then that’s the only focus,” Cashman said following his pitcher’s decision.

Sarkisian never seemed to be able to confront the disease head-on and explicitly ask for help like Sabathia, but his cries for help were still there.

This is a complex situation, but it is the university that should feel embarrassed, not Sarkisian. He has a real problem, and his employer has failed to help him. I may not like the Trojans, but that doesn’t stop me from supporting their former coach as a person. Sarkisian did not deserve to be left alone, struggling with a crippling mental disease by himself.

USC needs to take immediate action to insure that this type of administrative ignorance and oversight never occurs again. If that means that Haden is following Sarkisian out the door, so be it.