Steve Sarkisian’s path to becoming the head football coach for the powerhouse University of Texas Longhorns football program hasn’t always been smooth, but his football acumen continues to lead him onward and upward.
The Longhorns’ convincing dismantling of #3-ranked Alabama in the opening game of their 2023 season has brought national attention to his work at Texas since becoming head coach there in 2021. The team went 5-7 that first year, but improved to 8-4 in 2022.
Sarkisian was born the youngest of seven children on March 8, 1974, and grew up in West Torrance. He played both football and baseball at West High, excelling at both. He graduated in 1992 after earning Daily Breeze all-area second-team honors in football and first-team honors in baseball.
At 6’, 175 lbs., he lacked the size and heft of most top college football players. Sarkisian chose instead to play baseball when he enrolled at USC in the fall. But he felt he didn’t fit in there. He struggled through one semester before transferring to El Camino College near Torrance.
He wanted to play shortstop for the baseball team there, but the school’s longtime football head coach, John Featherstone, had seen Sarkisian play at West, and wanted him to take a shot at quarterbacking ECC’s football team.
Sarkisian finally decided to give it a try, and ended up having two brilliant seasons with the Warriors. He set a national community college record by completing 72.4 percent of his passes during his JC career.
He considered returning to USC after his time at ECC ended in 1994, but then he heard that former Carson high standout and then-current Brigham Young quarterback John Walsh would be leaving BYU the following season. Sarkisian originally became West High’s starter after Walsh left the school as a senior to play for Carson, so he decided to replace Walsh once again at BYU.
During this era under coach LaVell Edwards, BYU had become known as “Quarterback U.” Previous starters at the position there included Gifford Nielsen, Marc Wilson, Jim McMahon, Steve Young, Robbie Bosco, and Heisman Trophy winner Ty Detmer.
Sarkisian fit right in. He had two great years at the school, including leading the Cougars to a 14-1 record and #5 national ranking in 1996, when he passed for 4,027 yards and 33 touchdowns. (Their 14th win came on Jan. 1, 1997 in the Cotton Bowl.) Sarkisian graduated from BYU with a degree in sociology in 1997.
After being passed over in the 1997 NFL draft, Sarkisian continued his pro career by signing on with the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League. He played in the CFL for three seasons, retiring after his third season when the Roughriders went a discouraging 3-15 in 1999.
If you think that pathway sounds tangled, wait until we get to his coaching career, which he began pursuing after retiring from the CFL.
His first move into the coaching ranks was to become quarterback coach back at El Camino in 2000. In 2001, he became an assistant to his former BYU offensive coach Norm Chow at USC, under first-year Trojan coach Pete Carroll.
After serving as USC quarterback coach for the next two years, he joined the Oakland Raiders in the same capacity in 2004. A year later, he was back at USC as quarterback coach, then offensive coordinator for the next three years.
Sarkisian’s first head coaching opportunity seemed inevitable, and it came late in 2008, when he took the head coaching job at the University of Washington. The Huskies had just completed an 0-12 season.
They would finish 5-7 in Sarkisian’s first year. In his five years as head coach, Sarkisian’s Huskies won 34, lost 29, and appeared in four bowl games. After the team’s 8-4 season in 2013, Sarkisian resigned in order to accept an offer to become USC’s new head coach.
It seemed to be the top of the mountain for Sarkisian, who responded by coaching the team to a 9-4 record and a victory over Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl. The Trojans were 3-2 in partway through the 2015 season when it all unraveled for him.
Rumors of alcohol abuse began to surface after a Sept. 26 game with Arizona State, with unidentified sources stating that Sarkisian appeared to be under the influence of alcohol on the sidelines and in the locker room.
But he wasn’t fired until Oct. 12, the day after he appeared to be intoxicated at a Sunday morning special teams meeting. Players and assistants detected alcohol on his breath. Sarkisian sued the school, but lost. He also entered an alcohol treatment program and slowly turned his life around.
He took a year off from football before accepting an assistant coaching job at the University of Alabama, followed by a similar position a year later with the Atlanta Falcons in 2017. He returned to Alabama as offensive coordinator for two years before being hired as head coach of Texas in January 2021.
Previous to his hiring, he underwent open heart surgery for a life-threatening heart valve defect in Alabama in July 2020. Sarkisian has led an eventful life.
Here’s what he told The Audible podcast shortly after being hired at Texas:
“Early in my career, I was the hottest thing cooking, man. I was on the fast track. I think my ego really took over who I was as a person and probably suppressed some better qualities and traits I possessed that got me to that point.
“When you get dealt that humble pie, and you don’t have a job, and you’re wondering, am I ever going to be a head coach again, or what’s my journey going to look like, and how am I going to get back to doing what I love to do? You have to just dig back into what got you there – and that’s just being the best person you can be every day.”
Sources:
Daily Breeze archives.
Los Angeles Times archives.
“Steve Sarkisian,” BYU Football Wiki site.
“Steve Sarkisian’s Road to Texas,” The Audible podcast, Feb. 16, 2021.
Wikipedia.
