Hatin' Ass LA Times Compiles All The Coach Sark Drinking Stories
LA Times – Steve Sarkisian’s strange behavior in the days surrounding high-pressure, high-profile college football games isn’t unique to his time at USC.
Some regarded the coach’s conduct, specifically the use of alcohol, as an issue during his five seasons leading the University of Washington’s program.
After Sarkisian’s outburst in August at USC’s “Salute to Troy” event where he slurred his words, insulted opponents and added an expletive to the university’s “Fight on!” rallying cry, The Times interviewed more than two dozen people knowledgeable about Sarkisian’s time at Washington, and reviewed hundreds of pages of documents.
What emerged is a portrait of a man who favored Patron Silver tequila or Coors Light and frequented a handful of Seattle-area bars, typically accompanied by staff members, and didn’t hesitate to drink — early — while traveling.
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LA Times…no chill. Seriously the LA Times is like the annoying girlfriend who counts your drinks at every cocktail party or the friend who snaps off every beer can tab to keep track of how many he’s had. We get it guys, Sark’s a drunk, he got caught and his career is virtually over, no need to hash it all out and pile on. I mean look at all this!
-One former Huskies player said he smelled alcohol on Sarkisian at team meetings, an allegation that bears some resemblance to reports by USC players that their coach “didn’t seem right” during a meeting Sunday morning.
-During a stop at a rib joint in Nashville in January 2013, for example, Sarkisian and three assistants ordered four shots of Patron Silver, four shots of an unspecified liquor and five beers. The coach cashed out at 11:53 a.m.
-One ex-player said that in 2009, Sarkisian’s first season with the Huskies, the coach sometimes arrived at morning team meetings “smelling like booze and [with] eyes all red, like he’s been on a bender.”
-Another former player said he smelled alcohol on Sarkisian during team meetings on “one or two” occasions and, other times, noted that the coach’s eyes appeared to be bloodshot and glazed while he seemed unusually confrontational.
-Two other former players said Sarkisian and other coaches regularly consumed alcohol in offices — one said the coach typically kept an 18-pack of Coors Light stashed near his desk — and that he appeared uncharacteristically loud and unsteady on some team flights.
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-At the Duchess Tavern in Seattle, Sarkisian jumped up on the bar, drink in hand, for a speech to dozens of former players at their annual alumni gathering the night before Washington’s spring football game in 2012.
“[He] looked adrenalized, hollering what football coaches do to get their guys going,” said Bill Resler, a longtime university professor who witnessed the event. “You could tell he was in the moment, but he wouldn’t have done that if he wasn’t drinking,” said a former player in attendance.
-In 2011, for example, Sarkisian picked up a bill at Suncadia Resort in Cle Elum, Wash., that included 83 beers and 12 shots of Grey Goose vodka. Twenty Washington coaches and their spouses are listed as attending.
-During a one-night stay at the JW Marriott at L.A. Live in May 2011 for a speaking engagement, Sarkisian’s hotel folio shows room service delivered a $90 bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne and a chocolate amenity, then six beers.
-At the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix for a Pac-12 Conference head coach meetings, Sarkisian ran up $106 in minibar charges in one day in May 2012 and spent more than $1,600 over two days at the Renaissance Indian Wells Resort and Spa’s pool bar in 2013.
-Two receipts from Washington retreats in Indian Wells in 2012 and 2013 showed Sarkisian expensed $1,023 worth of alcohol at a restaurant. That included 91 shots of tequila, much of it Patron Silver. At least 16 people attended one of the gatherings; the attendance for the other wasn’t clear.
-Even some routine trips resulted in steep bar tabs, like a one-night recruiting visit by Sarkisian to Long Beach in 2010 that included $125.01 worth of unspecified beverages in one visit to the lobby bar and $104.01 in beverages at the same establishment a few months later. Another stay, this one at the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel in July 2011, resulted in a one-day beverage tab of $170.47.
-One of the players, who worked as a bartender at another establishment, said they bumped into Sarkisian and a team staffer in the packed bar. The player described the coach as “clearly … wasted.” The other player said Sarkisian hugged him, offered to buy him a drink and was “definitely drunk.”
-The same player said Sarkisian drank “copious amounts of Patron” amounting to “between eight and 10 shots” over several hours during weekly visits to Citrus on Lake Union.
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They went through every single hotel and bar receipt he ever had from every trip he ever made! They tracked down old players, friends and bartenders and asked them how wasted he was at bars that don’t even exist anymore! That’s just cold man. Stone cold. Can a guy rehab in peace without having his JW Marriott bill from freaking ’11 go viral or hear some former walk-on turned bartender tell any reporter with a microphone how he slammed an entire bottle of Patron while funneling 18 Coors Light on a bench by the fire pit at his dumbass bar?