The News Tribune, WA
Aug 9 2009

Sarkisian giving Husky fans a reason to believe

UW FOOTBALL: California kid Steve Sarkisian has great expectations

LUI KIT WONG / The News Tribune

In Seattle, there was the free-falling University of Washington
football team.

The once-proud Huskies are almost two decades removed from sharing a
national championship. They haven’t been to a Rose Bowl
since 2001 and haven’t had a winning season in seven years.

Last year, the Huskies bottomed out at 0-12.

In Los Angeles, there was Steve Sarkisian, a former standout
quarterback at Brigham Young who was rising quickly as a coach. He
coached in junior college, in the NFL, and for the mighty Southern
California Trojans.

In December, the two became one.

After Washington ended the Tyrone Willingham era by parting company
with its beleaguered head coach, it hired the 35-year-old Sarkisian to
revive the Huskies’ fortunes.

Nothing Sarkisian has faced so far in football is quite like his first
head coaching job. At the Huskies’ media day on Friday, Sarkisian
reiterated a statement he made the day he was hired: It won’t take
long for UW to be a great football team again.

`Ultimately who we are as a football program, from coaching
staff … to football team, when we sit on common ground in the major
areas and believe the same things, then we’re going to be a
very powerful force moving in one direction,’ Sarkisian
said.

`EVERYBODY’S LITTLE BROTHER’

Along California’s southern coastline, just a few miles
down Highway 1 from Los Angeles, sits Torrance, the city where
Sarkisian grew up.

The youngest of Seb and Sally Sarkisian’s seven children,
Steve was the only one born in California.

The family moved west from Boston, settling in a storybook community
where the dads went to work and the moms, for the most part, stayed
home and took care of the kids. Sarkisian’s father is an
aerospace engineer, and his mother worked as a teacher’s
aide while the kids were in school.

`A great neighborhood. I knew everybody, from Little League baseball
to high school,’ he continued. `And I was everybody’s little brother.’

As a youth, Sarkisian, whose heritage is Armenian-Irish, had the
freedom to roam where he chose. He could have his favorite `John Wayne
Special’ breakfast a mile away at Joe’s Diner, or he could drop into a
friend’s house and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.

`He was nothing out of the ordinary except when he played sports,’
said Josh Bendik, one of Sarkisian’s best friends. `He was pretty good
at all of them.’

First, it was soccer.

Sarkisian’s older brothers, David and Andrew, were standout
players. He followed suit, eventually joining a U-14 squad from the
Torrance United Soccer Club that toured Europe. On that team,
Sarkisian was a center halfback.

He also excelled at baseball. His pitching performances were
legendary.

By the time Sarkisian entered the ninth grade at West (Torrance) High
School, a coach recommended he try out for football ` his older
brothers were prohibited from playing football by their worried
mother.

This time, after prodding by friends and family, Sally Sarkisian
relented.

`One of the benefits of being the seventh child,’ Steve Sarkisian
said, `is all of the stringent rules were out of the way.’

For three seasons, Sarkisian quarterbacked West’s conservative
two-back, I-formation offense. In 1991, Kerry Crabb was hired as the
school’s new coach, and he implemented a more quarterback-friendly
system ` a single-back spread offense.

As a senior, the 6-foot-1, 195-pound Sarkisian set nine school passing
records in leading West to the Pioneer League championship.

`As well as he did as a senior, if he’d been a junior in my system, he
would have lit that South Bay (league) to a level they wouldn’t have
seen,’ said Crabb, now an assistant at Saddleback College. `It was
unique what he could do.’

NCAA recruiters questioned Sarkisian’s arm strength and bypassed him
in favor of bigger, stronger prospects. Figuring his football-playing
days were done, he decided to walk on with the USC baseball team.

CHANGING SPORTS

His Trojans baseball career was brief. In just a few weeks, Sarkisian
was cut.

After a dismal trial at El Camino Junior College ` Sarkisian struggled
with hitting ` he was out of baseball, too.

`It was unfortunate. I really felt I could play the sport. One of my
friends and rivals growing up was Jason Kendall (now a catcher for the
Milwaukee Brewers), and I thought I could play at his level,’
Sarkisian said.

`When I made the decision that baseball was over … it was hard. I
believed in myself.’

By the spring of 1993, Sarkisian was one year removed from high school
and attending classes at El Camino JC. His fortunes shifted in, of all
places, health class.

Football coach John Featherstone was his teacher, and he persuaded
Sarkisian to give football a shot. Another key factor was the presence
of Fred Peterson, El Camino’s offensive coordinator, who had been
Sarkisian’s athletic director in high school.

Sarkisian began spring ball as the No. 3 quarterback on the depth
chart behind Mike Reddington and Chris Keldorf, who ended up going to
North Carolina.

Tragically, Reddington was shot to death on a street corner in
Torrance.

A week into camp, Peterson held a private meeting with Featherstone,
declaring Sarkisian the best passer on the team.

`So we then took all the receivers into the office and said, `Boys,
how would you feel about Sark being the starting quarterback?”
Peterson said. `And they said, `We’d love it. He throws to
everybody.”

Plenty of passes went around in Sarkisian’s two seasons. He set the
single-game (645 yards), single-season (4,232) and career (7,274)
passing marks, and he set a national junior-college record for pass
efficiency rating (203.8) in his final season.

With no reservations, Peterson called Sarkisian the best quarterback
he’d ever coached.

`I had six (JC) All-Americans who were robots and did everything I
said,’ Peterson said. `But Sark had ingenuity.’

Sarkisian kept filling the air with passes in two years at BYU. He
threw for 7,464 yards and 53 touchdowns, capturing the Sammy Baugh
Trophy in 1996 as the nation’s top passer and leading the Cougars to a
1997 Cotton Bowl triumph over Kansas State.

The NFL wasn’t interested in him, but the Canadian Football League
was. He signed with the Saskatchewan Roughriders shortly after leaving
BYU.

It was an up-and-down time. Sarkisian was married to Stephanie
Yamamoto, whom he had dated since high school when she attended
Torrance High. He had to seriously think about supporting a family.

`I told my wife, in three years, if I’m not in the NFL, I’m done,’
Sarkisian said. `I firmly believe in this world there are great things
in store for us.’

Coming off a 3-15 season as the starter with Saskatchewan in 1999,
Sarkisian knew he had reached the end. He said he `didn’t want to keep
chasing the dream,’ so he left pro football for good.

He moved back to Torrance and bought a house. He and his wife took
sales positions at Keyco.com, a startup software company.

`I just always felt like the time going through BYU and Canada, I
wasn’t the most physically gifted guy,’ Sarkisian said. `But I
positioned myself to be successful. The best way I approached the game
was through a cerebral approach, being the fastest and strongest
mental player … and I’ve taken the same approach in coaching.’

COACH-IN-THE-MAKING

While playing in the CFL, Sarkisian said he looked into
graduate-assistant coaching opportunities in college, but never became
a serious candidate.

So he kept playing.

When he returned home, Peterson suggested he coach quarterbacks at El
Camino JC while keeping his sales job.

`I’ve always tried to pride myself into making calculated decisions
that might not be the most popular ones,’ Sarkisian said. `I wanted to
be around sports … and to (go to El Camino), I had to take a pay
cut, with a child on the way and a mortgage payment to make. It took
time.’

One year later, Sarkisian’s coaching career got another boost. Pete
Carroll hired North Carolina State assistant Norm Chow to be USC’s
offensive coordinator in 2001. Chow, who had called the offensive
plays at BYU when Sarkisian was there, convinced Carroll to hire the
young coach as an offensive assistant.

Sarkisian proved to be a quick study, eventually moving to
quarterbacks coach to mentor Carson Palmer. His reputation was
building, and in 2004, the NFL came calling.

Oakland Raiders coach Norv Turner hired him to coach
quarterbacks. Raiders QBs included Kerry Collins, who is 15 months
older than Sarkisian and who passed for more than 4,000 yards that
season.

Even though Sarkisian was the youngest assistant on Oakland’s staff,
one day Turner recommended all of his coaches sit in and observe one
of Sarkisian’s planning meetings with the quarterbacks.

`They said they wanted to absorb what Steve did, because he was so
detail-oriented,’ Seb Sarkisian said.

The losing with the Raiders took its toll, so Steve Sarkisian returned
to USC a year later as the assistant head coach in charge of the
offense.

Running back Reggie Bush captured the Heisman Trophy in 2005, while
quarterback Matt Leinart finished third in the voting.

>From 2007-09, the Trojans won three consecutive Rose Bowl games. Days
before the third one, Sarkisian was approached ` and ultimately hired
` for the head-coaching position at the UW, signing a five-year
deal. He will earn a guaranteed $1.85 million this season, which ranks
him in the top 30 in NCAA coaching salaries.

FAMILY GUY

Recently, Sarkisian finally had time to catch his breath after six
hectic months since succeeding Willingham at UW.

He returned to his hometown of Torrance for two weeks to spend time
with the folks who know him best.

If he wasn’t hanging out at his parents’ house, he was visiting his
sisters, Alice, Eileen and Amy, or brother, Andrew, who all still live
in the area. And he did not miss the annual neighborhood golf
tournament, either.

Seb Sarkisian, who immigrated to the United States from Iran in 1959,
said family values were something `all his brothers and sisters beat
into (Steve)’ at an early age.

It stuck, even amid the long and demanding hours required at USC, or
any other college program. Steve Sarkisian always found moments to
break away when he needed to.

One late fall afternoon a few years ago, Phil Bendik, Josh’s older
brother, was coaching a youth soccer match involving Sarkisian’s
niece, Brooke.

`And he walked through the `Z’ gate … and the first thing that
crossed my mind was, `Doesn’t he have a football game that night at
USC?” Phil Bendik said. `I was surprised he had time to be there, but
he was all hugs and kisses with Brooke.’

In 2004, Peterson nearly died from a staph infection, and he took 10
months to recover at his daughter’s home. Once a week, without fail,
Sarkisian would visit his former coach to sit and talk hours of
football.

And now as Sarkisian, his wife and three children ` daughters Ashley
and Taylor and son Brady ` settle into their new home in the Yarrow
Point neighborhood of Bellevue, friends have started to visit him in
the Northwest.

Josh Bendik and his girlfriend came up for a visit in July. They went
to a Mariners game with Sarkisian, who threw out the first pitch. The
next day, the friends paddled around Lake Washington in a canoe for a
couple of hours.

`With his job, his title, he’s got the opportunity to do some
outrageous things, and sort of be above everything and live on a
cloud,’ said Bendik.

`But he’s a dad, husband, son, brother and friend, too. The one thing
he doesn’t want to get away from is his roots.’

MAN WITH A NEW PLAN

After taking in 15 spring-camp practices to assess the Huskies’ talent
pool, Sarkisian noted at last week’s Pacific-10 Conference preseason
media day the talent level is `better than I anticipated.’

It had better be. The Huskies, who begin practices Monday, face
Louisiana State on Sept. 5 in the season opener.

Sarkisian is reluctant to harp on the failings of last year’s
performance or blame the players, saying every holdover has a clean
slate.

At the same time, he’s been working hard to increase the talent for
future years. So far, he’s putting together one of the top recruiting
classes in the country for 2010.

Sarkisian has helped UW capture positive headlines again. People are
noticing.

`He has that look about him, like he knows what’s going on,’ said
Taylor Mays, the USC safety from O’Dea in Seattle. `He’s seen what
successful teams do, and how they jell and fit together.’

How soon that happens isn’t known. But what transpires will be done
according to Sarkisian’s plan, one based on his hard work and
determination.

`How long that takes to get on that train, headed in that one
direction, I don’t know,’ Sarkisian said. `But that will be the moment
we’re doing the things I want us to do.’

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress