Steve Sarkisian facing full-circle moment against Washington in Sugar Bowl — 'He sparked U-Dub'

NEW ORLEANS — Within a private room inside one of the most lavish crew facilities in all of college sports, a crowded room of donors supporting Washington Huskies athletics gathered around their new football coach in a welcome reception — a traditional meeting they held after the hiring of each new coach dating back decades.

Suddenly, and without much warning, one man rose from his seat and threw his raised arms into the air as if signaling a made field goal. The man next to him immediately followed, then the next and next and so on until this chain reaction made its way completely around the room.

And there, at the room’s center, stood Steve Sarkisian.

“This look overcame his face. It was like, ‘Wow,’” said Tim Cowan, a former Washington quarterback and then-president of the donor group. “The Wave first started in Husky Stadium. We wanted to offer Coach Sark his first Husky Wave.”

This is how it started — a 34-year-old offensive whiz kid in his first head coaching job surrounded by grown men performing the wave, something the university claims to have made famous at a game in 1981.

This is how it is going — a 49-year-old seasoned head coach in his third season at Texas surrounded by reporters at Sugar Bowl media day, his team two wins away from a national championship.

To lead the Longhorns back to the promised land, Sarkisian must beat his old program, the one that so many in Seattle believe he helped resurrect into the Goliath seen today. In 15 years, the Huskies have gone from 0-12, the season before Sarkisian took over, to 13-0 in coach Kalen DeBoer’s second year.

Washington enters this CFP semifinal with a prolific passing offense, a hotshot quarterback and a daring offensive-minded coach who’s made a splashy arrival to the major college football scene. Sound familiar?

Sure, Sarkisian’s second team at Washington was nowhere as successful as DeBoer’s. The 2010 Huskies won just seven games, but Sarkisian’s snazzy West Coast offense, with quarterback Jake Locker in tow, elevated the program from cellar-dweller into the top 25 and paved the way for a five-year tenure in Seattle that put Washington football back on the minds of the collective college football world.

“I’m still entrenched with UW people. He gets a lot of credit for getting this thing started,” said Deontae Cooper, part of Sarkisian’s first full recruiting class at Washington and now a high school coach in the state. “You think about Sark’s legacy and reputation, he sparked U-Dub.”

When the No. 2 Huskies and No. 3 Longhorns meet Monday night in the Superdome, Sarkisian’s stint in Seattle is far from an impactful factor in the long-awaited showdown. In fact, few players in the game are even old enough to remember when Sark paced the sideline at Husky Stadium.

Many of those who will be in the stands or watching on television, however, very much remember the young, vibrant man who excited a fan base more than a decade ago by overhauling the program with a much-needed jolt of enthusiasm, fun and tactical offensive maneuvering seen today in Austin.

He quite literally left his mark on the UW campus, some of which still lingers. The $261 million renovation to Husky Stadium, completed during his tenure, features many Sarkisian suggestions, such as lighting displays and decor inside the player tunnel to the field.

Some see Washington’s rise to this point — a second CFP appearance in seven years — as a result, at least partially, to Sarkisian’s tenure.

To understand that tenure, one must first understand the state of Washington football at the end of the 2008 season. Fired by Notre Dame, Tyrone Willingham arrived in 2005 with a plan to instill discipline and, with it, winning to an unruly team that had drifted far from the squad that won 11 games under Rick Neuheisel in 2000.

He instituted strict team policies around hair and often showed up unannounced in players’ classrooms to monitor their studies. His run ended four years later with Washington’s first winless season in 119 years and a fifth straight losing year — a first in program history.

“It was in dire straits coming off 0-12. The facilities needed mass improvements. Stadium was in serious need,” recalled Scott Woodward, then the Washington athletic director who is now at LSU. “We had to get football right.”

His search process seemed to narrow on two highly successful coordinators: then-Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp and then-USC offensive coordinator Sarkisian.

For a fit standpoint, the hire became obvious. Woodward talked at length with Sarkisian’s boss then, Pete Carroll.

“The most impressive thing doing our diligence was Pete Carroll’s glowing remarks,” Woodward said. “We knew our program needed a jumpstart with enthusiasm and youth and excitement and needed a coach to recruit California. That's where Washington’s success was. That’s the old Don James model.”

Sarkisian, a native Californian, was introduced as coach on Dec. 8, 2008. During his first spring practice, players were welcomed to an entirely different world: the Pete Carroll World.

Everyone was loud. They were fun. They were fiery. They were intense.

And everything was a competition. Everything.

“The first thing that stood out was even warming up was a competition,” said Locker, the first-round NFL Draft pick whom Sarkisian mentored in 2009 and 2010. “We were like, ‘What do you mean you want us to race in warmups?’ That was the first implementation. We were warming up with the intention to win.”

Aside from the change in practice habits, and along with his ability to tutor quarterbacks and call plays, Sarkisian’s best gift was “speaking winning into existence,” said Cooper, a running back for the coach. “You start speaking it into existence and preparing that way, and you start winning games, people start believing.”

That’s what happened in the third game of his first season. A near 21-point underdog to No. 3 USC, the Huskies stormed back from a 10-0 deficit to win on a last-minute field goal. In the stands, Cowan and so many Washington fans wept with joy. Others rushed the field in a wild scene.

Damon Huard, the former Washington quarterback who then served as the team’s radio sideline reporter, raced onto the field near Sarkisian.

“I remember Steve looking over at me and he goes, ‘Tell me this isn’t better than the NFL, Damon!?’” Huard remembered. “That was my first year out of the league. He kind of turned the program around overnight.

“We were the worst team in America,” continued Huard, now an administrator and ambassador working in the university’s athletic department. “I credit Steve for getting this thing back on track.”

Three consecutive 7-6 seasons followed his 5-7 Year 1. Sarkisian developed a moniker in Seattle of “Seven-Win Steve.”

Since that time, his next five full seasons as a coach, his teams won nine games (Washington in 2013), nine games (USC in 2014), five games (Texas), eight games (Texas) and 12 games this year.

Despite his departure for the Trojans after the 2013 season — his “dream job,” he told the team then — his legacy at Washington is not a complicated one, most say.

“I think his legacy is he brought the program back to respectability from the lowest point ever,” said Pete Shimer, a long-time booster and season-ticket holder who played basketball at Washington in the 1980s. “And he did it quickly.”

Sarkisian resurrected the Longhorns with a similar philosophy and in a similar timeframe, much of it built on that competitive culture, offensive acumen and aggressive recruiting. He’s relentless on the trail, just like his mentor, Carroll.

Backed by an elite NIL program, he’s signed three straight top-five recruiting classes, including 10 five-star prospects.

But this isn’t the same Steve Sarkisian as the one who paced the sidelines in Seattle.

No, not at all.

After his departure for USC in 2013, Sarkisian and Washington followed different paths. He was fired from USC less than two years later and needed treatment for alcohol. As Sarkisian returned to coaching as an analyst in 2016 at Alabama, Washington surged into the College Football Playoff semifinal under coach Chis Petersen.

It lost in the Peach Bowl semifinal to that very same Alabama team, 24-7, with a handful of players that Sarkisian recruited and signed with the Huskies.

Sarkisian’s rebound from alcoholism has been well documented. He says he’s eight years sober. He’s three years removed from a scary cardiac situation while at Alabama that necessitated emergency surgery.

He’s a different man. And those who knew him at Washington can tell.

“His story is one of the coolest,” said Stephanie Rempe, the Nevada athletic director who served as an administrator at Washington during Sarkisian’s tenure.

Rempe recently hired Texas co-defensive coordinator Jeff Choate as head coach. During the vetting process, she called Sarkisian and heard, from the other line, a much different person than the one she remembered in Seattle.

“He was so calm. He was so comfortable,” Rempe said. “I remember the Sark who was going at 100 miles an hour.”

It’s all part of a humbling, growth process over the last decade.

He’s a big reader these days and keeps stacks of mostly spiritual and inspirational texts on his desk in Austin. He often pulls quotes from books, scribbles them on a whiteboard in his office and then uses them in messages to his team.

Written on the white board are things like, “Left or Right,” a quote about choice, he says. “You can go left or right. What’s the choice you're going to make? We all get posed with temptations.”

He’s read books titled “Discipline is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control,” “Greatness” and “Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life ... And Maybe the World.”

The book “Make Your Bed,” authored in 2017 by former Texas chancellor admiral William H. McRaven, “changed my life,” Sarkisian said.

“I’ve been making my bed ever since,” he said. “It’s about accomplishing something to start your day. Even if that’s all you do, you can look back at your day, I made my bed.”

Sarkisian’s transformation played a part in his hire at Texas after the 2020 season. And so did his transformation of the Washington football program, said Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte.

“Everyone says, ‘What did he do at Washington?’” Del Conte said. “Well, he went 5-7-7-7-9 (wins) and he was on a trajectory with how he was recruiting.”

After firing Tom Herman, Del Conte and a small search committee considered several candidates for the job. Sarkisian’s name kept coming up as a guy that they at least should speak with.

Once they did, the search was over.

Sarkisian walked committee members through the struggles in his personal life, the battles with alcohol and such. Both that humility and his desire to take on such a monster program like Texas is what landed him the job.

“You’ve never going to convince Texas that they are David from the Bible,” Del Conte said. “You’ve got to learn how to operate Goliath. We interviewed coaches who said I want no part of the New York Yankees. I’m the Cleveland Indians. I looked over at him, ‘We’re done. You’re a really good coach, but Texas isn’t for you.’ We were looking for someone who wanted to operate the behemoth that is the University of Texas. Steve understood the moment. The moment was not too big for him.”

The same could be said for a 34-year-old taking over an 0-12 team in his first head coaching job.

Sarkisian looks back on his time at Washington with pride. He left the program in a better place than he found it, he says, and it “shaped” who he is today.

“I would not be here today if not for those five years at Washington, if it weren’t for Scott Woodward and (Washington president) Mark Emmert and them taking a chance on a guy who is 34 years old,” he said. “I’m glad I had somewhat of an impact on what they are doing today.”

In maybe the strongest statement on Sarkisian’s run at Washington, Petersen says it influenced his decision to leave Boise for Seattle.

“I probably wouldn’t have come there had he not done the job he did,” Petersen said. “That’s how I thought. That was a heavy lift to where that program was.”

Some, like Huard, still keep in touch with the coach. They text occasionally and the two recently bumped into one another at the National Football Foundation event in Las Vegas earlier this month.

But few wearing purple are all that undecided about who to root for come Monday night.

“Someone asked me if I was torn,” laughed Locker. “No. I want the Dawgs to win and want them to win by a lot.”

Cowan will remain home to watch the game. But plenty of those who were gathered in that private room in 2008 welcoming Sarkisian as their new coach will be in the Superdome seats — some of them, perhaps, even doing the wave.