Texas HC Steve Sarkisian opens up about his sobriety journey | Joel Klatt Show

so it's it's fascinating you talk about that uh the way that you do because you can make an argument and by the way this this goes for all of us in our individual lives um as a family the more things change and the more things get chaotic outside the more you have to really focus on what do I really control right you know my dad was big into the only thing you you can control is your own effort level y you know he my dad was a former Marine and that's what he would pound into us that's the only thing you have total control over and and since you've been here you and I constantly talk about this culture that you're building and I'm so fascinated because you seem to be not only intensely focused on it but also involved in it and and here's what I mean by that in in two different ways and you and I share this I'm coming up on 13 years sober you're also sober that was a huge shift in my life and a commitment that I had to make the other commitment I had to make is how open was I going to be about it how forthright was I going to be about it whether that was with my family or those around me you've had to make that same choice that choice for you and how open you are with it in particular with your team is almost Central to what you guys do from a culture standpoint right how did you make that decision well some of them got made for me I'll be honest with you right Same Same by the way so when when all of my stuff occurred initially it was national news sure I mean it was on the ticker right it was everywhere it was on every Sports Talk Radio Show so it really wasn't like something that I could hide from right and so the reality was okay this is public knowledge this is public information I'm a public figure at this point okay so how are you going to address it how are you going to deal with it then as I navigated my way through it and and being open and honest with those that I was close to and I got back into the coaching ranks I quickly realized in coaching there's this thing called negative recruiting I don't know if you've ever heard of this Joel but that some coaches love to talk about another school or another coach and naturally it was not easy to figure out that other schools and other coaches were going to try to use that against me and so I really became open honest and vulnerable with the recruits first and their families first to talk through my story then I came to find out that why would I not want to share all of that with our team because I always felt like 18 to 22 year old males I mean if there's a if there's a guarded group of individuals in our society it's that group right trust is not at the highest level being vulnerable being open being honest uh not at the top of the priority list for a lot of young men um we're guarded we want to suppress things we want to keep things down so how do I get them to feel comfortable to do that well why don't I share why don't I become vulnerable why don't I give them my story why don't I give my story uncut right it's it's the it's the version that they're sitting in their chairs thinking I can't believe coach Sark just said all that to us um to a point to where I've given them a platform to say it's okay to to be vulnerable to be honest to open up to share issues nobody's judging you we're all just looking to support one another and we've tried to cultivate that um through a process throughout summer and in through training camp every year I do it every year at the start of the summer I tell my story and there's some guys that sit in that team room that have sat in there for three four years now have heard the same story and every time they pick up a little something different interesting I've told that story last summer my own son was sitting in that room right and what a perspective that was for him to hear my story now sitting in a chair as one of the players on the team our own coaches but then for me then it does go to our assistant coaches they tell their stories and none of us are perfect we've all got things in our past that we've had to work through and I continue to work through so now we've created a platform for the players to start to share and and now what happens is there's some empathy I know what you're going through man and and I know when if you look a little off today I'd have something to tap into whatever it might be and in the end I think that really did draw us closer but every year you have to recreate it right I lose 2530 guys that move on and here comes a new batch of 2530 guys and how do we get them back into our culture how do we get them to to to understand it's okay to talk about what's going on in our lives and Coach sark's actually here to help you he's not here to look for what's wrong with you so that he can cut you and move on to the next kid it's actually worked with you to try to make you the best person that you could be thank you for watching the Joel class Show YouTube channel and if you like this clip make sure 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