On Game Day at the Los Angeles Coliseum, I have walked up the tunnel next to Henry Winkler — the Fonz — who was granted admittance to the USC locker room ostensibly to tell the boys to “Fight On.”
I have stood on the sideline at the Rose Bowl as Ken Norton, the man who famously beat Muhammad Ali and broke his jaw, cursed at Arizona receiver Derek Hill for blocking the chip off his block, Ken Norton Jr.
I have been within earshot of Nike czar Phil Knight, pleading that his beloved Oregon Ducks “hold ‘em!” in overtime at Arizona Stadium.
You don’t need to be an athletic director to get a sideline pass. If you are famous and flex your financial muscles, you, too, can be standing next to Steve Sarkisian at the Game of the Week.
But in more than three decades of following Pac-12 football, I had never seen an athletic director trot across the end zone mid-game and be granted an immediate audience with the referees and follow it by chatting live with a TV sideline reporter as the game continued.
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At first I thought it was an episode of “Punk’d.”
I’m not sure Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott fined USC’s Pat Haden $25,000 for the sheer audacity of interrupting a big game on national TV, or for violating the sanctity and sense of fair play of the sideline, or for displaying an arrogant sense of entitlement.
Each and every one deserved a $25,000 fine, even for Haden, a gentleman and a Rhodes Scholar, who seems to be liked by nearly everyone except Lane Kiffin.
Haden is the only instantly identifiable AD in the Pac-12 and, now, in the nation. He is surely the only AD in the league who could’ve intervened on the behalf of his overheated head coach and not first be tasered by a security guard.
Can you imagine if, say, Oregon State AD Bob De Carolis or Utah’s Chris Hill had rushed to the sideline, demanding an explanation of any penalty?
The head linesman would have said, “Get that nut off the field before I hit you with another 15 yards.”
Almost to a man, ADs in the Pac-12 and every other conference leave their press box suites in the fourth quarter and stand among boosters and support staff somewhere near the 20-yard line, especially if their team is winning. They then accompany the team to the locker room, sing the fight song, shake the coach’s hand and sometimes listen to the post-game press conference.
It is a civilized routine.
The Pac-12 has a Standards of Conduct Policy that forbids an athletic director from attempting to influence the officiating. The Haden/Sarkisian double play was far more serious than a basketball coach like Sean Miller shouting unpleasant things at a referee and drawing a $25,000 fine.
Scott either fined Miller too much or Haden too little.
The league is so adamant about its presentation of fair play that it won’t allow veteran referees now employed as TV replay officials to work in their hometowns. For example, Tucsonans Jim Fogltance and Cleo Robinson, who both called Pac-12 games for more than 25 years, always work on the road. Rather than open the season examining replays of the UA-UNLV game, the league sent Fogltance and Robinson to the South Dakota-Oregon game.
Scott responded properly on Monday and fined Haden. The trigger to this Dumb and Dumber routine was Sarkisian, the USC coach, who must’ve briefly lost his senses thinking an in-game text to his boss could reverse a call.
In football, it’s not like calling 911 and waiting for a first-responder to help you out of a jam.
There hasn’t been any known administrative interference on the Pac-12 sidelines since Oct. 6, 1990, when former UCLA chancellor Charles E. Young lost his composure at an Arizona-UCLA game.
Young always walked the UCLA sidelines, in a blue Bruin cap, shouting at the refs and sometimes his coaching staff. But he was so powerful that no one at UCLA dared to challenge his embarrassing behavior, and no one in the old Pac-10 office was willing to ask him to behave himself.
Arizona beat UCLA that afternoon at the Rose Bowl, 28-21, on a late interception return by Darryll Lewis. I remember standing on the sidelines in the final minutes of the game, fixated on the chancellor, who was behaving like an over-served student in the Zona Zoo.
Young retired in 1997, lost his sideline pass and, until Saturday, football games have come and gone with little more than a few fist bumps from the Fonz and Phil Knight.
Now, if only Scott can do something about Pac-12 football studio analyst Jake Plummer wearing that gold pitchfork on the lapel of his suit. No favoritism, right?
