On his first official week at Pine View High School, Sark Arslanian remembered what he didn't like about being a prep football coach. First, there was the stack of physical forms piled on his desk, waiting to be reviewed. Then after watching an assistant coach spend four hours matching and cross-checking combinations with lockers, Arslanian told him to forget it. Tell the kids to put on their own locks. Then if someone forgets his combination, cut the lock off with bolt cutters. No mess, no stress.
"I'm rethinking my decision," said Arslanian this week, shaking his head. "This stuff is a pain in the rear."Discomfort aside, Arslanian wouldn't have it any other way. For one who has coached in Europe, at a major and junior college level, and at high schools big and small, all he can say is he's in it for a good reason. It can't be for the money. He's charging one dollar for coaching the Pine View Panthers this year. That's low pay even for high school coaching. It can't be the notoriety, either. Pine View isn't even a 5A (large classification) school, and it's outside the Wasatch Front metropolitan area, where the bulk of the Utah's news coverage extends.
If there is any notoriety involved in taking the job, it's that he is possibly the most overqualified coach in America. He's worked everywhere this side of the Italy. Correction: He's coached everywhere INCLUDING Italy. He began his career guiding the Central Junior High football team in Salt Lake City to a league championship. He moved on to Union High in Roosevelt for his second job. He applied for the head coaching job at Granite High and thought he had a chance until the principal noted it was the first time Arslanian had been in the office without being in trouble. The job ended up going to an unheralded young coach named LaVell Edwards. Such is fate.
Since losing to Edwards, though, Arslanian has won most every job he's applied for. He was head coach at Dixie College, Weber State and spent a decade as head coach at Colorado State. His career record is a lustrous 214-100-6. He's scouted for the now-defunct USFL and the CFL. He taught and advised a football team in Japan and trained coaches in, of all places, Armenia. (Apparently when it comes to Armenians, it takes one to coach one.) He was head coach for three different Italian pro teams, going 41-4 during three seasons and winning two championships. He coached the JV's at Pomona High, a large 5A school in suburban Denver. Last year he volunteered to coach at South Fremont High in St. Anthony, Idaho. He had it all figured out until the players left for the potato harvest - two weeks in the fall when school is dismissed. One Friday night only 18 of 34 players showed up for the game.
OK, so not everyone loves football as much as Arslanian.
Semi-retired and living in St. George, Arslanian was approached by Pine View officials last spring about coaching. He said he would be happy to take the sophomore team, free of charge. Darned if they didn't turn him down. They came back and said what they really wanted was for him to coach the varsity. He said he'd take the job and the $2,000-per-year salary, but he had one question: Could he donate the money back to the boost-er club?
They wanted to know if it was a trick question.
And so this week, Arslanian was in his cramped office, shuffling papers and stepping around equipment strewn on his floor because he didn't have a key to the equipment room. "Look at this mess," he muttered.
Why Arslanian would choose to coach for free, taking the aggravation and stress in stride rather than acting like a retired big-time college coach, is a fair question. Why he would he get up at 5 a.m. just to go watch a bunch of scrawny high school kids sweat and whine in the desert sun?
The answer goes to back to a sophomore coach at Granite High named Ed Payne, who changed Arslanian's life. A self-described "roughneck kid," Arslanian's parents died before he hit adolescence. He ended up living in Salt Lake with his grandparents, hanging out on the streets and fighting in parking lots.
When Payne was told he would be coaching the sophomore football team, he seemed slightly chagrined. He was a tennis coach. Still, he told his players if they would work hard, do as he asked and help one another out, they'd win every game. Surprisingly, they did. Meanwhile, he took Arslanian aside and told him he was a good person, which was news to Ar-sla-ni-an, who had been known to sluff class 20 days straight. Payne encouraged him to work hard and study harder. He pointed out the slim chances of earning a living by fighting in parking lots.
Eventually a light bulb appeared over Arslanian's head: he would be a coach.
It took over two decades for Arslanian to fully realize that Payne had changed his life. Then coaching at Weber State, Arslanian took his son, Dave - now head coach at Utah State - and drove to Payne's home to thank him for his influence. "He had no idea," says Arslanian.
Indeed he didn't. Arslanian got the message so strongly he devoted his life to guiding kids through sports. "Everyone emulates someone," he says. "I emulated Ed Payne." Since then, Arslanian has gone on to coach hundreds of players, "none of whom are failures."
Over time, Arslanian has mellowed as a coach. Two decades ago if a player came late to practice he "would have run him until his tongue hung out." This week a student arrived late and asked Arslanian if he needed to run laps. The coach said no, just don't let it happen again. He knows if a player becomes a problem, all he has to do is drop him on the depth chart. No amount of shouting makes the point so effectively. If enough trouble arises, he drops the player off the team.
"They always come back begging to be reinstated," says Arslanian.
And so as another season comes around, Arslanian is back on the sidelines, 45 years after taking the job at Central Junior High. It's not Colorado State, or even Dixie College, but it's coaching. "I've had my ego trip," he says. "Every young coach wants to get to the top of the pile. I made it about as high as you can go. We all aspire to reach the heights. This, though, is not an ego trip. If I can save one kid, it's worth it."