Steve Sarkisian bans parents from practice

USC won’t have to worry about any P. Diddy-like distractions during practice. That’s because head coach Steve Sarkisian has banned parents from attending Trojans’ practices.

Sark established the policy over the weekend and explained why during a meeting with the media Wednesday.

“I just felt like it was the best interest for our football team,” Sarkisian said Wednesday. “I want to give our players the best chance to come out here every day, perform really well and not worry about any outside distractions, be able to come over to you guys and express themselves in a positive light, and when it’s done, if they want to go have breakfast or lunch with their families, that’s great.

“But I just felt like, in the best interest of our team, it was the right thing to do. Time will tell. We’ll see what happens.”

Sark was asked by a reporter what led to the policy change.

“At the end of every year, you look at yourself, you look at your program, you look at everything you do and say, ‘How can we improve? What can we do to get better?’ Whether it’s the schemes we run, whether it’s the style in which we play, whatever that may be.

“I felt that was one aspect where we could improve, where we can give our players a better chance to come out here focused on what they need to do to get themselves prepared for Saturday, so that’s why we did what we did.”

Maybe the only people who would be bothered by this are the helicopter parents who want to be involved with all aspects of their children’s lives. I actually support Sark and think that keeping those parents out is probably a good thing for the players in the program. You don’t want any RG3-like issues in the program if you can avoid it.

H/T Coaching Search