Steve Sarkisian clarifies ‘basket weaving’ jab at Ole Miss
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
Steve Sarkisian drew the ire of Ole Miss fans over his “basket-weaving” joke a few weeks ago.
The Texas head coach circled back on what he meant by those comments during an appearance at the Houston Touchdown Club on Thursday, stating that his word choice may have been flawed.
“I probably shouldn’t have used ‘basket-weaving’ as my example for the class. Macroeconomics, I don’t give a damn whatever the class is. Yoga, we have yoga at UT. The class part of it was irrelevant,” Sarkisian said to chuckles from the crowd.
It was part of a larger point he was trying to make, he said.
“At UT, you have to complete half of your degree at the University of Texas. You have to do those 60 hours at UT to get a degree from the University of Texas. At a school like Ole Miss, I’ll reference it that way, they can take one class and get a degree … My point is that was one of the inequalities and discrepancies that we deal with in college athletics.”
Steve Sarkisian added that he only used Ole Miss as an example because of his close relationship with Lane Kiffin and Pete Golding — “two of my best friends,” he called them — and their respective associations with the program.
“I know when we would compete with them (for recruits) that they were able to take kids and that they were able to graduate,” he said.
Ole Miss, by the way, visits Texas on October 24.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
