Is Steve Sarkisian married? Looking at the family and personal life of Texas Longhorns head coach
Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian must be on cloud nine right now as his team just beat the legendary Nick Saban on the road in Tuscaloosa. As such, this is making more people look into the private life of the CFB head coach, including his romantic life.
One major question is about the marital status of Steve Sarkisian. We're going to answer that question here, alongside a few other tidbits of information on the Texas coach's family life.
Yes, Steve Sarkisian is married. He is married to Loreal Smith, whom he wed in 2020. Smith is Sarkisian's second wife, with the Longhorns head coach having divorced ex-partner Stephanie Sarkisian in 2016.
Loreal is a wardrobe stylist, philanthropist, and a former track star, according to Tribeza. She is well-known for her gameday outfits, which she posts on her Instagram profile. At the time of writing this, she has over 58,000 followers who engage with her mostly fashion-centric content on the regular.
Here's one of the more recent posts she made of her OOTD, showing her in attendance at Bryant-Denny for the Texas-Alabama game last September 9:
Steve Sarkisian and the 'First Lady of Texas Football'
Loreal Sarkisian has gained enough fame for Longhorns fans to crown her 'The First Lady of Texas Football'. While this might be mainly due to her impeccable dressing on gamedays, she has a bigger connection to her husband's football career than one might think.
In a report by the Houston Chronicle, Sarkisian credits his wife for helping him build his career back up. After getting fired by USC in 2016, he revealed he couldn't get interviews at all. Here are his own words regarding the impact Loreal had on his life:
"Anytime you get fired, I don’t care what industry you’re in, you lose some of that confidence. It’s like, how do you find it again? How do you recreate it again? And she was the one who kept reminding me.
"She was the one when jobs would come up, she’d say, ‘I don’t think that’s the one, I think you’re better than that'. And I was like, ‘Wow. OK. Alright'. I needed some of that to build my own self-confidence.”
Aside from this, Steve Sarkisian says Loreal helps him dress up on game day. While he might be far from the fashionista that his wife clearly is, he clearly appreciates what she does for him (quote via Texas Sports Nation):
“She dresses me on game day. I’ll give her that. Not everybody loves what I wear, but I like it, she likes it, so we’re good with it.”