Donald Trump accomplished one of the great feats of his presidency on Monday night when he raised a man from the dead. I mean, not really, but go on this journey.
During a conference call in which he endorsed former college football coach Tommy Tuberville in the second round of the Alabama Senate, Trump referred to Tuberville as a “truly successful coach.” Then he went to one of his proprietary tangents that made people talk. He proceeded to refer to current Alabama coach Nick Saban as “Lou Saban” repeatedly. Just to be clear, those are two very different people and one of them has been dead for over a decade.
After Trump’s comments, I saw a lot of misinformation about Saban’s boys on Twitter, so I feel like we need to clear up a few things. First, for those of you who don’t know, Lou Saban was the NFL and college football travel head coach for half a century. He was the best tramp who rarely stayed in one place too long. No, he was not Nick Saban’s father; in fact it was thought that perhaps being distant cousins, but no one has ever provided proof of this. Oh, and did I mention that Lou has been dead for 11 years?
While their last names are the same, that’s where the similarities between Nick and Lou end. Nick is one of the best coaches in the history of college football, while Lou was … decidedly not. Cleveland Browns linebacker, Lou Saban has been a coach for over 50 years. He helped lead the Buffalo Bills to consecutive AFL titles (1964 and 1965), but that was the pinnacle of his coaching career. Those two seasons were the only time he won more than 10 games in his 16 years as an NFL head coach.
Saban ended his AFL / NFL career with a regular season record of 95-99-7 (.490), while his record as a college coach was 94-99-4 (.487).
Saban was all over the map as a coach, handling banking everywhere from the NFL to high schools, the Army, Central Florida, the Arena League, and even the NAIA Division II squad in the State of Peru. He even ran out of wins for a season at Northwestern in 1955. The guy lived a football life. In all that time, one thing he never did was train in Alabama. He faced the Crimson Tide once when he brought his Miami hurricanes to Tuscaloosa in 1977 and was crushed by Bear Bryant’s 36-0 squad.
While he was not known as one of the greatest coaches of all time, Lou Saban was beloved because he was a phenomenal date. The old videos of him being probed are classics of all time.
Just to close this circle, Nick Saban is still very much alive and preparing to start his 14th season as Alabama head coach. You know, as long as everyone wears masks and we can really have a college football season.
