ShareThisHe was the president of the New York Yankees in 1981-82.
I met him in 1983.
On a football field.
That's where Lou Saban spent most of his adult life. That's where he belonged. And, really, it didn't matter where, or on what level.
Pro.
College.
Even high school.
Despite everything else he did across 87 years and nearly 30 jobs - as football player, athletic administrator and baseball executive - the man was a football coach, from his flat-top crewcut to his black, Unitas-era, high-top shoes. And that's how I'll remember him.
"He was an original," his wife, Joyce, told the Associated Press after Saban succumbed to heart problems early Sunday at his home in North Myrtle Beach, S.C.
"He was one of a kind."
In many ways, he was.
He was the first coach of the Boston Patriots in the fledgling AFL in 1960, won the 1964 and '65 AFL championships as coach of the Buffalo Bills, left to become coach and general manager of the Denver Broncos for five years, then returned to coach the Bills again after the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.
He coached on the major-college level at Miami, Northwestern, Maryland, Army, Western Illinois and Central Florida, as well as at lower-division schools Peru State, Canton Tech, Alfred State and Chowan State.
He coached in the Arena Football League, too.
But it was his decision to come to the Treasure Coast of Florida, where he was the defensive coordinator at Martin County High School in 1986-87 and the coach at South Fork in 1988, that showed exactly how much he loved coaching football.
"Once we got to know him, we'd joke about it - how he kept jumping from job to job," said South Fork assistant coach Ed Metallo, a member of Saban's defensive staff at Martin County. "Bill would yell to him: 'We've got a game Friday night. You going to be here?'" "Bill" was Bill Cubit, who coached at Martin County from 1986-88 and was an assistant on Saban's staff at Central Florida. Cubit, now the coach at Western Michigan, brought his former boss to Stuart.
"Bringing in Coach Saban put Martin County on the map," Metallo said. "Sports Illustrated came out. And we were successful. He installed something different - he called it 'putting a bucket in every hole,' but it was just playing in the gaps - and the kids bought into it because of who he was."
Not that Saban, whose short fuse was as legendary as his short stints, would've tolerated anything less.
"He was a taskmaster on the field," Metallo said. "He didn't put up with any nonsense. But he was also a character, a guy with a million stories. He was a fascinating man, extremely knowledgeable about the world, and a very generous man, too."
And he never big-timed anyone - not even the local press.
"I never got the impression that he felt being here was beneath him," said Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers high school sports guru Dennis Jacob, who covered Saban's three-year stay for the Stuart News. "For him, coaching was coaching, regardless of the level.
"He was easy to deal with, just like any other coach. He always made time for us.
"I liked him."
So did I.
I liked talking to him and writing about him. I liked his old-school ways. I liked his old-school look, too.
I'll never forget the first time I met Saban, who was in his first summer as the coach at Central Florida, then a Division II school entering its fifth year of football. He wore a white golf shirt and black baseball cap - both emblazoned with the letters "UCF" - polyester coaching shorts, white tube socks and those black high-tops.
He looked like a latter-day Lombardi, right out of Central Casting. And at age 61, he was everything you'd expect an old-time football coach to be.
Tough and gruff.
Rugged and ready.
But smart and funny, too.
Saban had big plans for UCF, which he vowed someday would play major-college football. "And if I have my way," he told me in a gravelly voice that fit his persona, "it's gonna happen in the next five years."
As was often the case, his timing and temperament were off: A rift developed between Saban and the administration, and he resigned during the 1984 season. UCF didn't move up to Division I-A until 1996.
But Saban left his mark, particularly as a recruiter and fundraiser. He put UCF on the college football map and moved the program forward.
Then he moved on.
He always moved on.
Sometimes he moved up. Sometimes he moved down. Sometimes he just moved out.
One year, he was the president of the Yankees. The next year, he was the football coach at UCF. Two years after he left there, he was the defensive coordinator at Martin County.
Saban moved on again Sunday, probably for the last time.
But who knows? If something else comes along ...
(Ray McNulty is sports columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast (Fla.) Newspapers, The Stuart News, Fort Pierce Tribune and Vero Beach Press Journal. E-mail him at ray.mcnulty(at)scripps.com. On the Web at www.tcpalm.com.)
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