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Winning Coach and Kent State Alum Nick Saban Retires

Saban, who began his football career here at Kent, led the University of Alabama Crimson Tide for 17 seasons

Â鶹´«Ã½ alumnus Nick Saban, considered one of the greatest college football coaches of all time, has retired from the University of Alabama, where he coached the Crimson Tide for the past 17 seasons.

College football coaching great Nick Saban was a member of Kent State's football team in 1972.
Nick Saban, pictured in 1972, when he was a defensive back for the Kent State Golden Flashes football team.

Saban, a native of Fairmont, West Virginia, graduated from Kent State with his bachelor’s degree in elementary education in 1973 and earned his master of education degree in health and physical education in 1975.

Nick Saban has a Golden Flash in 1970.
Nick Saban as a Golden Flash in 1970.

At Kent State, Saban was a safety on the Golden Flashes football team and was a member of the 1972 squad that won the university’s first conference championship. During his time at Kent State, Saban earned three letters in football and one in baseball from 1970 to 1972. In 1973, he was a graduate assistant coach and defensive assistant for the Flashes. He was inducted into the Kent State Varsity K Hall of Fame in 2015.  

A student at Kent State during the May 4, 1970, shootings, Saban also met his wife, the former Terry Constable, at Kent State, where she also graduated.

 

 

Saban, 72, has won seven national championships over his career, which ended with Alabama’s appearance in this year’s Rose Bowl, where they lost to the University of Michigan.

 

University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban met with members of Kent State's football team in 2011. Days before the Golden Flashes were to play the Crimson Tide, Kent State players traveled to Alabama to work with Habitat for Humanity to help rebuild homes destroyed in the April 2011 tornado that struck Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Nick Saban meets with members of Â鶹´«Ã½'s football team in 2011, when members of the team volunteered with Habitat for Humanity to help rebuild homes destroyed in the April 2011 tornado that struck Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

 

 

Video courtesy of CBS 42, Birmingham, Alabama.

 

POSTED: Thursday, January 11, 2024 11:08 AM
Updated: Thursday, January 11, 2024 02:26 PM
WRITTEN BY:
Lisa Abraham