Lou Saban, the ultimate football lifer, who coached the Buffalo Bills of the old American Football League to two championships in a career that took him from professional football to college to high schools, died on Sunday in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
He was 87.
His death was announced by his wife, Joyce, who told reporters that he had heart problems for years and was recently hospitalized after a fall.
“It’s hard to explain sometimes why a man does things,” Saban once said. “The answer often lies within his heart.”
Saban seldom stayed in a football job for more than a few seasons, and when he left once for the baseball world, he took one of most insecure jobs in sports — a Yankees executive under George Steinbrenner.
Saban knew Steinbrenner, who grew up in Cleveland, from the late 1940s, when Saban played for the Browns. When Saban was the football coach at Northwestern in 1955, he hired Steinbrenner as an assistant.
Steinbrenner named Saban the president of the Yankees in March 1981. He later acknowledged that he fired Saban on several occasions but that he would call him at home when he failed to show up for work the next day and say “get back in here right now.”
Saban resigned in December 1982 to become the football coach at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
In a statement upon Saban’s death, Steinbrenner remembered him as “tough and disciplined.”
Saban coached the Boston Patriots, the Bills and the Denver Broncos. In the major college ranks, he coached at Maryland, Northwestern, Miami and Army.
When he was in his 70s, he coached at the State University at Canton in northern New York, then moved to Chowan State in North Carolina.
He also coached high school football in the rural South.
Louis Henry Saban, a native of Brookfield, Illinois, got his first job in sports at age nine, when he caddied for Al Capone’s brother Ralph at a country club in Chicago. He played football at Indiana University, then became an all-league linebacker with the Browns, playing for them from 1946-49 in the All-America Football Conference.
After coaching posts at Case Institute of Cleveland, Northwestern and Western Illinois, Saban coached the Patriots of the newly formed AFL in 1960 and 1961. He became the Bills’ coach the next season and took them to the league championship in 1964 and 1965.
He later coached the Broncos and returned to the Bills as the coach from 1972 to 1976. He oversaw the offensive line known as the Electric Company, which turned on the “Juice,” O.J. Simpson, who had a record-breaking 2,003 yard rushing season in 1973.
Saban was a Chinese-language interpreter for the Army in World War II. According to Pat Toomay, a defensive end for the Bills in 1975, Saban once gave a halftime speech in Chinese.
“We went out and won,” Toomay said.
Saban had a coaching record of 95-99-7 in 16 years in the pros.
“Lou Saban was a great teacher,” Booker Edgerson, who played for Saban as a defensive back at Western Illinois and with the Bills and Broncos, told reporters.
“He could have built any program — football, baseball, basketball, whatever,” Edgerson said.
Saban made an attempt at retirement in 1985, when he and his wife built a house in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
His wife gave him a chain saw to cut some trees, hoping it would give him enough to do for a while, but he began cutting with abandon, and it was clear that retirement was not for him.
In 1989, he became the football coach at Georgetown High School in South Carolina. He told the Tulsa World: “I’m working just as hard as if I were with the Buffalo Bills.”
Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien and Jiang Xinyu of China yesterday won the women’s doubles title at the ASB Classic in Auckland, while Naomi Osaka retired from the women’s singles final with an abdominal injury. Second seeds Wu and Jiang defeated Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic and Sabrina Santamaria of the US 6-3, 6-4 on ASB Tennis Centre’s Stadium Court in 1 hour, 5 minutes. The WTA 250 victory was 25-year-old Wu’s second WTA Tour title, after winning the 2023 Hua Hin Championships in Thailand with Taiwanese partner Chan Hao-ching. Later that year, Wu and Taiwan’s Hsu Yu-hsiou won the mixed doubles gold at the World
The NHL postponed the Los Angeles Kings’ home game against the Calgary Flames on Wednesday with several massive wildfires burning across the greater Los Angeles area. The Kings and Flames were scheduled to play on Wednesday night at the Kings’ downtown arena. The NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers were scheduled to host the Charlotte Hornets in the same arena last night. “Our hearts are with our entire Los Angeles community,” the Kings said in a statement. “We appreciate the hard working first responders who are diligently working to contain the fire and protect our community. We appreciate the league’s support in keeping our
EL CLASSICO: La Liga champions Real Madrid would face Barcelona in the Super Cup final tomorrow. Barca secured their final spot after a 2-0 win over Bilbao on Wednesday Real Madrid would chase a record-equaling 14th Spanish Super Cup title in the final against Barcelona after second-half goals by Jude Bellingham and Rodrygo helped them to a 3-0 win over Mallorca in the semi-finals on Thursday. England midfielder Bellingham broke the deadlock after the hour mark with a low shot into the middle of the goal before Mallorca defender Martin Valjent’s own goal doubled the lead in stoppage time followed by a Rodrygo strike from close range. Spanish champions Real are to play Barcelona for the trophy tomorrow after goals by Gavi and Lamine Yamal earned Barca a 2-0 win over
Peterborough manager Darren Ferguson said an unnamed Everton player “had a pop” at him after he denied Tyler Young the opportunity to come on as a substitute against his father Ashley in Thursday’s English FA Cup third round match. While former England international Ashley came off the bench in the second half for Everton, Tyler was an unused sub in the game at Goodison Park. Everton won 2-0 against the third-division team. “I’ve got to do what’s best for my team and we’re not a charity case,” Ferguson said. “As much as I wanted Tyler to go on with his dad, one
RSS