Croatian Nick Šaban – Coach of the Year
Led LSU to NCAA Football Championship
Nick Saban was selected The Associated Press College
Football Coach of the Year on Thursday, December 11, 2003.
Saban completed a banner year by coaching LSU (Louisiana
State University) Tigers to 13-1 record and a Sugar Bowl
win 21-14 over Oklahoma Sooners to win a College Football
BCS “Bowl Championship Series” finale in New Orleans on
Sunday, January 4th 2004. And it was a rewarding win for
Saban. He makes $1.5 million, but a clause in his contract
said that if he won this game, he was guaranteed $1 more
than the highest-paid college coach — Oklahoma’s Bob
Stoops, at $2.3 million. Saban grew up in Monongah, West
Virginia and was All-State in football, basketball and
baseball graduating in 1969 from Monongah High School,
Marion County, West Virginia. His High School coach Earl
Keener said “I knew very early Nick was destined to very
far; he just had it over the other boys”. Saban attended
Kent State on a football scholarship. Saban’s father Nick
owned a Gulf gas station. Grandfather Stanko (changed to
Stanley) Saban born in 1895 emigrated from Gospic, Lika,
Croatia in 1908 when he was only 13 with his younger
brother Steve and father (great-grandfather of football
coach). Brother Steve eventually settled in Portland,
Oregon where he had 10 children. They also had a relative
in Minnesota. Great-grandfather moved back to Croatia.
Stanko married Croatian American Anna Mihalic and they had
4 children (including Nick Sr., father of the coach).
Stanko worked at Carolina Coalmine in Carolina, West
Virginia. After 57 years he went back to visit Croatia in
1955. He died at the age of 76 in 1971.
Congratulations to Nick Saban (second generation Croatian
American) and his LSU Tigers on winning Sugar Bowl and
College Football 2004 BCS “Bowl Championship Series”
