Former Husky Got Spartans’ Coach Started

(From Replay, December 24, 1997): Michigan State assistant football coach Nick Saban was misidentified in a photo caption Tuesday.

Coach football?

The thought hadn’t crossed Nick Saban’s mind.

Heck, he still figured he had a career as a baseball player ahead of him.

But the coach was persistent, and Saban’s wife thought it might be a good idea to look at a realistic future rather than a pipe dream.

So Saban told Don James that yes, he’d go ahead and help coach the Kent State football team that spring of 1973, and say goodbye to his football and baseball playing days.

“My wife (Terry) had another year of school, anyway, and I thought it might not be a bad idea to get a master’s degree and help out coaching a little bit,” Saban said. “I really didn’t know if I wanted to be a coach, but after that year I knew it was something I enjoyed, that it was something that didn’t seem like going to work.”

Saban is now 46 and the coach at Michigan State, which will play the University of Washington on Christmas Day in the Aloha Bowl.

But he still carries with him many of the coaching philosophies he learned in four years of playing or coaching for James, who left Kent State in 1975 to become the coach at Washington before retiring prior to the 1993 season.

Saban still talks to James occasionally, and said the former UW coach was often instrumental in helping him get jobs early in his career.

James, likewise, has always credited Saban with helping turn his Kent days into a success.

James took over at Kent State in 1971, mere months after the infamous May 4, 1970 shootings of four students by the National Guard that left the entire university in shambles, let alone a football program with a long history of losing.

“He took over one of the worst situations in the history of college football,” said Saban, a shortstop on the baseball team. “There were a lot of guys who quit.”

But Saban, a tough-nosed defensive back, who had grown up in Fairmont, W.V., didn’t, and - along with a budding linebacker named Jack Lambert - helped James engineer a turnaround that got the team into its first bowl game in 1972.

“He was a tough player, like Lambert,” James said. “He went through more of it (the problems associated with the shootings) than I did. It was all over when I got there. The tough part was … recruiting kids that might even think that Kent State was a place to go.”

Saban stayed at Kent State two years after James left, becoming linebacker coach in 1975 - his first full-time coaching job.

“It was a difficult initial transition after Don left and I started working for other people because he was so organized and so systematic and so first-class in everything that he did,” Saban said. “I just assumed it was that way everywhere that I’d go.”

Saban left Kent State after the 1976 season and began a cross-country odyssey typical of football coaches working their way up the ladder.

Spartans lose tight end

Three days before the Aloha Bowl, Michigan State has lost its starting tight end.

Josh Keur, a second-team All-Big Ten player, ruptured his left Achilles tendon shortly before the conclusion of a workout Sunday.

“It’s unfortunate,” coach Nick Saban said. “It is especially unfortunate when you consider that we were five plays from the end of practice and all Josh was doing was going in motion.

“His Achilles tendon had been bothering him all season and it just gave way.”

Keur finished the regular season third in receiving with 34 catches for 355 yards.

Kyle Rance, who caught five passes for 62 yards during the regular season, will start against Washington in the Christmas Day game.

Pulling in

Saban ordered Michigan State’s workouts today and Wednesday closed and No. 21 Washington set player curfews starting Monday.

At least one player also showed signs of edginess, saying he wanted to start hitting players other than his teammates.

Michigan State running back Marc Renaud said, “We’ve been going after each other. Now, we want to get at it. We want to get that eighth win.”

Heat? No sweat

Offensive tackle David Mudge said the Spartans have adjusted to the heat and are close to being primed for the game.

“This year, the guys are actually looking forward to practice. The first thing they think about when they get up is to think about football.

“In the past, we’ve gotten up groggy from staying up late and just tried to get through practice. We’d be focused for a while. But this time, we want to get it all done.”

So do the Huskies.

“The kids have stepped up the tempo,” said Washington linebacker coach Dick Baird. “They’re really getting after it.”

Defensive end Chris Campbell, still trying to recover from an injury suffered during the season, said, “It’s a little harder for me, but it’s going good. I’m about 95 percent, but expect to be at 100 percent at game-time.

“We’re ready. We’ve got to get back on track and stop our three-game skid and get that eighth win.”

Both teams bring 7-4 records into the game.