Nick Saban Shares Youngstown Connection with Stoops Family

You can’t tell the story of college football without Nick Saban and the Stoops family. Long before they were competing for National Championships, Saban was a Michigan State assistant tasked to recruit the rust belt. Throughout his many recruiting trips to Youngstown to recruit the Stoops brothers — Bob, Mike and Mark — he cultivated a relationship with the older generation of the family. That relationship between the two families remains strong 40 years later ahead of Alabama‘s trip to Kentucky.

“Uncle Bob Stoops was a high school coach in Youngstown at Cardinal Mooney High School. He was the defensive coordinator and a dear friend of mine,” Saban said on his weekly coach’s show.

“And Mark and all of the Stoops brothers that coach, Mike who coached here, their dad was a defensive coordinator. And actually, had a heart attack and passed [away] on the sidelines during a game years ago, but was a dear friend,” Saban continued.

“And each one of these Stoops guys, I recruited when they were in high school. So, I have a special relationship with the family, Uncle Bob. Tremendous amount of respect for all they’ve done for college football and what a great job they’ve done coaching wherever they’ve been,” Saban said.

Saban never was able to convince the Stoops brothers to join him in East Lansing, opting instead to attend Iowa. Since they didn’t join them, he beat them. Saban is 3-0 against Mark’s Wildcats and 1-1 against Bob’s Sooners, splitting Orange Bowl games as the LSU and Alabama head coach.

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Saban Missed a Robbery with a Stoops

Last night’s remarks provide an excellent excuse to relive the best Nick Saban story the Hall of Famer has ever told. Saban’s attention to detail and drive make him the best that’s ever done it. It also gave him tunnel vision during one recruiting trip to Youngstown in the 80s.

The Michigan State assistant typically had a few hours to pass the time in the afternoon before conducting in-home visits. Many of those afternoons were spent with Mark’s Uncle Bob, who at the time coached Youngstown South High School. Instead of playing cards in his office, on one fateful afternoon they went to a local watering hole, “Talk of the Town.” I’ll let Uncle Bob tell the rest of the story.

“I do remember,” Uncle Bob shared with The Oklahoman last year. “Oh geez, telling that story, you wonder if anyone thinks you’re BS-ing. ‘He’s embellishing that.’ Nope.

“We were in this bar, just talking football. We were moving salt shakers, anything we could grab, talking football. I remember vividly, there was a guy across from us, it was a snakelike bar, and the guy gets this glass, he smashes it on the ground. I happened to be looking over that way, all of a sudden, I see him smash that, and he was really mad. 

“I said, ‘Hey, buddy, is something wrong?’ 

“He said, ‘Hey, you (expletive), we just got robbed!’ 

“I’m like, ‘You’re blanking me.’ 

“He goes, ‘No, they had a shotgun pointed right at you two blank-holes.’” 

Once the police arrived about a half-hour later, the bartender told the cops not to bother interviewing Saban and Uncle Bob. They had no idea what happened.

“I didn’t believe it,” Uncle Bob said of the robbery. “I had to come home and read the newspapers. Sure enough, it was in the paper the next day. It was crazy.” 

Forty years later, it’s still one of the craziest stories you’ll ever hear about the greatest college football coach of all time.