![]() ![]() Simpson's record-breaking, 2,003-yard rushing season in 1973 and getting the Bills to the playoffs the next season. Six years later, at the urging of Steinbrenner, Wilson rehired Saban, and he again was successful, overseeing O.J. He quit for a job with the Broncos because of difficulties with owner Ralph Wilson. Saban joined the Patriots in 1960 and left for the Bills in 1962, guiding them to AFL championships in 19, the only titles the Bills have ever won. It included stops with the Boston Patriots and Buffalo Bills of the American Football League and Denver Broncos and Bills after the AFL merged with the NFL in 1970, along with college jobs at the University of Miami, Army, Northwestern and Maryland. Five years later, he took over at Northwestern for two years, then moved to Western Illinois before embarking on an unmatched coaching career. ![]() In 1950, Saban accepted the first of his many head coaching positions - at Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland. He became a star quarterback and linebacker at Indiana and an all-league linebacker for the Cleveland Browns from 1946-49. Louis Henry Saban, a son of Yugoslav immigrants, was born in Brookfield, Ill., in 1921, was an underground construction worker during the building of the Chicago subways and a 1940 graduate of Lyons Township High School. "He has been my friend and mentor for over 50 years, and one of the people who helped shape my life," Steinbrenner, who was receivers coach under Saban at Northwestern University in 1955, said in a statement. Among those jobs was president of the New York Yankees from 1981-82 for his longtime friend, team owner George Steinbrenner. There was a reason Saban was dubbed "Much Traveled Lou." In the first 33 years of a career that spanned five decades, Saban held 18 jobs, an average of 1.83 years per stop. He had heart problems for years and recently suffered a fall that required hospitalization, his wife, Joyce, said. Nobody has ever done it quite like Lou Saban, who died early yesterday at his home in North Myrtle Beach, S.C., at age 87. He was a star football player in college, a champion pro football coach, a baseball president, a man with a short temper and very long resume, never averse to tackling something new. ![]()
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