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Today in Patriots History
Lou Saban
Lou Saban
February 8, 1960:
The Boston Patriots hire Lou Saban as the franchise's first head coach.
But it was the winter of 1960 when Mr. Saban, who had played football in college and then with the Cleveland Browns under the great Paul Brown, was picked by Ed McKeever and team owner Billy Sullivan to build the first Patriots team.
In a 1994 interview with Globe sportswriter Michael Madden, Mr. Saban recalled the obstacles he faced.
"The thing is, we started so late," he said. "We were the last team. All the good players were gone. . . . We had to take what was left over.
"We had tryouts in the city of Boston from one end to the other. We had bricklayers, we had carpenters, we had stoker men . . . you name it, we had it."
In time a team was formed, a hardworking one. But the Patriots went 5-9 for the season.
"We just never wanted to look bad," Mr. Saban recalled. "We wanted to show we could play so the NFL wouldn't make fun of us."
As his second season began, Mr. Saban was shoring up his defensive line, bringing in some talented young players, and just as "we were starting to have a team," he was fired, he told Madden. Sullivan replaced him with Mike Holovak, who went on to win seven games. "No hard feelings," Mr. Saban said. "Mr. Sullivan owned the team. He could do what he wants. I've always felt that way."
Mr. Saban, who was 95-99-7 in 16 seasons of pro football, was also president of the New York Yankees from 1981 to '82.
"He has been my friend and mentor for over 50 years, and one of the people who helped shape my life," Steinbrenner said yesterday in a statement.
Patriots chairman Robert Kraft also honored Mr. Saban yesterday.
"A part of his football legacy will forever be linked to many of the firsts in our franchise's history," Kraft said in a statement. "This season, we will be celebrating the Patriots' 50th anniversary and reflecting back on that inaugural season. It should give us all cause to appreciate Lou's many contributions during the Patriots' formative years."
If this was 1960, a packed Patriots training camp would have kicked off
The Patriots had 350 players attend their first training camp 57 years ago, one that began on July 4 and was part of a two-month preseason.
www.espn.com
As the Boston Globe noted about the Patriots’ opening of training camp in 1960, the franchise’s first in existence, “Coach Lou Saban will have 12 quarterbacks and eight centers report for physical examination before starting drills.” In all, 350 players eventually attended camp and the roster would ultimately be cut to 33.
The team’s first training camp was initially expected to be held at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, but a switch was made to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. After the first day of practice, on July 4, a cookout was hosted by the town of Amherst as a welcome gesture for everyone at camp.
Joe Biscaha – SportsLifer's Weblog
Posts about Joe Biscaha written by SportsLifer
sportslifer.wordpress.com
Biscaha failed to make the Giants roster in 1960. He was substitute teaching and making about $100 a week when the Boston (now New England) Patriots of the AFL offered him $4,500 for the last month and a half of the season. So Joe played for that first Patriots team in the AFL’s inaugural season, calling the Kenmore Station Hotel on Commonwealth Avenue home.
“The head coach was Lou Saban, a former Cleveland Brown, who seemed to have been influenced in the ‘General George Patton mentality,'” Biscaha recalled, “while my position coach was Mike Holovak, a likable gentleman from the Boston College coaching background. It seemed like most of the players were from a Boston College or Syracuse (1959 championship team) playing pedigree.
Well-traveled coach Lou Saban dies at age 87
Lou Saban, the well-traveled coach whose NFL and college careers spanned five decades and dozens of jobs, has died. He was 87.
www.espn.com
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. Among those jobs was president of the New York Yankees from 1981-82 for his longtime friend, team owner George Steinbrenner.
"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.
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 became a star quarterback and linebacker at Indiana University and an all-league linebacker for the Cleveland Browns from 1946-49.
After quitting the Bills midseason in 1976, Saban spent two years as athletic director at Miami, where he recruited future Buffalo quarterback Jim Kelly.
He earned his peripatetic nickname as he skipped from job to job, coaching Army in 1979 and then becoming athletic director at Miami. Among the entries on his resume -- AD at the University of Cincinnati -- for 19 days. Saban left that job at halftime of an early-season game against Ohio University.
Saban also coached at Central Florida in 1983-84 when it was a struggling Division II school and coached high schools in the late 1980s and in the Arena Football League in 1994.
Very lengthy bio on Lou Saban here:
The Lou Saban Story -- Bills Thunder
Lou Saban Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Draft, College | Pro-Football-Reference.com
Checkout the latest stats for Lou Saban. Get info about his position, age, height, weight, college, draft, and more on Pro-football-reference.com.
www.pro-football-reference.com
Boston Patriots 1960
29:27 Highlight Video
