Donald Trump mistakenly calls Nick Saban ‘Lou’ repeatedly while endorsing Tommy Tuberville
President Donald Trump again endorsed former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville on Monday night ahead of Tuesday’s special runoff election in Alabama.
In doing so, however, he may have severely offended every single Crimson Tide fan in the state.
Trump, attempting to praise Alabama coach Nick Saban, repeatedly called him “Lou Saban” instead.
“Really successful coach,” Trump said about Tuberville on a conference call, via Alabama.com. “Beat Alabama, like six in a row, but we won’t even mention that. As he said … because of that, maybe we got ’em Lou Saban … And he’s great, Lou Saban, what a great job he’s done.”
Now, Lou Saban was a longtime college and NFL coach. He wasn’t anywhere near as successful as Nick Saban, however.
In fact, far from it.
Lou Saban coached professional football from 1960-76, both in the NFL and the AFL for the Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills and Denver Broncos, finishing with a 95-97-7 overall record. He compiled a 94-99-4 record as a college coach, too though was constantly jumping from job to job — having spent time at 10 different schools, including Northwestern, Miami, Army, Central Florida and Maryland.
Lou Saban also served briefly as president of the New York Yankees, and was the athletic director at Cincinnati — though he held that post for only 19 days. He died in 2009 at 87.
Nick Saban, on the other hand, has compiled a tremendous 248-65-1 record in his 24 years at the collegiate level and turned Alabama football into a national powerhouse in the process.
Trump has been to multiple Alabama games while in the White House. He attended the 2018 national championship game when Alabama beat Georgia, and he showed up for their game against LSU in Tuscaloosa last fall. Saban also met Trump to celebrate the 2018 national title in Washington, D.C., too.
Tuberville — who coached at Auburn from 1999-2008 — will square off against longtime senator and former attorney general Jeff Sessions in a runoff election Tuesday. The winner will then square off against Sen. Doug Jones (D-Al.) in November.
Knowing how passionate Alabama fans are, they’re sure to be at least a little upset when the coach who won them five national championships and built arguably the best dynasty the sport has ever seen is disrespected that way.
Whether that translates into Tuesday’s special election, however, remains to be seen.
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