Robert Saleh is far More Than the First Muslim Coach in the NFL

SPORTS Robert Saleh is far More Than the First Muslim Coach in the NFL

The New York Jets coach is a role model who embodies the working-class and perseverant spirit

BY KHALED A. BEYDOUN

Robert Saleh is a pioneer. After signing a five-year contract with the New York Jets on Jan. 19, he became the NFL’s first Muslim American head coach. A milestone moment for a nation marred by renewed racial reckoning, and a league beleaguered by its own turbulence.

But before Saleh became a pioneer, he was a Tractor. He is a native of Dearborn, Michigan’s eastside, a blue-collar community on the margins of Detroit and the sidelines of economic anxiety. A place where Arab refugees fled war and found stability around auto factory assembly lines, raising daughters and sons in a land that didn’t always love them. A town where hard knocks and Friday night lights are not gridiron fiction, but the real-time sights of a football-obsessed community.

To be clear, East Dearborn is an Arab American football-obsessed community. Where young boys from Iraq, Yemen, Palestine and Saleh’s native Lebanon proudly don the working-class blue on the gridiron for the Fordson Tractors, from a high school in the heart of the Midwest that houses dreams of youths with roots in the Mideast. This is the high school Saleh attended that fueled his signature fire and everyman charisma. Fordson High School, which has a 95% Arab student body, welded the grit

IT HAS BEEN SO INSPIRING TO SEE A MUSLIM WHOSE FAMILY IS ORIGINALLY FROM SOUTHERN LEBANON, COACHING MY TEAM AT SUCH AN ELITE

LEVEL. I’LL BE ROOTING HIM ON WITH THE JETS

AND I EXPECT PLENTY OF OTHER ARABS AND MUSLIMS WILL, TOO.” — AHMAD ABUZNAID, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST

that shot Saleh to the top of the NFL’s coaching ranks. I witnessed this firsthand, as Saleh’s childhood friend and Fordson High classmate.

So did Abed Ayoub, the legal and policy director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee who grew up blocks away from Saleh in Dearborn. Minutes after the Jets announced Saleh’s hiring, Ayoub said, “This is huge. It only makes sense that Robert was the man who made history. He’s a natural-born leader who just happens to love football. He leads from the ground up, shoulder to shoulder with his men. That humility is what sets him apart, and what makes him an embodiment of our working-class Arab American community.”

Ayoub’s perspective is fitting, given that Saleh worked his way up from the lowest rungs of coaching to become Saleh speaks at his alma mater, Fordson High. the first Muslim coach in the NFL. He started from the bottom. Beyond the bottom. brought in to serve as the quality-control Entirely out of football after playing at coach for Gary Kubiak’s defense. Saleh’s Northern Michigan University, another New enthusiasm captured the hearts of his playYork story – on Sept. 11, 2001 — changed ers while his intellect won over the coachhis professional course. And like millions ing staff, opening the doors for other NFL of Muslim Americans, the era that followed opportunities — doors that led to a Super would forever change his life. Bowl ring with the Seattle Seahawks in 2013

On the morning of 9/11, Robert’s older and a high-profile defensive coordinator brother David reported to the 61st floor of position with the San Francisco 49ers, where the South Tower of the World Trade Center. his stalwart defense led the storied franchise When David Saleh heard the explosion and to the Super Bowl in 2019. learned that a “bomb had gone off” in the Saleh became a hot coaching prospect nearby North Tower, he ran down the 61 with the 49ers, earning the love of fans and flights in between frantic crowds who did not his players. Richard Sherman, the star coryet know the scale of the incident. Moments nerback for the 49ers who played under later, a plane flew into the South Tower. But Saleh, praised the next Jets coach as “a great David, an investor with a larger-than-life leader of men.” Ahmad Abuznaid, a civil sense of humor, made it out alive. rights activist and die-hard 49ers fan, said, “It

“Nothing was guaranteed after that,” he has been so inspiring to see a Muslim whose reflected, “and every day that came after was family is originally from southern Lebanon a blessing from above.” coaching my team at such an elite level. I’ll

The incident highlighted the precarity be rooting him on with the Jets and I expect of life for Saleh and the urgency of each plenty of other Arabs and Muslims will, too.” moment. While racism and racial profiling Saleh’s impact will be far bigger than descended upon his largely Arab and Muslim football. As the first Muslim American head community, Saleh was not frightened. He coach in the NFL, and a minority coach in a found courage in the resolve of his family profession dominated by white men, all eyes and community and marched toward his will instantly be on him. But the pressure NFL dreams. If not now, then when? in the NFL’s biggest media market will be

Saleh left his comfortable office job in countered by the affection from those in Michigan for a graduate assistant position his hometown, and millions beyond, who at nearby Michigan State, followed by stints look up to Saleh. at Central Michigan and the University of “Kids, especially our students, need to Georgia. His first NFL break came with see themselves in successful people. He is the Houston Texans in 2005, where he was a ‘possibility model’ for Arab and Muslim youth, a graduate of our high school that walked through these very halls and sat in these very classrooms. He opens up entire worlds of possibilities for our students,” said Zeinab Chami, an English teacher at Fordson High School. Mike

Ayoub, a leading real estate agent and friend of Saleh’s, echoed, “The message this sends to our kids is immeasurable.

Any cliché you want to use fits.” Being the first comes with its distinct set of challenges. Particularly in the NFL — and the league’s biggest media market no less. But Saleh will learn from the trails the first Black quarterback or the first Latino head coach had to blaze. In a nation grappling with trumped-up Islamophobia and white supremacy, Saleh stands on the shoulders of Black and brown giants who opened the way for him to land an NFL head-coaching job. On football Sundays, millions of Muslims will stand alongside Saleh, cheering on a man who embodies the best of who we are. Particularly those of us raised in the shadow of factory towns, reared by parents who deferred their dreams so that their children could pursue their own.

Saleh is the NFL’s first Muslim American head coach. That, particularly in today’s America, is a milestone worth celebrating. However, the native son of an immigrant, blue-collar town is far more than that. The Jets will find out for themselves very soon. ih

Khaled A. Beydoun, a Detroit native, is a law professor at Wayne State University and a Scholar-in Residence at Harvard University’s Initiative for a Representative First Amendment.

[Editor’s Note: Reprinted with the author’s permission. Originally published at https:// theundefeated.com/features/robert-saleh-isfar-more-than-the-first-muslim-coach-in-the-nfl/]