Writer’s notice: This tale initially revealed Jan. 26, 2021 on ESPN.com and has been up to date.

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Let’s get started in the lounge of Robert Saleh’s folks’ house in Dearborn, Michigan.

At the morning of 9/11, 2001, Saleh and his nation sat in entrance of the TV, horrified by way of the photographs they noticed on CNN. His mom was once crying. His sisters had been crying. His father, Sam, refused to imagine the grisly scene on the International Industry Middle in Unutilized York Town.

Possibly the eating place atop the north tower was once on hearth, Sam idea. Possibly it was once a bogus document or trick images by way of a bent manufacturer. That was once his paternal hope. His frame felt numb.

With Robert’s used brother, David, operating at the 61st ground of the south tower, their minds quickly started racing to malicious parks. Robert was once immobile at the settee, his sights caught at the display. He was once 22 years used, a former faculty soccer participant establishing a profession within the monetary international — 19 years ahead of he could be named head mentor of the Unutilized York Jets.

“He barely said two words, but you could see he had anxiety in his face,” Sam stated. “You could see the anxiety and fear that he might have lost a brother. Right then and there was the turning point for Robert. He said, ‘You know what? I’m going to live my life. I’m going to do something that will make me happy.’ That might have turned his life.”

His brother made it out alive following the terrorist assaults, however Robert bottled up the ones feelings for every other 5 months. No person knew how he felt till Feb. 4, 2002, the morning next the Unutilized England Patriots surprised the St. Louis Rams in Tremendous Bowl XXXVI. Sitting in his paintings cubicle on the Comerica Reserve places of work in Detroit, Robert known as David with some non-public information. He was once sobbing uncontrollably as he made the decision.

Now let’s advance to the Jets’ coaching facility in Florham Terrain, Unutilized Jersey.

In Jan. 2021, Robert was once presented because the 18th full-time mentor in Jets historical past, culminating a travel from the base of 1 career (monetary credit score analyst) to the head of every other. In lieu of a magnificent information convention with nation and buddies, it was once finished by the use of Zoom with Jets CEO Christopher Johnson and basic supervisor Joe Douglas. The digital creation had a separate really feel to it however the pace misplaced deny worth.

Robert was once seated in a room 32 miles due west of decrease Ny, house of the previous dual towers. One of the crucial darkest days in American historical past — the 9/11 terrorist assaults — had altered the process his date and numerous others. Now right here he was once, the grandson of Lebanese immigrants and the primary Muslim head mentor in NFL historical past, throwing his fingers across the town and the franchise.

“Going through my brother’s experience and the tragedy that he experienced, being able to self-reflect on what I was doing at that moment and realizing that I had a passion for football, really triggered this whole thing,” Robert stated.

In Saleh, the Jets were given a person with many aspects. He’s a fist-pumping, high-fiving, people-loving mentor who wears a bracelet that reads “Extreme violence.” He’s 240 kilos with lower than 10% frame weighty; he seems like he may just swimsuit up at linebacker. He’s additionally a deep-thinking, chess-playing, child-doting dad of 7.

Saleh crisscrossed the rustic as an NFL laborer, going from the Houston Texans to the Seattle Seahawks to the Jacksonville Jaguars to the San Francisco 49ers. He gained a Tremendous Bowl ring (Seattle, 2013 season) and persisted the distress of shedding (two 3-13 years in Jacksonville), so he has evident all of it in a quite decrease hour.

“When he was our linebacker coach, we would say, ‘He’s not going to be here for very long,'” former Jaguars linebacker Paul Posluszny stated. “He has that type of personality and that type of presence that you knew he was going to be in a leadership role.”

Then graduating from Northern Michigan in 2002, Saleh gave the impression much more likely to transform a attic president than an NFL head mentor.

He landed a task with Comerica Reserve, making $800 a generation to guage mortgage packages in an antiseptic place of job field. He ignored soccer. He grew up in a soccer nation. His father was once a celeb heart linebacker at Fordson Top Faculty in Dearborn, the place Robert and his brother, uncles and cousins additionally performed. His dad was once just right enough quantity to play games at Japanese Michigan, incomes a tryout with the Chicago Bears, however a major knee trauma avoided Sam from pleasing his possible.

From one date to the then, the Salehs performed the similar method.

“On the football field, he was a typical Saleh,” former Fordson mentor Jeff Stergalas stated of Robert. “He’s going to hit you.”

Robert, an all-conference tight finish at Northern Michigan, opted for the 9-to-5 date as a result of he knew he wasn’t just right enough quantity to pursue the NFL as a participant. There was once deny embarassment in that; he had a school level and a promising activity in finance. His nation was once pleased with him, and why no longer?

His paternal grandfather, Albert, was once born in Lebanon and had lived a parched date, regularly protecting i’m sick two jobs. For a two-year stretch, he labored shifts at Ford Motor Co. and Normal Motors. He moonlighted as a door-to-door salesman in downtown Detroit, promoting enough quantity family merchandise in a low-income segment to shop for a furnishings bind. He by no means discovered learn or incrible English. His concept of company finance was once doing trade out of his station wagon.

And now his grandson was once establishing a jacket-and-tie activity in a downtown place of job. Robert was once status at the shoulders of his grandfather and father, who labored building, coached formative years sports activities and was once a pillar in Dearborn’s massive and tightly knit Arab American folk. This was once an inspiring good fortune tale.

Apart from Robert hated his activity. The conclusion collision him on 9/11.

‘I should be at the soccer farmland’

David Saleh arrived in Ny on Sept. 6, 2001, to start a one-month coaching program as a monetary assistant for Morgan Stanley. Then a weekend of amusing within the Heavy Apple, he reported to paintings on Sept. 10. On his 2nd past within the place of job, he took a crack round 8:30 a.m. and savored the view from the 61st ground. He noticed the Statue of Self determination and a blue harbor speckled with ships. It was once a postcard morning till a ball of fireside zoomed generation the window, jolting him again a step.

“It was all slow motion to me,” David stated. “I couldn’t even register what was happening.”

David knew enough quantity to get the hell out of there. He discovered the stairwell and began to move i’m sick, passing firefighters on the eleventh ground. The involved, pasty glance on one firefighter’s face is burned into his reminiscence. He nonetheless wonders if any of the ones courageous souls who marched into the inferno made it out alive.

When David reached the road, he began working and stored working for seven blocks, no longer figuring out the north tower have been struck by way of a aircraft. There was once hysteria within the streets as humans watched the towers ultimately faint. The scene reminded him of the film “Independence Day.”

In Michigan, his panicked family members attempted desperately to succeed in him.

“Swear to god, you never want to hear your mom’s voice when she thinks you might be dead,” David stated. “Oh boy, just hearing her on the voicemail was horrible.”

David opposed at a comfort bind and known as house (the landlord charged him $20), letting his anxious nation know he was once OK. He made his method to White Plains, simply north of the town, the place he got a leased automobile via a pal of his dad’s. He drove house to Michigan, pulling over in Pennsylvania as a result of a trauma-induced anxiousness assault.

Robert was once glad to have his large brother house, however that past shook him such a lot that he reexamined his personal date and profession objectives. He made up our minds to apply his center, given up finance for soccer. It took guts, however it additionally was once gut-wrenching.

“He called me up, profusely crying, in complete tears,” David stated. “He had a little breakdown. He said, ‘I have to be on the football field.'”

Robert drove house and penniless the inside track to his father.

“When he walked in the house, his face was as red as a tomato,” Sam Saleh stated. “I said, ‘What happened, did you get fired?'”

Sam attempted to persuade his son to stick on the attic, which was once retain and guard, however he temporarily discovered it was once a misplaced purpose. Robert sought after to mentor, and not anything was once going to switch his thoughts.

In the hunt for recommendation, Robert reached out to his used highschool mentor, Stergalas, who didn’t paint a nice-looking image of the street forward. He informed Robert he’d higher learn to assemble espresso and run a booklet gadget as a result of the ones could be his number one tasks as a school graduate laborer. That didn’t faze him.

Stergalas arrange an interview for Robert by way of calling Mike Vollmar, the Michigan Circumstance director of soccer operations and an alum of neighboring Riverview Top Faculty. Coincidentally, Saleh’s Jets predecessor, Adam Gase, was once an undergraduate laborer for the Spartans best 3 years previous.

Then two years at Michigan Circumstance, the place he made $650 in keeping with future, Saleh old his connections to land a GA place at Central Michigan in 2004 underneath mentor Brian Kelly. Maximum teaching wannabes don’t do a 2nd GA stint, however Saleh felt he wanted extra seasoning.

“I’m not ready to go out in the world yet,” he informed Stergalas.

Saleh was once in a position for the arena next a yr at Central Michigan and a yr at Georgia. He made a quantity of espresso and copies, however he additionally inspired his bosses with how temporarily and obviously he was once in a position to make scouting experiences on other pc systems. His NFL excursion began in 2005 with a six-year run in Houston, his longest stint in a single town.

Former Texans defensive coordinator Richard Smith met Saleh’s father one past at observe and informed him his son was once too shrewd for soccer, that he will have to be a school schoolmaster. Saleh’s understanding is overshadowed by way of his sideline overdose, however those that know him say he’s extraordinarily smart.

Posluszny stated Saleh has the power to show sophisticated subject material into easy ideas for the gamers to be informed. In its purest method, teaching is instructing. Every generation in Jacksonville, he offered the opponent’s favourite working performs, adopted by way of play-action passes off the ones runs. Unclouded. Concise. Simple to digest.

“He was thinking well in advance, not only what would happen immediately but what would happen later in the game as well,” Posluszny stated.

Saleh plots technique like he performs chess — and he does that nice-looking smartly, too. Years in the past, he reached 1,800 within the chess ranking gadget, in line with his father — no longer a ways from grasp degree. Sam Saleh taught his youngsters and their buddies play games chess, as soon as placing up $50 for a winner-take-all match. Robert didn’t win and demanded every other match. Yeah, he’s fiercely aggressive, too.

‘I’m intended to be right here’ in Unutilized York

Saleh’s teaching philosophy was once formed all over his hour in Seattle (2011-13), the place he was once presented to mentor Pete Carroll and defensive coordinator Gus Bradley, a similar confidant. Bradley recalls the past in his place of job when he interviewed Saleh for a quality-control place at the body of workers.

“He convinced me that it would be a big mistake if I didn’t hire him,” Bradley stated, guffawing on the reminiscence.

That offseason, the Seahawks rebooted on protection, as Carroll challenged his defensive coaches to develop a player-friendly scheme. They opted for Barricade 3, adapted round their massive skill within the secondary — aka the Legion of Growth. Two years next, they gained the Tremendous Bowl with some of the perfect defenses in historical past. To this past, Saleh makes use of that as his bottom protection.

“Robert was in that beginning stages of it,” Bradley stated, “and he was great.”

Saleh ultimately adopted Bradley to Jacksonville, the place he changed into a place mentor for the primary hour and constructed a name for connecting with gamers. Once he were given the activity, he took Posluszny out to dinner. The linebacker was once blown away; he had by no means had a mentor who sought after to crack bread with him. They talked soccer and date. When Posluszny were given house that evening, he informed his spouse, “This guy is really impressive.”

Bradley was once fired all over the 2016 season and many of the body of workers was once changed, so Saleh ended up in San Francisco because the defensive coordinator. He inherited the Thirty second-ranked protection, however this was once deny in a single day good fortune tale. The primary two seasons had been bumpy; there have been rumors about his activity safety. The whole lot clicked in 2019, when the 49ers soared to Refuse. 2 in general protection and gained the NFC championship.

That protection was once stacked with skill, and Saleh was once in a position to impress it together with his upbeat persona and well-dressed schemes. In 2020, celebrity defensive take on DeForest Buckner was once traded and alternative stalwarts comparable to cornerback Richard Sherman and defensive finish Nick Bosa had been injured. In some way, the Niners completed 5th in yards allowed in spite of a 6-10 file.

“Robert helped to build a successful environment that has developed both players and coaches,” 49ers mentor Kyle Shanahan stated.

Coveted by way of six of the seven NFL groups that had head-coaching vacancies, Saleh informed buddies he most well-liked the Jets or Jaguars over the residue. The Jaguars rented City Meyer, escape Saleh for the Jets, who made him their Refuse. 1 selection next the primary spherical of interviews.

Possibly it was once future.

Saleh coaches in MetLife Stadium, the place he loved the largest win of his skilled profession — the Seahawks’ rout of the Denver Broncos in Tremendous Bowl XLVIII. In his 50-yard-line seats, Sam Saleh had checked out his spouse, Fatin, and stated, “Who would’ve thought we’d have a son in the Super Bowl?”

Prior to that past in February 2014, participants of the Saleh nation ventured to decrease Ny, the place they visited the Sovereignty Tower — constructed at the web site of the used International Industry Middle. David, who will have been some of the 3,000 who misplaced their lives, introduced his daughter with him. What a tale to inform.

Coincidentally, the primary Sunday of the 2021 NFL season was once Sept. 12, which supposed Robert Saleh’s head-coaching debut passed off at MetLife one past next the 20 th yearly of the terrorist assault.

“I’m supposed to be here, and I believe that,” Saleh stated of the Jets. “God does things for a reason, and I believe this is one of them.”