Jets Hire Robert Saleh of the 49ers as Head Coach

Even though that moment inspired Robert Saleh to start coaching, it increased vitriol and violence directed at Arab Americans and Muslim people in the United States, a backlash exacerbated by the Trump administration’s effort to bar immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries in 2017.

Matthew Jaber Stiffler, who leads research at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, said that where Saleh grew up, about 95 percent of the high school students were Muslim Arab Americans and that the city itself was almost 60 percent Arab American. Dearborn residents are often the subject of discrimination online, he said.

With Saleh’s hiring, the history of Lebanese Americans coaching in the N.F.L. comes full circle to the Jets. Abe Gibron coached the Chicago Bears in the early 1970s. Most recently, Rich Kotite coached the Philadelphia Eagles and then the Jets, quitting after a disastrous one-win season in 1996.

But many Lebanese Americans who are Christian do not identify as Arab, Stiffler said. Joe Horrigan, a former executive director and historian at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, could not recall any head coaches before Saleh identifying as a Muslim and Arab; neither could Stiffler.

“To have somebody in a visible position, who is proudly Arab, proudly Muslim — but that also he’s just a football coach too, when it comes down to it — it helps to just normalize the experience of Muslim Americans,” he said of Saleh.

In 2002, Saleh went back to school to earn a degree in kinesiology from Michigan State and serve as a defensive assistant. He later had assistant roles at Central Michigan and at Georgia.

His first N.F.L. role came in 2005 with the Houston Texans as an intern, working with Shanahan, who was hired originally as a wide receivers coach in 2006. Saleh worked with the Seahawks as a defensive quality control coach for three seasons, then spent three seasons as the Jaguars’ linebackers coach before Shanahan took him to San Francisco in 2017 as his defensive coordinator.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/sports/football/jets-robert-saleh.html