“It was about waking up and being happy,” says Robert Saleh about his transition from banking to football. The 49ers coach made this major career change after his brother’s close brush with tragedy: he was in one of the Twin Towers affected on 9/11.
He kept banking as a backup option, if in the course of five years his football career didn’t pan out. Although his start was less than glamorous, with a salary of $750 a month as a graduate assistant, he is now the defensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers, the 16th most valuable sports team in the world.
Robert Saleh turns finance into football
Saleh wants his story to push others to consider their dreams. Though he felt comfortable in finance, the risk of following something he loved paid off.
“If it can change one life, then that’s awesome,” says Saleh. “Just to get people thinking outside of the box of what they’re actually capable of.” As a Lebanese-American, Saleh is one of the first coordinators of Arab ancestry in the NFL. A football star in his local high school, Saleh also played in Division II for Northern Michigan.
When he made the change, he had a few stints as coach, in some form or another, at Central Michigan University, the Georgia Bulldogs, Jackson Jaguars, and the Seattle Seahawks. Finally, Saleh joined the 49-ers in 2017 and has stayed with them since. While with the Seahawks, he won a Super Bowl Ring as a defensive quality control coach in 2014, and managed to help bring the 49-ers back up in the ranks despite multiple seasons riddled with injury and player exchanges.
As a coach, Saleh is known as “Captain Positivity,” reports the NFL. “When you look at these guys, they’re all men, and they all want to be treated with respect,” Saleh explains. “You expect them to treat you with respect as a coach. Well, you should be able to reciprocate that to the player.”
He lives that philosophy. Cornerback Richard Sherman tells The Washington Post that, “he talks to you in a reasonable way that still holds you accountable…to the team but that doesn’t demean you.”
A football family
“When you look at where I am from – Dearborn, Michigan, which has the largest Middle Eastern population outside of the Middle East – we’re Arab Americans trying to assimilate within the culture of this country while, at the same time, maintaining the values that make up Middle Easterners,” explains Saleh. “In Dearborn, that includes football,” he tells the NFL.
Saleh followed in his father’s footsteps when he pursued a football career. His father, Sam Saleh, chose business over football, a decision similar to that which Saleh himself faced. A knee injury cut Sam’s career short despite his football scholarship at Eastern Michigan and a short time spent with the Bears. David, Saleh’s brother, first suggested that Saleh contact their high school’s coach to get an in into the world of pro football.
Saleh lives with his wife Sanaa and their six children, four sons and two daughters.
Robert Saleh takes a contented career approach
Although he has been with the 49-ers for three years now, Saleh was in the running to be the head coach of the Cleveland Browns. Although the position didn’t pan out, Saleh doesn’t seem to be mourning it.
“It was a learning experience for me,” he says. “Yeah, you always go in and think you might do something different. But to be honest with you, I think the way Cleveland went about their hiring process, they did such a good job of being thorough and making sure they crossed all their T’s, dotted all their I’s.”
As a coach, Saleh lives by the following philosophy: “a commitment to consistently execute the details required to compete at my greatest level; with loyalty and conviction.”
“Robert came in and opened our minds up to some of the things that we could do,” says Gus Bradley, Saleh’s former boss with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Meticulous and kind, Saleh has built himself a reputation as a gentle giant not only with his team, but with the NFL at large.
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