Curt Cignetti’s Hoosier revolution began under Nick Saban. The seeds were sown in 1978 by his father’s call to Saban’s wife

By Dana O’Neil, CNN

(CNN) — Nick Saban wanted to change his job description. After three years coaching linebackers, he was eager to take over the secondary, where he’d played in college. He was not, however, so sure he wanted to change jobs.

It was 1978, and he’d spent the past season at Syracuse University. While the Orange’s 6-5 record didn’t necessarily reflect it, Saban was fairly certain the staff was onto something and he thought he ought to stick around.

So when Frank Cignetti, Sr., called to offer him a job coaching the defensive backs at West Virginia – a team Syracuse had beaten 28-9 in the last game of the season – Saban was tempted but not entirely sold. He didn’t know Cignetti personally and figured someone on his staff must have recommended him. Probably because of his West Virginia roots.

So Saban mulled the decision only to find it wasn’t his to make. Cignetti already had closed the deal.

Terry Constable and Nick Saban met as seventh graders in Fairmont, West Virginia. She’d gone with Nick to Kent State as an undergrad, the two marrying during the holiday break in 1971. She thought her husband was going into the car business like his father – the original plan was to go to General Motors school after graduation.

Instead, while Terry finished her coursework, Nick took a job as a graduate assistant on the football team. Two years later, the would-be holdover gig turned into a full career pivot, and Nick chased his coaching dream to Syracuse, the first step in what would invariably be a far more nomadic career than the car business for the Sabans.

And now here was Cignetti offering Terry an unbelievable gift – the chance to go home.

“Frank taught me to figure out who was the key in the recruiting process. Who’s going to have the most influence? He was a master at that,’’ Saban told CNN Sports. “And in my case, it was Miss Terry.”’

Nearly 50 years later, Curt Cignetti sat at a dais inside the College Football Hall of Fame, which counts both Frank Cignetti and Saban as members. He unspooled his own traveling football career, which covered six states and 10 schools, calling special attention to his three-year full-circle stop in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Curt says it was there, where the son of the man who hired Nick Saban in 1978 worked for Saban, that the seeds for Indiana’s improbable rise were sown.

Who knows? Maybe Saban gets to know Curt Cignetti through some other coaching channels. But when he did actually hire him in 2007, it was at least in part because Miss Terry wanted to move home and two men – one who taught Curt to work hard and the other who showed him how to do the hard work – met in West Virginia.

Learning from the Big Guy

In the hometown newspaper obituary that celebrates the life of Frank Cignetti, Sr., his football coaching career is told in only the broadest of strokes. How he was a highly successful and respected coach whose football family “grew by generations and to this day stands as a testament to his life’s work.’’

There is an acknowledgment that Frank was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, but no mention of the 180 wins that earned his place in the Hall or the field that bears his name at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP).

Instead, the obituary celebrates the life of a high school star athlete nicknamed “Hoopo” who grew into his adult moniker, “Big Guy.” It tells of a man of great integrity who cherished his family and his faith and felt enormous gratitude to the doctors and nurses who guided him through a near-death run-in with cancer so that he could inspire others and help.

Those who found their way to the Boylan Funeral Home memorial page to share their memories after Frank’s passing in 2022 told of his sage wisdom and unwavering loyalty. “Big Guy was a father to all of us players,’’ wrote Jai Hill, a two-time All-American at IUP, echoing the sentiments of many.

The youngest of six born to Italian immigrants who found their way to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1905, Frank was the typical straight and narrow blue-collar kid from Western Pennsylvania. Newspapers from his high school days are filled with his exploits at Washington Township High School and his talents spilled over to Indiana State Teachers College (now IUP) where he starred in football and basketball. His son, like the folks who remembered Frank after his passing, calls Frank a “role model,’’ who led by example.

He also likened him to John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, which just might be where Curt’s infamous stoicism comes from.

Father and son came at their coaching careers from different directions. Curt didn’t get a big-time job until he was 62; his pop was just 38 when he succeeded Bobby Bowden at West Virginia. Curt went to IUP as a stepping stone in his head-coaching career and then soared immediately when he finally got his big chance, taking a lifelong listless program to unprecedented new heights. Frank struggled at West Virginia, fired after his fourth season and then contentedly retreated and stayed at the Division III level, making his mark as a Hall of Famer there.

Yet Frank’s handprints are everywhere on his son’s career and his successes, even in the lessons hard learned.

‘I always knew I could coach’ begets ‘I win. Google me.’

Curt was just a kid when the family moved to Morgantown so Frank could become an assistant to Bowden. It was a young boy’s dream. The West Virginia football facilities were Curt’s playground, the Mountaineers were winning and as an assistant, Frank was not in the direct line of fire.

But things shifted when Bowden left. Frank inherited a program that lost 32 players to graduation and still had some shoddy facilities. By the time Saban arrived in year three, Frank had suffered back-to-back 5-6 seasons, West Virginia’s first losing records in 10 years. Fans were twitchy and the administration grew impatient.

At the end of that second year, in November 1978, Frank spiked a 103-degree fever for a month. By December he was admitted to the hospital for what would be a 39-day stay, 30 of which he spent on a respirator. Confounded doctors failed to find a diagnosis, even as Frank underwent a splenectomy and another surgery for a blocked intestine.

In late December, the Associated Press reported they’d narrowed it down “four different things,’’ including tuberculosis. When a diagnosis finally came – lymphoid granulomatosis – it was hardly a relief. Even now, with medical advancements, the cancer carries a 14-month survival rate.

Miraculously, Frank beat the odds, undergoing intensive treatments and chemotherapy that left him weakened but he returned to coaching for the 1979 season. Saban watched amazed.

“It was such a tough time for Frank and his family,’’ Saban says. “The rest of us were just trying to make things work.’’

The miracle did not carry over the gridiron. Though the Mountaineers righted an 0-3 start to win five of their next six, they limped to the finish, losing to Pitt and Arizona State to close out the season.

The school fired Frank at the end of the season. Saban moved on to Ohio State and Frank took a desk job within the athletic department. A somewhat embittered Curt reluctantly agreed to stay and play for Don Nehlen.

It is unfair to draw a direct line from father to son. People are unique creatures, and Saban is understandably hesitant to lump two people into one. Yet it is impossible now, with the benefit of hindsight, not to see Frank’s imprint on his son’s career.

Even as Frank fought losing and then fought cancer, he exuded the same eternal optimism that friends would later remark about on his memorial page. No one would necessarily accuse Curt of being perky and wide-eyed. It does, however, take a special sort of belief to insist Indiana could be good at football despite all evidence to the contrary.

Saban said Frank was more “engaging,’’ while Curt is more “self assured,’’ but saw in both more than just focus on bright football minds and a commitment to detail.

“Honestly, both had strong beliefs in the things they wanted to do and how they were going to do it,’’ Saban says.

In 1982, Frank returned to his alma mater as athletic director and four years later, when his head coach, George Chaump left for Marshall, Frank took over as head coach. In his second season, IUP was in the Division II playoffs. By the time Frank retired in 2005, he’d put together a 182-50-1 record, coached 11 first-team All-Americans and led his team to a top 20 finish in every season he coached.

“I’ve never questioned that I could coach, never questioned that at all,’’ Frank told the AP in 1989. “Coming here and having to prove myself was never one of my hidden agendas. I always knew I could coach.’’

Not quite, “I win. Google me.’’ But not entirely different, either.

The little things that separate winning from losing

As Saban climbed his own coaching ladder, he stayed in touch with Frank. In 2002, in fact, Saban suggested to Elice Parker, his third-string running back at LSU, that he transfer to IUP. He ran for a record 1,125 yards that season for Frank.

By the time Saban got to Alabama, Curt had been picking his way through assistant jobs. What he hadn’t done a lot was win. From 1983 to 2006, Curt had worked at the University of Pittsburgh (twice), Davidson, Rice, Temple and North Carolina State. He had six winning seasons to show for it.

So it was obvious why Curt wanted to join Alabama, but why Saban wanted Curt? Well, that went back decades.

“I think there’s always a little bit of comfort when you know someone, know what they’re like from a character standpoint,’’ Saban said. “When you know a person when they’re young, you know what kind of person they are, the competitive nature they had, the work ethic. All of those things contribute you to feeling good about hiring somebody.’’

He made Cignetti his recruiting coordinator as well as his wide receivers coach, betting accurately that Curt had inherited some of his father’s eye for talent and character.

“It was either in his DNA or he learned it,’’ Saban said.

During the course of his three-year stay, Curt helped bring in three top-five recruiting classes, including Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram Jr. and future first-round picks Julio Jones and Dont’a Hightower. Alabama reaped the rewards, Saban winning his first of six national titles in Tuscaloosa in 2009.

In return, Saban taught Curt the little things that separate winning programs from losing – practice tendencies and organization, team management and staff management.

He combined those with his father’s convictions and optimism at IUP, at Elon and James Madison, producing winners where no one saw possibility, finding ways to win instead of worrying about the obstacles to get there.

It’s just that no one noticed until he got to Indiana.

Now, finally, people see the fruits of his lifelong labor. The coach who is, as offensive lineman Pat Coogan put it, “deathly afraid of complacency?’’ The one who is so much in the Hoosiers’ heads that Kaelon Black thinks of Cignetti when he vacuums his apartment? That’s Saban.

The one who has learned to evaluate talent for what it is and not the stars next to their names, who has honed his relationship skills so that he knows what button to push with whom every time? That’s Frank sweet-talking Miss Terry into coming to West Virginia.

“Surprised? No I’m not surprised at all that he would turn around a program as he has and be successful,’’ Saban said. “We all develop our processes throughout the years. Your process, my process, it comes from the mentors we’ve had. You’re constantly saying, ‘If I get the opportunity, this is how I’d do it,’ or maybe, ‘This is how I wouldn’t do it.’ That’s what Curt has done. He’s taken what was given to him and made it his own.’’

Before his team played in the Peach Bowl, Curt took some time to walk through the College Football Hall of Fame and find his father’s display. It was the first time he’d seen it in person. By the time Frank was getting inducted, Curt was in his third year at IUP, trying to build a program.

The induction ceremony came in August, held at the Omni in Atlanta while the actual Hall was being built. Curt didn’t make it. “We were in fall camp at IUP,’’ he says, “and I wasn’t going to miss practice.’’

His dad would have understood. And so would Saban.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.