Charles Kelly’s first full day an Alabama assistant coach was certainly a memorable one.
An Alabama native who played at Auburn in the late 1980s, Kelly was hired as Nick Saban’s assistant defensive coordinator and safeties coach in 2019. It was the latest stop in a long coaching career that had taken him to Jacksonville State, Tennessee, Georgia Tech and Florida State, among other schools.
That first full day working for Saban, however, was quite an education. Kelly, now head coach at Jax State, told the story of that day in a recent conversation with members of the Alabama Sports Writers Association.
“I go to staff meeting on Sunday; Monday morning, I’ve got (Saban) for five different schools,” Kelly said. “We go to Troup County (Ga.), we go to Lanett, we go to Roanoke, we come back to LaGrange (Ga.), we fly to Chattanooga. … And then we’re gonna fly back from Chattanooga to Montevallo, and then Montevallo to Tuscaloosa, and then we had an official visit that night. That’s my first day with Nick Saban.”
Kelly said the trip was going smoothly until they arrived in Chattanooga, which had been Kelly’s recruiting territory when he worked at Tennessee under Jeremy Pruitt in 2018.
“Listen, God blessed (Saban) with a lot of stuff, but patience ain’t one of them,” Kelly said. “I mean, patience is not his thing.But we were going pretty good. I was on time. … We’re hopping from plane to plane, and I’m driving.
“So we get to Chattanooga, and I knew the coach. The high school coaches, they don’t know the rules. You know, everybody just brings everybody in (the football office).
“They put coach Saban there, and somebody takes a picture, and it’s an illegal contact. Well, that’s my job, is to protect Coach Saban. … I’m like, we’re never gonna make this (next stop) if we don’t go. So finally, I just said, ‘Coach, we’ve got to go.’
“I’ve got to get Coach back to the airport, because Coach wasn’t gonna say that. So we’re walking down the hill. Coach said, ‘That’s a good job. You got us out of there.’”
They then headed to the airport when more hijinks ensued.‘So we get in the vehicle, and I notice somebody with a cell phone, and he’s looking at us, and he’s got his phone out and I knew he was trying to take a picture,” Kelly said. “…I pull out of the school, and I pull up to a red light, where the guy’s following us in the car. I see him in the rearview mirror, and the guy has got his phone up, like trying to video Coach. And then he ran into the back of my vehicle.
“The first thing coach said, he goes, ‘you think he meant to do that?’ So I get out, and I mean, I was in a bad way. I looked at my bumper and my bumper was OK. And I said a few things I shouldn’t have said, got right up in the guy’s face. I get back in the car and coach said ‘Hey, man, it’s OK.’ So we go on to the airport.”
Kelly also noted that about a year later, he was the first member of the Alabama coaching staff to test positive for COVID. And it happened to occur the week of the 2020 season-opener against Missouri.
Trainer Jeff Allen notified Kelly early that Monday morning that he had to return home and quarantine. He told no one, not even his father.
“So Friday afternoon, when the team flies into Missouri, they see I’m not on the bus,” said Kelly, who worked at Alabama through 2022 before spending the 2023 season at Colorado and the 2024 season at Auburn. “So everyone is calling. My Dad is saying ‘what wrong with you? What’s going on? Why didn’t you tell me?’
“I said ‘Listen, they don’t care that I got COVID, OK? But if they find out I got COVID and Coach Saban gets it, they’re gonna blame it on me.’ … He didn’t get it until we played Auburn, which was 10 weeks down the road. And I’m good with that.”
