In 2020, Joe Salave’a was the third highest-paid defensive line coach in college football, earning $685,000 as an Oregon Duck, a 45-year-old rising star in the prime of his career. He was a feared recruiting opponent, perhaps the top recruiter in the Pac-12.
Salave’a knows what it is to win a Rose Bowl before 90,000 fans, contend for a national championship and have Nike icon Phil Knight put his arm around his shoulders and thank him for keeping the Ducks high and mighty.
Salave’a also knows what it is to prove someone wrong. In 2012, new Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez told Salave’a he would not be retaining him on RichRod’s first UA staff; instead, RichRod hired old West Virginia crony Bill Kirelawich, then 62, to coach the UA’s defensive line. How’d that work out?
Four years later, Kirelawich was fired after Salave’a’s new team, Washington State, beat Arizona 69-7, the most lopsided loss of RichRod’s long career.
It was almost unfathomable to think that Arizona could reconnect with Salave’a after his star rose so rapidly, first under WSU’s Mike Leach, then under Oregon’s Mario Cristobal. When Cristobal left Oregon to be the head coach at Miami three years ago, he paid Salave’a a reported $850,000 a year to be his assistant head coach and defensive line coach.
This year, the Hurricanes opened 9-0, climbed to No. 4 in the AP poll, and Salave’a’s value climbed even higher, if possible.
When Arizona coach Brent Brennan recently made contact with Salave’a, he knew he couldn’t turn Salavea’s head with money. Brennan offered $750,000 a year. Salave’a accepted, even though it’s a pay cut. Brennan offered exactly the same title that Salave’a had at Miami: assistant head coach and defensive line coach.
Joe Salave’a got choked up when recalling the moment he was about land in Tucson to help coach the program that recruited and shaped him.
Why would Salave’a leave a rising national power to return to Arizona, a place at which all 36 employees in the football department have reason to be worried about job security?
It is probably as simple as loyalty, Wildcat blood that has flowed through Salave’a’s veins since the winter day in 1993 he agreed to play for Dick Tomey’s Wildcats.
Tomey took a chance on Salave’a, who was not academically eligible for the 1993 season. It was then called “Proposition 48,” which meant Salave’a would have to pay his own way to Arizona while getting academically eligible.
Tomey and assistant coaches Duane Akina and Larry Mac Duff treated Salave’a like family, a son. Salave’a made it work two ways: the 18-year-old who grew up in American Samoa vowed to earn his degree.
For the next three years, Salave’a became a star defensive lineman.
He recovered a fumble and returned it for a touchdown to beat ASU in the final 90 seconds of an unforgettable 1995 game in Tempe. He twice became an All-Pac-10 lineman.
After the ’96 season, eligible for the NFL Draft, four years removed from Oceanside High School, Salave’a did something almost unheard of in college athletics the last 30 years: After playing in the Hula Bowl All-Star game, he returned to Tucson and told Tomey that he was withdrawing from the draft.
He was determined to earn his degree, which he had not only promised to Tomey, but to his family in California. Salavea’a made good on his word. He graduated from the UA in four years after entering school as a Prop. 48 student.
Now he’s back at Arizona Stadium for Round 3, this time committed to helping save his alma mater’s cratering football program that desperately needs his help.
Salave’a knows what he’s getting into. He’s seen it all. In his eight-year NFL career, he played for the Tennessee Titans 1999 Super Bowl team, and he was an assistant coach on Tomey’s 2-10 San Jose State team of 2009, after which Tomey retired and Salave’a was left without a job in football.
He moved to Las Vegas for a year and pondered his future. Little did Salave’a know his best was yet to come: he has earned more than $7 million and established a reputation as one of college football’s most capable assistant coaches.
Now he’s clearly betting — some would say against the odds — that he can turn his alma mater’s football program into a winner again.
