DEARBORN — “It is unbelievable. This is a dream come true, and so surreal,” said Robert Saleh, speaking about the Seattle Seahawks advancing to the 2014 NFL Super Bowl. 

Saleh is a quality control coach for the Seahawks, who will square off against the Denver Broncos in   football’s championship game, Sunday, Feb. 2 at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium. Saleh, a Dearborn native and Fordson High School graduate, has been involved in football since he was five years old and has always aspired to become a professional coach. 

For a lot of people in the Arab community, Saleh’s position with the Seattle Seahawks serves as an example of how far youth in the community can take their dreams, particularly those with aspirations to play in or be part of the NFL. 

As a student at Fordson, Saleh played football, basketball and was on the track team. He was even involved in the school’s choir, where he met his wife Sanaa. The couple has three children, Adam, Zane and Sam. 

Saleh’s uncle Robert Saleh says some family members were in tears when they learned the Seahawks  were going to play in the Super Bowl. “We were going crazy,” he said. “He never knew it was going to blow up to being a coach in the NFL, and eventually training for the Super Bowl one day.” 

Saleh has come a long way over the years, but not without difficulty and sacrifices. After high school, he was awarded a scholarship to attend Northern Michigan University where he graduated with a degree in finance with a minor in psychology. He also holds a master’s degree from Michigan State University (MSU). 

While coaching was always his dream, after college, he started working for Comerica Bank World Headquarters, where he was earning a six-figure salary. For many, the more logical choice would have been to stay with the company, but Saleh had bigger goals. 

He says his brother was in the twin towers on 9/11, and although he got out safely, the whole ordeal made him more eager to fulfill his dreams. 

“I thought, what if my brother never got the opportunity to live his dreams. The guilt kept getting heavier,” he said. That is when he turned to his old high school coach, uncle, and MSU trustee Brian Mosallam, who used to play football for the University, to see whether he could find coaching opportunities as a Spartan. He eventually worked at MSU from 2002-2003, then Central Michigan University in 2004, and later the University of Georgia in 2005. 

Saleh.

Those jobs didn’t earn him nearly enough to support himself and his family, and he experienced financial hardship. During his first job as a college football coach at MSU, he earned only $600 a month.

“I still had the help of my family along the way, but it was really tough,” he said. 

He eventually got a job with the NFL’s Houston Texans, and he stayed with the team for six years, primarily as a defensive assistant handling the quality control aspects of the defense. The Houston Texans fired their entire defensive staff after a bad year, and Saleh lost his job. He then went on to work for the Seattle Seahawks, where he has been since February 2011. 

Saleh’s family has taken advantage of his position with the NFL over the years by bringing kids to games and introducing them to players in an effort to encourage them to pursue their dreams and show them what they are capable of accomplishing. Many of the kids have even received autographs from the players. 

“We take as many kids from the neighborhood to be on the field with the football players just to show them you can be anything you want in life, and school and education is a big part of it,” Saleh’s uncle said. 

In 2013, the telecast of the Superbowl on CBS drew an average audience of 108.7 million viewers. Social Guide’s 2013 Super Bowl Advertising Report stated that 5.3 million people sent out 26.1 million tweets during the course of the entire game.

The average cost for general admission to the Super Bowl is $5,000 and prices for suites start at $450,000 with an anticipated cost of up to $1 million. Saleh’s parents, brother, and wife are all attending the game. 

The quality control coach is an entry level coaching position in the NFL. 

Many NFL head coaches have started out in the same position as Saleh.

Super Bowl champion Jon Gruden started out as a Quality Control coach with the Green Bay Packers in 1993. Gruden slowly moved up and eventually became a head coach for both the Oakland Raiders and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he won Super Bowl XXXVII after the 2002 season. 

Saleh says the Seattle Seahawks are training to the best of their ability for the big game. Offering advice to Arab youth who are interested in pursuing a career with the NFL, Saleh said, “You need to have an idea of who you want to be and then from there you just put your plan in action.”