Saints’ Assistant Coach Yaralian Has Seen War, And It’s Not NFL

Zaven Yaralian has seen war, and it doesn’t look anything like the National Football League.

Growing up in Lebanon, Yaralian, now the New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator, would walk past the bullet-ridden corpses of neighbors on his way to school, and sit at the dinner table listening to stories of how his father would cross the Turkish border under cover of night seeking revenge for the slaughter of his parents.

Yaralian is Armenian and a Christian. The Armenians have been the target of ethnic violence for more than a century, much of it stemming from their struggles with the Turkish government and the upheaval in the Middle East.

During the Lebanese Civil War in 1958, the Christians fought the Muslims, and it wasn’t safe for the Yaralians to sit outside after sundown.

“There were dead bodies in the streets, and we could hear machine guns going off at night,” Yaralian said. “The Arabs were fighting within themselves at the same time the Christians and Muslims were fighting, and we were caught in the middle.”

Yaralian, now 46, survived a hellish childhood to become a respectable defensive back at the University of Nebraska and later, one of the best defensive coordinators in the NFL.

Even though the Saints finished 6-10 last season, Yaralian’s defense was the fourth-best overall, and led the league with a team-record 59 sacks.

While the notoriety is nice, everything is icing for the boy from Lebanon who beat the odds by surviving his childhood.

Born Feb. 5, 1952 to Armenian parents Elizabeth, a housekeeper, and George, a carpenter, the family struggled to make ends meet. In the summers, they lived on a farm in Syria where there was no indoor plumbing or even an outhouse. Still, “it was like living in the Garden of Eden,” Yaralian remembers.

Apple orchards, plum trees and vineyards lay sprawling over hundreds of acres and children with slingshots would kill birds for dinner. It was the only time of peace he would know.

In winter, the family would return to Lebanon. Zaven went to a private Armenian school, where he was forced to wear a red uniform denoting his Christianity.

‘It was tough because the Arabs knew who we were,” Yaralian said. “It was a fight every single day.”

And there was the war. Not a frozen football field, but a war with guns and explosions and real hatred.

Turks killed his father’s parents in their home before Yaralian was born, he said, and his father sought revenge.

“When he was in his 20s, he would go back over the mountains and cut their throats to get back. There was a hatred between the people that is difficult to understand here in America.”

One night in 1958, the civil war landed in the Yaralians’ backyard like a shell from some distant howitzer.

Zaven’s brother John, now 59, second oldest of the family’s four boys and two girls, was late coming home from work at the United Nations’ office in Lebanon.

He had been attacked by a group of Muslims and beaten until both his hips were broken, his back was cut and he was bleeding internally. The Arab leader who would decide his fate recognized John from their childhood and helped him escape.

After that, Zaven’s father knew he had to leave. In the following months, George Yaralian moved his family to what he considered a safe and beautiful part of Los Angeles.

“I remember thinking, ‘I love this place, this is heaven compared to where I had come from,”’ Zaven said. The family moved to a spot near an area known to the locals as Watts--a racial battleground and site of one of the worst riots in U.S. history.

Zaven was nine years old and couldn’t speak English when the family arrived. He overcame the early obstacles, and eventually starred for the middle school track team.

Zaven later enrolled at Inglewood High School in Los Angeles where he played running back and defensive back on the football team. After a two-year stint at El Camino Junior College, the young defender had scholarship offers from the universities of Alabama, Nebraska and California, among others.

“Zaven was always active and hot-blooded,” said his brother John, who runs a dry cleaning plant in Los Angeles. “He wanted always to be leader. He was always in a fight, yet he was loved by everyone.”

The Yaralians’ youngest child adored American movies and said he will always remember the day Nebraska then-assistant coach Tom Osborne came to his home.

“Tom reminded me of Gary Cooper; lonesome, tall, lanky, didn’t say much,” Yaralian said. “He walked in, and just captured the room. Very soft-spoken, a deep Christian.”

Yaralian started at defensive back for the Cornhuskers for two seasons.

“Nebraska was a very interesting place,” Yaralian said. “Totally different than Lebanon.”

Asked if it was a culture shock going from Lebanon, to Watts, to Lincoln, Nebraska, the Saints’ coach shrugged. “I can adapt to places to live as long as the people are fair.”

After short stints with the Green Bay Packers in 1974 and the World Football League in 1975, Yaralian returned to school to get his masters degree in child psychology.

While in school he was offered a job as a defensive backs coach at Washington State. That began a coaching career that took him to three other schools, and stints with Mike Ditka’s Chicago Bears and the New York Giants before being reunited with Ditka in New Orleans last season.

“He’s the hard-headedest guy I ever met outside myself,” Ditka said. “But always a fighter. Naturally, I respect him for that.”