Former Crimson Tide Quarterback Steve Sloan Dead At 79

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Former Crimson Tide standout quarterback and college football coach Steve Sloan died Sunday at Orlando Health Phillips Hospital in Florida.

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The news was confirmed in an obituary written by former Alabama sports information director Wayne Atcheson.

Sloan was 79 years old.

A multi-sport product of Bradley County High School in Tennessee, Sloan was a high school state champion in football, basketball, and track, earning all-state honors in football and basketball being named one of the best high school golfers in the state.

From there, he was recruited by Alabama's Paul W. "Bear" Bryant and played football for the Crimson Tide from 1962 to 1965, ultimately stepping in as a backup to Joe Namath before earning the starting job as a junior when Namath went down with an injury.

The 1964 team won the Southeastern Conference championship and was good enough to be named consensus national champions with Sloan at the helm.

Sloan became the full-time starter the following year and the Tide repeated as conference and national champs his senior season.

After a short NFL career with the Atlanta Falcons, Sloan embarked on a career in coaching after a brief stint as an assistant at Alabama when he secured a job as offensive coordinator at Florida State, before moving back to Atlanta the next year to take the same job at Georgia Tech.

Sloan was named head coach at Vanderbilt in 1973 and led the Commodores to its first bowl game since 1966 in 1974, marking only the second bowl appearance in school history after positing a 7-3-1 record.

He ended his time in Nashville with a 12–9–2 record, a rare feat for a Vanderbilt head coach, and from there took the head coaching job at Texas Tech.

In Lubbock, Sloan was joined by assistant and future NFL coaching icon Bill Parcells, with the Red Raiders posting a 23-12 record over three seasons.

Sloan returned to the SEC in 1977 when he took the head coaching job at Ole Miss, where he would post a 20-34-1 record over five seasons. His best mark for the Rebels came in 1978, when Ole Miss narrowly missed bowl contention with. 5-6 record.

Sloan's final coaching stop saw him leave Oxford to head up the Duke Blue Devils, where he coached for four seasons to a 13-31 record before being replaced by Steve Spurrier.

After his time at Duke, Sloan then transitioned into a career in administration when he returned to his alma mater in Tuscaloosa to serve as UA's athletic director from 1987-89.

Sloan would return to Vanderbilt in 1990 to serve as offensive coordinator, before then working as an athletic director for several schools, including North Texas and Central Florida, before retiring from Chattanooga in 2006.

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