The guy in charge of transporting Nick Saban wherever he needed to go at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony Saturday in Natchitoches is no rookie at this type of assignment.
Steve Pezant, the 6-foot-2, 245-pound chief deputy for the Natchitoches Ward 1 City Marshal, has worked presidential details and transported LeBron James from the hotel to the New Orleans Smoothie King Center for the NBA All-Star Game in 2008 when he was the game’s MVP. He has also handled the Manning brothers, Phil Robertson and other celebrities at some previous LSHOF events.
The 57-year-old Pezant, a graduate of Northwestern State University, has been working in law enforcement for 35 years, with 26 years as a Louisiana state trooper. Since March of 2020 he has worked in the City Marshal’s Office.
He has overseen transportation for the LSHOF on a full-time basis since 2019, and his highest priority assignment Saturday was to escort Saban, the marquee inductee in the 2025 LSHOF class, wherever and whenever he wanted to go. He met him Saturday afternoon at the Natchitoches airport, where he and his wife, Terry, arrived in a Cessna CJ3 jet, and he took them back to the same jet to return to Alabama later Saturday night.
Pezant said Saban was a little cool toward him when he met him in plain clothes rather than in a deputy’s uniform at the airport. Being a veteran of dealing with some big shots, Pezant said he knew it helps if you can make a connection with a celebrity, which he did.
He told him of his friendship with Mike Edmondson, the trooper and Alexandria native who was assigned to Saban when he was at LSU. Saban warmed up to him, soon confiding in him and another man with him a story that Saban claimed maybe only five people knew about. It was the story he told everyone on LPB’slive telecast a few hours later about how he sent Terry – true story he insisted — to Baton Rouge to handle scouting out the LSU program, facilities and such before he accepted LSU’s job offer. She spent two days on campus, touring the campus with then chancellor Mark Emmert’s wife. Saban said he couldn’t afford the risk of being discovered doing such a thing while still coaching at Michigan State.
Terry reported to him that “this place needs a lot of work.” The stadium was in bad shape; there was no academic support nor academic facilities. The players were not doing well academically. The players had to ride a bus to practice from the campus each day because the facilities were separate, and on and on. However, she told him when she went into the weight room, she saw some “damn good-looking players.” That was the clincher for his taking the job, he said.
Pezant said when he later checked with Terry to vouch for that story, she did, and asked him, “Did he tell you when he wondered how he could handle the job, I told him, ‘Get your big boy pants on and get in there and get to coaching.’”
One personality trait Pezant picked up about Saban is that he doesn’t like to be anywhere, except a football field, for more than 15 minutes. Initially, that was about as long as he wanted to stay in the Hall of Fame Museum before heading to the Events Center for the induction ceremony, which started at 7 p.m., and it wasn’t even 6 o’clock.
“I told him, ‘Coach, if you go on to the top of that hill, you’re gonna be there way longer than you want,’” Pezant related. “He stayed around longer and enjoyed it. He told me the best jambalaya he’d ever eaten was at the reception at the museum. He didn’t like signing autographs publicly, but if you caught him in a side room, he would and ask, ‘What you want – Go Tigers or Roll Tide?’
“But when Nick Saban wants to leave, he wants to leave — now,” Pezant said. “That’s the way he was not long after the induction ceremony. I’d already arranged for Mrs. Terry to be brought to the van (that would take them to the airport), so all I had to deal with was one person. When he said he wanted to go, I told him, ‘It’s my job to get you out of here and it’s my job to tell them he’s got to go.’”
Pezant got them to the airport, and he said Saban said, ‘This has been incredible!’ “He had enjoyed it and was glad to be able to come to Natchitoches. He said, ‘Be sure to tell Doug (Ireland, chairman of the Hall of Fame Foundation) and Ronnie (Rantz, LSHOF Foundation CEO/president) they did a great job.”
Steve Pezant is another who did a great job, and for a guy who has worked a security detail on Paul McCartney’s yacht, shaken hands with presidents of at least three countries and the huge hands of Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Franco Harris, he can “walk with kings” without losing the common touch.
“I don’t let the stardom (of those to whom he’s assigned) bother me,” he said. “I’m just doing my job. But it is pretty neat.”