Alex Golesh doesn't remember when he lost his Russian accent.
"They say if you're under the age of 10, it kind of goes away when you move," he says. "If I knew I'd be sitting on the Everything Auburn podcast at 42 years old, I would have remembered."
His impression of America before emigrating from Moscow to Brooklyn with his family as a 7-year-old, however — that he recalls.
"I remember knowing that you could buy whatever you wanted in terms of food."
The food young Alex Golesh wanted was bananas.
"I loved bananas. That was like my thing," he says. "And they were really hard to get. They were like a delicacy almost. I remember thinking, 'Man, in America, you can get all the bananas you want.'"
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You could also wash them down with Coca-Cola — just like in the commercials.
"You’d see people on TV drinking Coca-Cola," Golesh says. "In New York, you've got street vendors selling pretzels and all sorts of stuff, and I remember seeing a Coke. I was like, 'I just want to try that.' I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever tasted."
Then there was football.
Alex Golesh rides his bike outside his new Brooklyn home in 1991.
Golesh grew up playing soccer, playing hockey. He liked contact. The new game beaming through the antenna on fall Saturdays had lots of it. He couldn’t understand what the announcers were saying, not at first. But it didn't matter — the action spoke louder than the words.
"I just remember thinking, 'Man, these dudes are running around and hitting people — and it's encouraged. Like, people are clapping for people smacking people.'"
Golesh got in on playground pickup games as a kid. But his first, brief taste of organized football came during a summer camp.
One of the camp instructors, who coached defense for the US Merchant Marine Academy in nearby Kings Point, noticed Golesh’s interest. He invited him to be a ball boy at a game.
"That was the first time I ever saw a college football game," Golesh says.
"I thought it was the coolest thing ever."
Stores bursting with bananas. Coke everywhere. And the coolest game ever. The rumors were true. America was different. America was good.
Which is why, in a way, the move to Auburn last year kind of felt familiar.
"For years, that's what you've heard — that Auburn is unique, it's different. I've heard that forever," Golesh says. "Most of the time, you discount that as, 'Man, that's his alma mater, her alma mater, so they're going to think it's different.' I learned really quickly here that what makes it different is the people — the pride that Auburn grads have."
And even the language they use.
"Honestly, it starts with this Auburn Family deal. It's not Auburn Nation or Tiger Nation — it's the Auburn Family. I've never been at a place where people take so much pride in knowing that you love Auburn as much as they do."
That love, of course, comes with high expectations — nowhere more than on the gridiron. Golesh knows that. He lives it, breathes it and works for it in ways that have his former bosses predicting big things from the Plains this year.
If history is any indicator, they might be onto something.
Despite being the first Russian-born head coach in the history of college football, Golesh isn't the first Auburn coach born abroad. In 1904, Mike Donahue, a native of County Kerry, Ireland, went 5-0 in his debut season.
Golesh smiles.
"Zero pressure," he says with an American accent. "Let’s just get to week one."
Listen to Golesh discuss his first impressions of America — and of Auburn — on the latest episode of the Everything Auburn Podcast.
