As he sat on a South Florida runway aboard a donated private jet, Mal Moore turned to pilot Bud Darby and in his inimitable charm and through a nervous grin said, “If I don’t get him, fly me to Cuba.”

It was New Year’s Day 2007 and the University of Alabama athletic director was in pursuit of Nick Saban, the Miami Dolphins head coach who refused to meet with him about the Crimson Tide’s head coaching vacancy. Moore hadn’t yet spoken with Saban, and he wasn’t even guaranteed a face-to-face meeting as he checked into a Fort Lauderdale hotel not far from the Sabans’ home. Just by getting on that plane, Moore risked further humiliation.

Under pressure from Alabama power brokers weeks before, he’d given in to anxious jitters and retreated in his initial inquiries with Saban’s representative, Jimmy Sexton, and turned his attention to West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez. The Tide influencers feared that if Moore waited until after the NFL season to speak with Saban, he risked missing out on other candidates with whom he had a more realistic chance. That decision backfired when Rodriguez publicly spurned the Tide.

Yet even if it meant professional embarrassment, being seen as a love-struck boy chasing his crush only to have that love unrequited, he was willing to risk his reputation in a dogged chase of the one man he was convinced could return Alabama to, in his view, its rightful place atop college football.

It’s been nearly 16 years since Moore took the pivotal flight that changed college football, delivering arguably the most important hire in the history of the sport. To pull it off took a colorful cast of characters, from the likeliest (Saban’s wife, Terry), to the unlikeliest (a home contractor, an international businessman and an MLB owner). Here’s that story from those who lived it.

In Mike Shula’s fourth season as head coach, the Alabama football program was unrecognizable to the dynasty that exists today. The Crimson Tide were 6-3 and the only power conference wins on their resume were Vanderbilt, Duke and Ole Miss. Shula had delivered an outstanding 10-2 2005 season, but the program did not sustain any momentum. The two biggest blemishes? He went 0-8 versus LSU and Auburn. Never beating Auburn was a stain nothing could cleanse.

As the calendar turned to November 2006, Moore reluctantly resolved that should Alabama lose the final three games — a slate that consisted of Mississippi State, LSU and Auburn — he would have little choice but to fire the affable 41-year-old Shula. So when the Crimson Tide lost to Auburn 22-15, Moore started the defining decisions of his career the following morning. He relieved Shula of his duties.

“He said, ‘I tried. I talked to him and tried to get him to make (staff) changes, but nothing really worked,’” longtime Moore executive assistant Judy Tanner says. “Honestly, it broke his heart.”

The Alabama job was open again for the fifth time in a little over a decade. Moore had one name in mind, but no one — including Moore himself — thought there was a chance that Saban would leave the Dolphins to come to an on-hard-times collegiate program only two years removed from building a national championship program at LSU.