When Diane Salls tells the story of her courtship with her husband Don, she stresses how much fun they had on their first date, when he picked her up in his yellow Cadillac. “We had a ball,” she says. “I’ve never laughed so hard in my life as that first date with Don Salls.”

He was a widower, and she was divorced and not looking for another serious relationship. But she fell for him right away. “I loved him from that instant,” she says.

At 99 years old – 22 years older than his wife – Don is still a funny guy with a quick wit. Diane mentions that, when she first met him 33 years ago, he was dating five other women at once.

“I like variety, you know,” Don says with a wink.

After they married at a Presbyterian church in Jacksonville, Ala., Diane says that Don “had to write five Dear John letters to his girlfriends.”

“When you’re hot, you’re hot,” her husband says, shrugging his shoulders.

For the past year and a half, Don has resided at the William F. Green State Veterans Home in Bay Minette. “Dr. Salls is just a really amazing guy,” says David Roberts, director of activities at the home. “He’s one of our most active residents, constantly involved in everything we do. He’s a ray of sunshine of a person.”

Before serving in the Army during World War II, Don played football at the University of Alabama from 1938 to 1942. He went on to earn master’s and doctorate degrees and coached football at Jacksonville State University from 1946 to 1964, then continued to teach at JSU until he retired in 1981.

Diane, who lives at their home in Fairhope, faithfully makes the 100-mile round trip to be with her husband three days a week. On Saturdays, they spend the day together, enjoying lunch at The Bluegill or Felix’s Fish Camp, two popular seafood restaurants on the Causeway that crosses Mobile Bay.

Don’s physical appearance and his personality belie his age. “He has never felt old,” Diane says. “He has a sweet spirit and a twinkle in his eye.” He attributes that twinkle to his wife. “It’s nice to love your partner, but it’s great to like her, too,” he says.

On June 24, 2019, the day he turns 100 years old, he’ll be the guest of honor at a birthday celebration at the Paul W. Bryant Museum at the University of Alabama.

In high school in White Plains, N.Y., he was named MVP on his football team. He accepted a full scholarship to the University of Alabama to play football under Coach Frank Thomas. In the fall of 1938, he rode 1,000 miles from home on a bus to Tuscaloosa to attend a college he’d never seen before.

When he would go home to visit, he says, his mother would open his trunk and accuse him of having a dead animal in there because his clothes smelled so bad. “I said, ‘No, Mama, it’s the paper mill,’” he says, laughing. The onion grass on the practice field didn’t help, he adds.

During his time at Alabama, Don played in the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl. “It was fantastic to play in two bowl games,” he says. On Jan. 1, 1942, the Crimson Tide defeated Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl, earning a national championship.

At 169 pounds, Don was “probably the lightest fullback in the conference.” “I was just a little guy, but I was fast,” he says. “I loved to tackle. I loved to hit. I love football.”

After graduating from Alabama, Don joined the U.S. Army and was stationed in Europe during the second World War. “After fighting all day long, we would go on night patrol,” he says. “It was the darkest I’ve ever seen in my life. You didn’t know where you were going, and you lost your way. It was horrible. I hated that with a purple passion.”

After two months of combat, he was shot in the hand while fighting in a field in France. At a hospital in England, he was diagnosed with a broken back.

“The war was over for me,” he says. “I got out alive and said the good Lord has a purpose for me in this world.”

He returned to the University of Alabama and earned a master’s degree in physical education. Then, Houston Cole, the president of Jacksonville State Teacher’s College (now Jacksonville State University), offered him a job as head football coach and head of the physical education department.

When he arrived in Jacksonville, Ala., “They had nothing football-wise to offer him,” says Diane. “They had to practice on the high school field, and they didn’t even have bleachers.”

Still, Don loved JSU. He used to walk to work, Diane says, and then walk home again for lunch, “singing all the way." "He said there was never a day he didn’t love going to his job.”

He served as head coach of the Gamecocks from 1946 to 1964. He remains the winningest coach in Jacksonville State history, leading the team to win three bowl games and seven conference titles.

For eight summers, he would take the family – he and his first wife, Margaret, had three daughters and one son – north with him as he earned a doctorate in education from New York University. After he retired from coaching, he stayed on at JSU as professor in the education department and is now professor emeritus. An athletic dormitory, Salls Hall, was named for him in 1966.

Don developed a program of isometric exercise known as XSXIM, which stood for “Ten Static Exercises in One Minute,” in 1962. He demonstrates one of the exercises by pushing his palms against each other directly in front of his chest for several seconds.

He also wrote a book, “How to Live and Love to Be 100,” in 1995, dedicating it to Diane. The couple worked together to create a calendar of the same name, with Diane contributing photos from her travels and Don writing inspirational messages for each day.

When the Crimson Tide football team won the national championship in 1941, the players didn’t receive rings since the war was going on. Ten years ago, a group of former JSU players had a ring designed for their coach and chipped in to pay for it. When they surprised him with it, “Don cried like a baby," Diane says.

Don was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1992 and also is a member of the Jacksonville State University Athletic Hall of Fame, the Westchester County, N.Y., Hall of Fame and the Calhoun County Sports Hall of Fame. In 2003, he and another well-known Alabama football player, Harry Gilmer, received the National Alumni Association’s Paul W. Bryant Alumni-Athlete Award at the Alabama-Oklahoma football game. He also received the Johnny Vaught Lifetime Achievement Award from the All-American Football Foundation in Mississippi.

He continued to be athletic for as long as possible, excelling at golf and tennis as well as football. Now he and Diane never miss a chance to watch football on TV, and last year they attended the Iron Bowl in Tuscaloosa, watching from the comfort of the A-Club. “It was great,” he says.

He loves to dance – the jitterbug, which he learned at a nightclub in New York City, is his favorite. “I dance any chance I get,” he says.

“What I’ve always known about my precious husband is that he has a very positive attitude,” Diane says. “He has a cheerful heart and peace with God within his soul. He’s a happy man, so upbeat. He doesn’t worry.”

“I’ve got you,” Don interrupts. “I don’t have to worry.”

They act like a pair of lovebirds, still. She dotes on him, and he looks at her with obvious affection. “She’s my buddy and my sweetheart,” he says. “That’s a good combo.”