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John Cohen may understand the Iron Bowl better than most people.

The Tuscaloosa native grew up in a family of Alabama graduates while he graduated from Mississippi State playing for legendary Bulldog baseball coach Ron Polk. His father was a law professor at Alabama.

Two years ago, Cohen became the athletic director at in-state rival Auburn.

“So we have tough family reunions,” Cohen said while addressing the Selma Quarterback Club on Monday.

Speaking of his father, Cohen told a story of how his father knew what was going to happen with relation to name, image and likeness.

“He said, ‘John, in your lifetime, they will be paying student athletes to play football.’ And as a little kid, I just laughed at him. I said, ‘dad, they’re amateurs,’” Cohen said. “He goes, ‘you gotta understand antitrust.’ I ran up to my mother, and I said, ‘mom, who’s Andy Trust?’

“It’s kind of amazing. It’s 50 plus years later, and my father was right on the button, because here we are in my lifetime, and student athletes are getting paid.”

While addressing the Selma Quarterback Club, Cohen did take a moment to offer his condolences to the family of Caden Tellier and the Morgan Academy family.

“I want all of you to know the entire Auburn community’s thoughts and prayers with the Tellier family,” Cohen said. “What an incredible tragedy y’all went through. So I just want you to know that we’re with you.”

Cohen talked about highlights from the last year including the men’s golf team’s national championship, national tournament appearance for the women’s golf team and an SEC Tournament Championship for men’s basketball.

Currently, the women’s soccer and women’s volleyball teams are both undefeated on the season. Soccer has yet to give up a goal so far this season.

He also acknowledged the disappointment in Auburn’s 21-14 loss to Cal on Saturday.

“Princeton University ranked the top hundred schools in the country that have the happiest students. And for the same time in four years, Auburn University was ranked as having the happiest students in the United States,” Cohen said. “I’m just glad they weren’t doing that review after Saturday’s ballgame.”

Cohen acknowledged that Auburn football had fallen on hard times when he came in as athletic director two years ago. One of the first things that Cohen did while he was on the Plains was hire Hugh Freeze, who has experienced success at Ole Miss and Liberty University.

However, he encouraged fans to have some patience with rebuild, citing examples of other coaches who got off to a rough start before turning it around. He mentioned coaches like Mike Krzyzewski, Bobby Bowden, Jimmy Johnson, Bruce Pearl at Auburn and even himself who all had losing records in their first two or three years before they turned it around.

Cohen himself finished dead last in SEC baseball during his coaching stint at Kentucky before they won the conference championship in year three.

Cohen said it will take time to overcome issues where only one or two of players who were recruited four and five years ago are no longer on campus.

“I know these things take a while, changing the culture, changing the personnel, getting the right people in any organization takes time, and I really believe in what we’re doing,” Cohen said. “So by SEC standards, that’s a disaster. You know, you don’t get there overnight, and you don’t get out of it overnight.”