Abraham "Abe" Elimimian (born March 2, 1982) is an

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

coach and former player who was most recently the cornerbacks coach at the

University of Hawaii at Manoa A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

Playing career

Elimimian played cornerback at

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

from 2000 to 2004. He received offers from bigger schools such as Oregon State and

Washington State Washington, officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is often referred to as Washington State to distinguish it from the national capital, both named after George Washington ...

but suffered a severe knee injury his senior year of high school, and the two schools withdrew. He received the final scholarship Hawaii had in 2000 highly due to the fact that his high school football coach was a former Hawaii standout and had contacted then-associate head coach George Lumpkin. In his senior season, Elimimian earned first-team all-WAC honors, one of eight Hawaii players to do so.

Professional career

After college, Elimimian went undrafted in the

2005 NFL draft The 2005 NFL draft, the 70th in league history, took place on April 23 and 24, 2005 NFL season, 2005. The draft was held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City and was televised for the 26th consecutive year, with coverage on E ...

and signed with the

San Diego Chargers The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team in the National Football League (NFL). The Chargers played in San Diego, California from 1961 until 2016, before relocating back to the Greater Los Angeles area, where the franch ...

in 2005. He also spent one offseason with the

Chicago Bears The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. They are one of two remaining ...

in 2006 before spending the regular season with the

Amsterdam Admirals The Amsterdam Admirals were a professional American football team based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, playing in the NFL Europe. History The Admirals were formed in 1995 as part of the NFL's plan to restart the World League of American Football, t ...

in 2006. He was then selected by Admirals again in the 13th round of the draft in 2007 and spent the season with them.

Coaching career

After his playing career ended, Elimimian worked as the

defensive coordinator A defensive coordinator (DC) is a coach responsible for a gridiron football team's defense. Generally, the defensive coordinator, offensive coordinator and special teams coordinator represent the second level of a team's coaching structure, wit ...

at his alma mater

Crenshaw High School Crenshaw High School is a four-year public secondary school in the Los Angeles Unified School District, located on 11th Avenue in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The school first opened in 1968 and currently enrolls arou ...

from 2007 to 2009. Elimimian got his first college coaching job in 2010 when he was hired as a graduate assistant on his old college coach June Jones' staff. He then moved over to accept a graduate assistant position at

in 2012, working specifically with the defensive backs. Elimimian was named the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Simon Fraser in 2014, working under

Jacques Chapdelaine Jacques Chapdelaine (born August 24, 1961) is a Canadian football coach and former professional slotback in the Canadian Football League (CFL). He most recently served as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the Toronto Argonauts ...

. He also interviewed for the vacant head coaching job in 2014 after Chapdelaine resigned after one season to pursue other opportunities.

Hawaii

Elimimian was hired as the secondary coach at his alma mater

in 2015. He served as the defensive play-caller for the team's match-up against Louisiana–Monroe after defensive coordinator Tom Mason was reassigned to an administrative role. He was retained by newly hired head coach and former Warrior teammate

Nick Rolovich Nicholas Robert Rolovich ( ; born February 16, 1979) is an American football coach and former player who is currently a senior offensive assistant at California. Rolovich majored in economics at the University of Hawaii and earned a master's de ...

in 2016, and changed from secondary coach to coaching exclusively cornerbacks in 2018 following the hire of Corey Batoon. Following Rolovich's departure from Hawaii in 2020, Elimimian was retained by new head coach

Todd Graham Michael Todd Graham (born December 5, 1964) is an American college football coach and former player who serves as an offensive analyst for TCU. He was most recently the head football coach at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Playing car ...

and was also given the title of recruiting coordinator. Elimimian and Hawaii parted ways prior to the start of the 2023 season.

Personal life

Born in Calabar, Nigeria and raised in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, Elimimian is the son of a retired professor. His brother

Solomon Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...

was a

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and typically line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and so back up the defensive linemen. They play closer to the line ...

who also played at Hawaii and was the first pure defensive player to win the CFL's Most Outstanding Player Award and the first player to win three different CFL awards.

References

External links

Hawaii bioHawaii player bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elimimian, Abe 1982 births Living people People from Calabar Players of American football from Los Angeles Coaches of American football from California American football cornerbacks Hawaii Rainbow Warriors football players San Diego Chargers players Chicago Bears players Amsterdam Admirals players High school football coaches in California SMU Mustangs football coaches Washington State Cougars football coaches Simon Fraser Red Leafs football coaches Hawaii Rainbow Warriors football coaches Sports coaches from Los Angeles