Faith Lutheran punter took long road to Arizona State

Next month Adam Babb will begin competing for a scholarship as a preferred walk-on punter at Arizona State. But that’s not what makes the soon-to-be Faith Lutheran grad more interesting than other preferred walk-ons.

He was born in Saudi Arabia, grew up in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and last summer became a de facto matchmaker for the original UFC Fight Island card on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, in the UAE.

He has also ridden a camel. The first time was at a fair when he was 11 or 12.

All of which makes him more interesting than the average preferred walk-on.

“You know like here where we have pony rides? They’ve got camels over there. They’re way bigger, so it’s kind of scary because you really get up there,” Babb said about busting a camel’s hump, or at least climbing upon one’s back. “You just give him a banana leaf, and he will chew on it like a giraffe.”

Babb said at the fair, you pay the man. You ride around in a circle a couple of times on the back of the camel. You climb down.

The prospect of punting against Oregon is more stressful. But becoming a teenage matchmaker for Dana White was downright daunting.

Fight night in the UAE

It happened last summer during the early stages of the pandemic. Babb, who is friends with White’s son, Dana III, was having dinner with Dana and assorted other Whites when the conversation turned to Dubai and an upcoming fight card on a deserted island in the Persian Gulf.

Babb said his former jiu jitsu instructor, a Tunisian living in Dubai, was trying to break into the UFC. He showed Dana White some highlights, thinking nothing would come of it.

Something came of it.

“Ten minutes later he puts his phone down and says I’m going to sign this guy. I was starstruck,” Babb recalled. “I was like this is all on me now if he loses.”

Mounir Lazzez didn’t lose. He earned a decision in what was judged the fight of the night.

Babb’s father, James, who works for a finance company in Dubai, shared a video of White discussing the fight with a commentator who was wearing a long flowing robe and inquired about the rumor of how Lazzez was signed.

“It was actually at my son’s graduation dinner,” White said. “There’s a kid — he and his family live here or Dubai — and he was telling me about him, showing me video. He’s telling me ‘You have to have him on Fight Island. He’ll make an impact in the Middle East. It’s absolutely true. The kid who made that fight is 17 years old. His name is Adam Babb.”

Best of two worlds

Babb shortly will find himself in a fight of his own as he tries to impress Arizona State coach Herm Edwards and hopefully earn a scholarship. While he wouldn’t be the first to do it, he would be the first after playing youth football in a distant oasis where palm trees once served as goalposts.

“I started playing when I was 9 years old and I want to say we only had 50 kids,” Babb said of the start-up league founded by his father and other expatriates. “We were always switching teams and positions. But when I was 13 or 14, the league really blew up. We had locals come through from all different types of cultures. We’d fly to Singapore, China, Russia. Definitely a good experience.”

The league grew from two peewee teams to eight divisions and close to 2,000 participants and a championship game called the Desert Bowl for which NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III and College Football Hall of Fame coach Mack Brown served as honorary chairmen and impressed spectators.

“When Adam was born, I always feared he would not discover the love of American sports as an expatriate living outside the U.S.,” said James Babb, who split with his wife — not in the traditional sense, but so Adam could enjoy a more typical American high school experience at Faith Lutheran and focus on getting hang time against Bishop Gorman. “But it turned out he got the best of experiences American sports had to offer.”

Plus, he got to ride a camel.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.