University of Alabama men’s basketball coach Nate Oats is engaged to a former Crimson Tide staffer after quietly getting divorced in 2023.
Oats, 51, casually dropped the shocking admission during a Friday, April 3 appearance on the Sirius XM college sports channel.
“Me and Alex [Accetta] — my fiancée now, she was my girlfriend at the time — we were at a Knicks playoff game, and I’m sitting there at [Madison Square] Garden,” he said. “I’m like, ‘Hold on.’ I’m a high school coach and I got an opportunity to coach in here, and I’m gonna say no?”
Oats has been a college head coach since 2015, when he took over the job at the University at Buffalo, before coming to Alabama in 2019. Before that, he was the head coach at Romulus High School in Michigan from 2002 to 2013.
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Accetta, 30, began working for Alabama athletics in 2015 while she was a student, according to her LinkedIn page. She worked as an operations coordinator until her graduation in 2017, when she joined the men’s basketball staff as director of basketball operations.
While she worked for Alabama, Accetta was one of only six women to serve in a coach or support staff role for a major conference men’s basketball team, according to her Alabama athletics bio. The bio also says she was in charge of “oversight of the men’s basketball budget, managers and graduate assistant managers, as well as the day-to-day schedules for both the team and head coach Nate Oats.”
Accetta left Tuscaloosa in 2022 when she accepted a full-time role with the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. Her LinkedIn page says she now works in guest experience for the team.
Nate married his ex-wife, Crystal, in 1997, while he was working as an assistant at his alma mater, Maranatha Baptist University in Watertown, Wisconsin. The two share daughters Lexie, 22, Jocelyn, 16, and Brielle, 13.
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Though Nate has kept his personal life private recently, he was open about Crystal’s health struggles during his time at Buffalo. Crystal was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2015 and the two shared regular updates regarding her treatment on social media. They also opened up to ESPN shortly after her diagnosis about the difficulties of balancing work, family and treatment.
“One of our best friends died 10 years ago of lymphoma, so my first thought was, ‘I’m going to die,’” Crystal said, recalling the moment she learned of her cancer. “I called Nate right away.”
Crystal added that it was “awful” breaking the news to the kids.
“The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life,” Nate added.
