Nick Saban

Speaker 1

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Speaker 2

He's probably the greatest college football coach of all time. And I know he didn't like hearing me say probably right there. His run at the University of Alabama will never be matched, I would guess. He's had seven national championships. What he's done is unprecedented. And he has a new documentary out this week on ESPN. It's called Sabin.

I suggest that you enjoy that. I am grateful for his time, truly. It was an honor. Today's guest is Nick Saban. Yeah, that's one of those days. Sometimes I have those days where you're just like, how am I going to get it all done? You ever have days like that?

Speaker 3

Oh, yeah. Today's one of them.

Speaker 2

Has it been? And did you have to regroup a little? Or like, what do you do like in a moment like that? Because I'm sure you've had them like at, like kind of intense levels, and then it's at like regular day-to-day levels. Sometimes I'm just like, there's not a breath deep enough I can take sometimes, it feels like.

Speaker 3

But you know, I'm so used to grinding through it, coaching 14 hours a day, one problem after the next, one solution after the next. I, I can usually sort of grind through it. What I don't do very well at is having nothing to do. You know, that, that, that, after being so busy for so long, I mean, now when I don't have anything to do, I'm like, like my wife, she didn't, she, she, she, you playing golf today? I mean, get out of here.

Speaker 2

She's like, we're going to build a course in the backyard if we have to. I go to

Speaker 3

church on Sunday morning and then she says, well, you're going to play golf afterwards, right? I don't want to see you till two thirty.

Speaker 2

Yes, I guess it's kind of new for her that now you're home, right?

Speaker 3

That's right. I came home one day at three o'clock. She said, what are you doing

Speaker 2

here? Where did, where did you meet Miss Terry at?

Speaker 3

Seventh grade science camp. We went to different schools in West Virginia. She went kind of the city school and I went to the country school and, but we met at science camp. Now, we lived about ten miles apart, but that's like worlds apart, you know, back in those days.

Speaker 2

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3

yeah, but so we always liked each other, but I could never see her, and it wasn't until I was a senior, she was a junior, that we started dating. So, so it would be fifty-five years in December, we've been married.

Speaker 2

And how did, congratulations.

Speaker 3

It's been fun.

Speaker 2

That's cool. No, it's great to hear that. how did you propose to her?

Speaker 3

I think over the phone, if I remember right.

Speaker 2

What, like a recruiting call?

Speaker 3

No, I mean, I was at Kent State, she was back home, going to Fairmont State, and we talked on the phone, but, you know, in those days, I mean, you know, it, it was expensive, you know, to talk on the phone, so we'd have these short conversations, maybe once a week or whatever, and, she came to visit during the season when I was playing, and Kind of talked about it then, but

Speaker 2

did she ever make you get down on, like, did she ever make you go through kind of the formal?

Speaker 3

No, not really.

Speaker 2

Wow.

Speaker 3

And then we had our honeymoon in Wheeling at the Wheeling Holiday Inn.

Speaker 2

did you really?

Speaker 3

Oh, yeah. And went to Big Boy, you know, with the strawberry pie. Yeah.

Speaker 2

That was where your honeymoon was? That

Speaker 3

was it.

Speaker 2

Oh, that's pretty cool. I will tell you this, I had a show in Pittsburgh one time, and I had a couple ladies offer me the Wheeling feeling after the show. I didn't get any of it, but.

Speaker 3

Yeah, that's, that's not one of the most accommodating places to visit.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, I've, I've had some good times. I did a show at the Big Sandy there in Huntington, which was really cool. I did a show one weekend when the, the guy read, remember they made that movie about, the plane that crashed from Marshall?

Speaker 3

Oh, yeah. You know, that

Speaker 2

was just that horrific tragedy that happened there within that community, and They, the guy who didn't take the plane, the coach's name was Red something, he was speaking at the hotel that I was staying at that day. I

Speaker 3

remember that story. Well, you know, ironically, I was playing at Kent State at the time, and we played them at Marshall several weeks before that actually happened.

Speaker 2

Really? It

Speaker 3

was really interesting. They had pretty good, pretty good team. Yeah, it was crazy.

Speaker 2

So that was the same, the same season that you were playing, one of their, the team just was gone.

Speaker 3

Yeah, gone.

Speaker 2

Wow.

Speaker 3

Crazy.

Speaker 2

That's pretty devastating. There it is, right there. William Alfred Red Dawson was the Marshall assistant coach who did not pass away in the 1970 plane crash because he was away on a recruiting trip and drove back instead of flying. That's right. Yeah, I've never, I haven't spent a ton of time up there, but it's always nice when I do. Did you guys take a lot of family vacations and stuff whenever you were growing up up there?

Speaker 3

No, not really. I mean, it was work, work, work. You know, my dad had a service station, never wanted to leave, and I worked in it from the time I was 11 years old. So, we never did. I, Terry and I always tried to do that, you know, once we got established, and, you know, Myrtle Beach was the spot. It was like going to the French Riviera when you're from West Virginia, so, we, we, we went there quite a few times.

Drive and drive down eight hours.

Speaker 2

Oh, yeah, there you go. Look at you right there, Nick and Terry.

Speaker 3

That's it.

Speaker 2

That's magic, baby. whenever you guys got married, did you have like a wedding song or anything like that? Like, do you have like a...

Speaker 3

Yeah, but I wish you wouldn't ask me those kind of things. I'm supposed to know that I don't really remember.

Speaker 2

Okay. We'll edit in a good answer. Okay. Yeah, I won't say a word, man. I'm quiet on the creek over here, man. I got nothing for you. well, how about this then? Is there a gift that she got you, like an anniversary gift over the years, one that you really kind of prized that she gave you? That comes to mind.

Speaker 3

That comes to mind. You know, we, we enjoy being together so much, and like we're best friends. She's always been so supportive and helpful in everything that we've done that, you know, it seems like those kind of things are a little bit second nature. you know, she's always told me what I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear, and has been very helpful, you know, in my development.

I mean, when I was, in college, I couldn't get up in front of a group and speak. And she was a speech English major, debate team. I've lost a few of those through the years, you know, the arguments, but, she really was helpful to helping me develop, you know, confidence and, public appearances and that type of thing. So, she's just been so supportive, was a great recruiter, you know, great relationships with people.

so I don't remember very many gifts. You know, most of the time I'm given the gifts, you know, not getting them.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I think dads are just hard to shop for too. But, but I, I guess I'm hearing you say that she's just, it's just kind of the eternal gift of you guys' connection has always been, the bigger value of anything that you, that you could just kind of get somewhere.

Speaker 3

That's right. Yeah.

Speaker 2

is there a specific moment that comes to mind that she, that she was really there when you, when it was like a space where you couldn't figure something out?

Speaker 3

Oh, yeah, there's a lot of those. You know, I, I think that, you know, especially once you get to be a head coach, who do you talk to? You know, your assistants are kind of your second lieutenants working for you, and when you have issues and problems, yeah, they can input certain things, but certain big decisions, you sort of have to make on your own.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

And so who do you have out there that you can go talk to? And, you know, that's one thing that Miss Terry was always someone that I could talk to about an issue or a problem, and it's interesting sometimes that the outside perspective is a little different than your perception of what it might be, and that's very, very helpful.

Speaker 2

Because even though she's your wife, she's still, it's, she's not locked in it like you are.

Speaker 3

Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2

That's a good point. Head coaching, it kind of seems kind of lonely.

Speaker 3

It is. It can be. It is. And I was fortunate through the years to have You know, I, he's in the documentary, Dr. Rosen was always, someone that I could talk to about, you know, psychological disposition and how to try to, you know, motivate certain types of people and players, and he and Miss Terry were probably the two people that had the biggest impact on me and the direction I was always trying to head in and how they reinforced it.

Speaker 2

It, it, it seems like from a outsider's perspective that you've had, like, an amazing life, right? do you feel like you've lived up to your potential? Like, do you feel like that?

Speaker 3

Well, you know, I sort of look at it a little different. I mean, is winning games, is that really What your life's potential is, or is it...

Speaker 2

And it's not a judgment, I'm just genuinely curious, like... No,

Speaker 3

no, I, I, but, but compassion for other people, helping other people, could we do more, like we have a Nick's Kids Foundation, could we be doing more to help other people, have I helped our family enough, have I been a good parent? You know, when you talk about all those things, not how many games you won, you always think that, hell, there's a lot of things I could have done better.

And, that's what I sort of constantly try to Be a better person, set a better example for people, be a better leader, help people create value for themselves, show people that you care about them. I mean, all those things are really, really important to me because my goal as a coach was always, how can I help these guys have a better chance to be more successful in life? So there's a lot of personal development, importance of getting an education, how do you develop the habits on the field to reach your full potential? So that's where, you know, I spent most of my time.

But now, not coaching, I still look at other people and how can we impact the future and, you know, we're just like we're building a savings center, which is a, you know, a, you know, student center for young kids growing up. It's going to be our legacy, you know, in Tuscaloosa. So, how can we impact education and career development in young people? So all those things, could you have done those better? I think I probably could have.

And will continue to try to do it the rest of my life.

Speaker 2

Do you feel like you've been kind of like a perfectionist? I know that's just a, a word that people throw around. Like, do you feel like you're a perfectionist kind of?

Speaker 3

Yeah. It's not a

Speaker 2

judgment of you. No, I,

Speaker 3

I, I do. Just curious about,

Speaker 2

cause I want to explore that, cause there's not a lot of people you can explore kind of that term with sometimes.

Speaker 3

Yeah. So

Speaker 2

that's why I'm asking.

Speaker 3

But, but I think that, you know, and this is kind of in a documentary, but, you know, when I was a kid growing up, having compassion for other people was really important. Accountability was really important. In other words, if you had a job to do and you didn't do it exactly right, you're going to do it over again. So you learn how to be accountable.

But one thing that, you know, my parents always emphasized is it wasn't about winning or beating the other guy. It was about, did you do it as well as you were capable of doing it? So, I mean, we won thirty games in a row when I was in high school or something like that and won the state championship, and that was never good enough. And I asked my mom once, why is it never good enough? And she said, it's not about winning a game, it's not about beating the other guy, it's about that you do it as well as you're capable of doing it.

So that, that's makes you kind of a perfectionist.

Speaker 2

Right, because the competition is always you.

Speaker 3

It's always you. And the other thing that that instilled in me was I never had what I call relief syndrome, which is, you know, it's kind of human nature is if you do something of significance, you think you're supposed to be able to rest on your laurels.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

You know, and we kind of promote that in society, we promote it in business. even players, you know, they would, would win a big game and they'd say, can we have Monday off practice? We get rewarded for winning this big game. Well, I'm thinking about how are we going to win the next game.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 3

And did we play well enough in that game to win the next game? And what do we need to improve on? So I, I never ever developed that. Rest on your laurels, because I was never allowed to. And it goes back to that word that you're talking about. You can never be perfect, but you're always trying to close the gap on perfect. And I think great competitors, whether it's Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, you know, Michael Jordan, you know, those guys could always take the next challenge, man.

It didn't matter how, how, how much they won or what they did. And, I, that's how I wanted our teams to be able to compete. And I felt like I had to set that example. So if I'm satisfied and I'm thinking everything's good, we don't have to focus on attention to detail and prepare for this game the right way. And, you know, there was actually two times at Alabama we won 19 games in a row, and we lost the 20th game.

And we didn't play very well in either one of those games, not to take anything away from who beat us, but, and it was all because of complacency. Blatant disregard for doing what's right. You're complacent. And then you start developing bad habits and it starts showing up in your performance. So I spent a lifetime trying to avoid that and never got it done.

Not the way won nineteen games in a row twice and couldn't keep it going.

Speaker 2

I mean, some would describe that as keeping it going though, you know? So, but I understand, I understand what you're saying. Do you think it's tough for you to feel success kind of? I, I know it's kind of a similar question, but, I always have a tough time feeling a success. I feel like a, like a perfectionist. or I feel like I am a lot of times.

Like, I know this haircut doesn't really say that, but, what's under it does though. And I feel like that a lot of times. And sometimes I just feel like it's hard for me to have fun sometimes because perfection doesn't really allow a lot of space for fun, you know? There's just not a lot of room for it.

Speaker 3

Well, but I don't think I had a lot of fun, you know, because the fun of it is winning. That's the fun. Getting ready and doing all the things it takes to win is not that much fun.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

But to your point, when you think like you think and like I think, and you are successful as you are because of the way you think, incidentally, success is not a continuum, it's momentary. And if there's anything that you've done in the past that you think is going to impact your, the future, you're infected with success. You know, I mean, you want to be a flash in the pan and say, I can do something exceptional once, but have no conception of how to do it on a consistent basis.

So I always define consistency for our players. Consistency, success is consistency in performance. And that's what I wanted our players to think. You know, a great example of that is we won the first national championship at Alabama in 2009. We won the Rose Bowl, beat Texas. Everybody's excited, everybody's celebrating. We have this big celebration in the stadium, and I don't know how many people were there, it's pretty full.

And I get up and I said, this is not the end, this is the beginning. And I was sending a message, you know, we created a new horizon, a new expectation.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 3

So we got to look ahead to what we have to do to continue to get better. It's like climbing a mountain. You know, once you climb the mountain successfully, you become the mountain. So everybody's shooting at you. How did you do it? What do we need to do to change? How are we going to beat those guys? Well, if you don't keep improving, it's not going to happen.

I mean, they're going to get you. They're going to get you. So, and that's hard to get people to understand. But you understand it, and that's why you don't have so much fun. I didn't have that much fun for fifty years. I didn't have that much fun. I enjoyed winning. I hated losing more than I liked winning, so I was always trying to avoid the setbacks.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

And looking forward to what I had to do and have the foresight to know what we had to do to be successful in the future.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's interesting, because yeah, once you find success one way, other people are going to gravitate towards it, or you've already done it, so you also need to set a new challenge for yourself. But then what's interesting about you is to go inside of what you'd already done and kind of look at the pieces of it and be like, what worked really well here, what can still evolve, and what can be different.

That's an intense level of scrutiny, I think.

Speaker 3

Well, but to me, there's two parts to that. First of all, we changed how we played football through the years. We changed the way we played offense. We used to run the ball and play good defense. We won championships doing that. Then we went to the spread. We went to no huddle. We went fast through RPOs and all that stuff, which is what the rule changes.

That was what you needed to do. Well, we didn't play as good on defense because we played a lot more plays, and the other teams scored more points, but we scored more points too. So we technically changed how we played the game to take advantage of rule changes.

Speaker 2

Got it.

Speaker 3

But we never changed the culture of what it took to be successful. The togetherness as a team, positive energy, positive attitude, accountability, be responsible to do your job, what do you have to do to dominate the competition. I mean, that, that never changed. That never changed. And, but football, the technical parts of it sometimes changed.

Speaker 2

Was there, Like, I'm trying to think about like having fun, like, like you ever, have you ever been on a water slide or anything like that?

Speaker 3

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2

You have?

Speaker 3

Oh, I know how to do all that now. I got thrown out of the water slides most of the time.

Speaker 2

Did you?

Speaker 3

We used to go on Senator Manchin, you know, who was the US Senator from West Virginia for a long time. Oh, Senator Manchin,

Speaker 2

yeah. He's in your documentary.

Speaker 3

Yeah, so, yeah, well, we used to go on vacation. We both went to Myrtle Beach, but we never ever made it through a summer without kick, getting kicked out of the water slide.

Speaker 2

What were y'all doing on there?

Speaker 3

You know, doubles and triples and running over people. Oh

Speaker 2

yeah. Yeah, sometimes we'd get there early and just run down it, like they had one kind of bus and it was, it was a water slide, but it was almost not gonna be like at any moment, you know? And, it was just like a tetanus shot, like it was, it was kind of a safety hazard, I think. But, but we would get there early and run down it right before they started the water and that was always a good time.

And I was just curious if you're able to also have like other types of fun outside of, Outside of football and what that's like for you. I think

Speaker 3

that's one thing that I learned through the years. I think there was in a time when I was an assistant coach when I, I didn't do that very well. you know, it was work, work, work, work, take your work home, never ever be able to separate. But when I became a head coach, I learned how to do that because it was just too stressful to, carry it with you all the time.

And I had to set some parameters and say, okay, at ten o'clock at night, I'm going home. I'm not working past ten o'clock so I can get enough rest, because if I don't rest, I'm not going to have the patience to do a good job the next day. So there were some of these kinds of built-in things that I had to, and then I make myself go on vacation for three weeks in the summer.

Speaker 2

You have to make yourself do those things?

Speaker 3

Yeah, make, and, and Bought a lake house so I could spend three weeks with the kids and, you know, so things like that, I kind of had to learn how to do that because I was so committed, it was not healthy.

Speaker 2

Did it ever actually affect your health, like some of that stress? Because I mean, you were like, I mean, watching you, like, especially like in your documentary, it's pretty great to see like all these different, and they compile them all and make you seem kind of crazy for a little while. And you may have been, I don't know, that's fine.

I think you got to be a little bit crazy. And hopefully, we all were a little crazy at some point in our lives, you know? But, you can definitely, you feel the intensity of you a lot of times. I mean, you, I mean, even not, and it's some of the footage is older, it's not even high def, you know, like you can still feel the intensity coming through the screen.

Speaker 3

but,

Speaker 2

but.

Speaker 3

You got to understand that in a competitive environment, I was trying to show intensity. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2

Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean,

Speaker 3

I, I don't think I was ever, I mean. You want players to play with emotion, have intensity, but you don't want them to be emotional. So most of those times when I looked crazy, I really wasn't being emotional. I knew exactly what I was doing, but I was trying to affect other people.

Speaker 2

Wow, chess. That's chess, man. that's incredible then, because you had affected me the other night at home, just watching it. But did, did, did it ever affect your health? Did it ever become like a health scare for you?

Speaker 3

No, never did, but I always got a physical. You know, one of the things when I was in the NFL, they always make you get a physical before the season, just like the players. So I continued that in college. And, you know, several of our coaches had issues that, assistants too, that, you know, created a better quality of life for them and saved their life in some cases.

So I always did that. but when I retired, And I don't know if I ever shared this with anybody. I spent fifty years of my life being in a hurry and didn't know it. So I retired, and the cars are backed up on the bridge, and it goes down to one lane. And in the old days, I would be the guy that passed all the cars up and cut in at the last minute in front of somebody.

And I sat there with Miss Terry in the car. She says, you mean you're not going to pass everybody illegally and cut in? I said, we're not in a hurry. But it's the first time when I retired that I realized that I wasn't in a hurry, and I was in a hurry for fifty years and didn't know it. Wow. Because I was always hurrying up to the next thing.

Yeah. Solve the next problem. Go to the next thing. I mean, and it's great. And you talk about relieving stress. That relieves stress better than anything.

Speaker 2

And that was just a thing you noticed one day, you just noticed that.

Speaker 3

I just noticed it. In that circumstance.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 3

Not cutting into traffic and waiting my turn.

Speaker 2

Right. Yeah, sometimes we need proof from like our own actions, and it'll almost surprise us. That was it. I realized one day that I was like, I felt like there's been a to-do list since I was born, and I don't know who wrote it or started it or how it ever began, but I always feel like I'm running behind. Like it's been an eternal feeling that I've had.

Speaker 3

And I've always had the feeling that I wanted to get everything that I needed to get done before I could relax.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and there's, and it's never all done.

Speaker 3

It's never all done. Yeah,

Speaker 2

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Speaker 3

Probably the knowing people part. You know, coaching is teaching. Teaching is ability to inspire learning. So-

Speaker 2

Coaching is teaching. Teaching is ability to inspire learning.

Speaker 3

Right, exactly. So that inspiring the learning part is the people part. And everybody's a little different in terms of how they learn and how you need to approach them to teach them. You know, obsessive, compulsive people They don't need you to get on them. You know, other guys, not a self-starter, you need to get on them a little bit. So figuring all that out is important.

The technical part of teaching and coming up with a good teaching progression, whether it's how to teach bump and run or how to take on a block or whatever, that part comes a little easier. But the other part, the human condition part, is much more difficult.

Speaker 2

Did you enjoy that part more, you think?

Speaker 3

I did, because that was, that was a big interest to me, you know, is what makes people tick, what, what makes people, you know, do certain things, good and bad.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

Choices and decisions and impact of all those things.

Speaker 2

Do you think maybe that you just wanted to find the next thing to figure out? Does that make any sense if I say that? Because it's interesting to hear you talk about so many little facets that could go into giving yourself the best possible chance.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Yeah, I was always trying to learn. I mean, even to this day, you know, I remember my dad saying, you got two ears and one mouth, that means you should listen twice as much you talk. You probably heard that before, but, anyway, so I've always been a listener and, I always try to learn from other people. And anybody that was doing something of significance in our profession or a good book to read about a successful coach and how he approached it and all that kind of stuff, I, I was always into that, always into that.

And we always had people come and visit us. Everything we had an issue with, we would pay somebody to come and visit us and teach us how to fix it.

Speaker 2

Oh, like different speakers and, like that. Different speakers

Speaker 3

and some coaches. You know, like we had, had problems with no huddle. Who's the best defensive people with no huddle? Guys playing against Chip Kelly at Oregon. Bring them in and teach us how do you play against this? How do you get people to adapt to it? so, but, you know, we struggled in the Sugar Bowl and got beat by Utah cause they run empty the whole game and we didn't do a very good job of defending it.

So I just brought Utah staff in and said, okay, you guys run empty, tell us what you don't like.

Speaker 2

Got it.

Speaker 3

What gives you problems? So we were always looking for a better way and I told everybody in the organization, everybody's responsible for a better way. So,

Speaker 2

Did you ever feel like, cause ego is like a scary thing, right? And your name became, I mean, you're, there are people that would, you know, would rather baptize their kids with you involved somehow, it seems like these days, especially in Alabama, right? And, and bless them, but how did you, how did you keep yourself from getting too smart to learn? Does that make any sense?

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

And was it ever a fear of yours, like at a certain point, like, cause ego is a unique thing, right? Sometimes our shadow gets bigger than us, right? Right. if the lights hit us the right way. So it's like, did you ever have to deal with any of that? Just curious, because you've had such a unique journey.

Speaker 3

Well, you know, one of the things I always did when I went to church is, is I always prayed to be a good person and to serve other people. And, you know, I ask the question a lot when I speak sometimes is how do you pray? Do you pray to be blessed? Or do you pray to be a blessing? Well, I was praying that I wanted to continue to be a blessing to other people, which probably was me trying to check my own ego and make sure it didn't get out there to where it was going to have a negative effect on things.

And I'm sure you could probably go find a lot of people. I mean, there was like seventy people got interviewed or ninety people got interviewed in this documentary that would say, yeah, he had an ego. But I tried to keep it in check. You tried

Speaker 2

to cap it.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, dude, yeah, because the ego is such an interesting thing. What if you had players, how did you curtail players if they started to get kind of too big for themselves? Was there something that you would say, like, you know, because that's a, that's a, that's a lot of, that's a lot of energy for a young person to be taking on when they don't really even know the effects of it.

Speaker 3

Right. Well, I, I was always trying to teach players cause and effect. And, You know, I would bring every player in and say, all right, what do you want to accomplish here? And a player would say, I want to graduate and play in the NFL someday. And then I would say, do you know what that entails? And he would say, hard work. And I'd say, well, you got to do this, this, this, and this, this.

I was defining a process of what they had to do to be successful. And I wanted them to learn how to self-assess, so I'd ask them how they're doing. But I'd also go up to them a lot and say, how's that behavior helping you accomplish the goals that you have? And then they would usually answer, well, it's not, coach.

Speaker 2

So to help them have an actual thought process with it. Right,

Speaker 3

and I tried to make it about them.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 3

You know, not about, oh, I don't like it that you spiked the ball. Tell me if spiking the ball helps you get to the NFL.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 3

Does that help you graduate? I mean, so I made it about them a lot, and, and they c-they related to that. You know, most people are selfish, self-absorbed, and, ambitious. So appeal to that.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 3

You know, I used to tell the players, you know, I spent eight years in the NFL. The two most compelling words in the draft report is and and but. And they would look at me like, I don't sound right. And I'd say, yeah, they'd read the player, you know, his quick feet, change of direction, good tackler, good hands, play the ball in the deep part of the field, talking about a defensive back now.

And he's a good person. You know, I graduated, coaches loved him. He was captain of the team. Next guy, same guy, quick feet, change of direction, good tackler, all that. But what comes after but usually not good.

Speaker 2

All right.

Speaker 3

Wouldn't go to class. Coaches didn't like him. Watched him practice. Wasn't a good practice player. Had a positive drug test. I mean, whatever. So who you want on a team, and and but. So are you making choices and decisions that creates value for your future? Because we're trying to provide you with a direction that's value-based. Buy into it, and you will create value for your future.

Speaker 2

You talked a second ago about going to church and praying. How did you, how did you start a relationship with God? Like, how did that, was that instilled with in you when you were a child, and then how did you create your own relationship that was more real in your life, if you did, or what was that like?

Speaker 3

Well, my grandmother used to take her umbrella and beat me over the head as we were going to church. I didn't have a choice.

Speaker 2

That's one way to do it, yeah. I mean, I think that's pretty effective. Your grandma's umbrella will put the Lord in you. It'll keep your posture up, too.

Speaker 3

No, but, you know, I, I, I just, I don't know. And I, I guess it started because I felt guilty if I didn't do it. And I think I was made to feel that way by my family, my grandparents. And, so it was important to them that we all go to church, and that's the way it started. I can't say I liked it, but I did it. and, then I got into it, and I think there's a lot that you can learn from, you know, biblical, you know, experiences that happened in the past, and I always try to see, you know, is this message helpful to me?

Speaker 2

Was there a time in your life when you called on God the most, kind of, to be supportive for you, or that you really needed your faith more than you expected?

Speaker 3

Well, you know, I usually do it because, I'm always asking, like, what could I do better to be a better parent? You know, can I be a, a good leader to my children and help them make choices and decisions that would Help them be successful. And now you have grandchildren, so, you know, you're trying to do the same thing for your grandchildren.

So it's more about what could I do to impact other people in a positive way than really, you know, I, I don't think God determines the outcome of a game or anything like that. Yeah. It was never about all that, but it was always trying to, what can I do better to help people?

Speaker 2

What made you care about people so much, do you think? I mean, I know it's a human thing to do, but...

Speaker 3

I, I, I think that it came from coaching, because my coaches that I had, whether in high school or, you know, my dad was my peewee coach, my parents were great at this, but beyond my parents, my co- the coaches that I had, Don James in college, and my high school coach, That, that, they had the greatest impact on me. And I never really wanted to be a coach, but when it happened that I was coaching, that's what I wanted to be to the players that I coached.

And, so I guess that's how it happened. And I got a lot of positive gratification out of that. And I think that was the difference between being in the NFL and being in college. You know, I love the competition in the NFL. I love coaching the players. I love the strategy of the game and all that. But there was a lot more self-gratification in college about helping people because they were at the right age where you could impact them, you know, 18 to 22, and they all still had goals and aspirations of what they were trying to accomplish.

So, and I think that's why I ended up landing in college.

Speaker 2

You've kind of run, like it seems like, or not run, but it seems like some people would say that they had like the Saban Rehabilitation Center for coaches that have kind of gone awry at certain moments, right? What, what was your determining factors for if a coach was a good fit for you on your staff?

Speaker 3

Well, you know, I wanted people that had character so that they would set a good example for the players. I think the players needed mentors and people that they could look up to.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

They needed to be knowledgeable.

Speaker 2

Oh, yeah. But

Speaker 3

they needed to be good teachers, have good teaching prep, preparation and presentation in terms of what they did, and they had to be a good fit. And you used the word ego before, and I think with coaches, sometimes you have to respect the other coaches and work with them and work together for what the best interest of the team is, not necessarily what's the self-indulgent behavior of what's best for you, if that makes any sense.

And,

Speaker 2

Like, how would that play out for a coach? Like, that it would be like a self-indulgent behavior, just so... Well,

Speaker 3

like, the offensive coordinator's more worried about scoring points than he is winning a game.

Speaker 2

Got it. Oh, that can be a trap, huh?

Speaker 3

Yeah. And, you know, you end up fumbling the ball at the end of the game rather than running it when you're supposed to, cause you put winning first. So, but, you know, when you ask about the rehabilitation part of it is, you know, all the coaches that I had on staff, you know, people think discipline is punishment. Discipline is really doing something to somebody that changes their behavior.

So it was easy for me with players because they all wanted to play. So if they, if I said, if you don't go to class, you're not playing, or if you don't But having positive drug tests, you're not going to play. They would change their behavior because it was something significant to them. You know, my daughter was always on the internet, always on a computer.

If you take the computer away, you could get her to do study, clean up the kitchen, do whatever you wanted. So, but it was what was significant to her. So I looked at the same thing as coaches. You know, you say these guys had issues and problems, but they all got penalized for the issues and problems that they had, whether they got fired or whatever.

But they had some really, really good qualities that got them to where they were because they were successful at some point in their career as an offensive coordinator and even some cases as a head coach. And whatever this issue that they got penalized for, now they all of a sudden want to change their behavior. So that they get another opportunity to be a coach.

And I always just said, can I manage this guy? Can I manage this? Can I manage the issue? Because I know there'll be a positive in terms of what the guy brings to the organization. If it's negative, doesn't bring it down.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

So, and, we were able to do that. But in every one of those circumstance, that person knew that if they had one more stub of the toe, it was going to be career ending for them.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

So they were willing to change their behavior.

Speaker 2

You had a lot of guys in your coaching tree sort of, that were kind of, that have been under you or, I don't know if that's a term to use, but that have been part of your coaching tree over the years, Kiffin, Jimbo, Kirby Smart, Lanning, Sark, What was it like when they started to become this pack that was then like trying to beat you? Like, did that become its own thing that kind of added actually some extra excitement for you? Like, what did that feel like? Because that's pretty fascinating kind of.

Speaker 3

Yeah, well, you know, when you play somebody that really knows you, that makes things a little different.

Speaker 2

Does it make it harder?

Speaker 3

Yeah, it makes it a little harder because I think you got to tweak things and change things a little bit, which you may not be comfortable with.

Speaker 2

Do you think you liked almost that it made it a little bit harder?

Speaker 3

I liked competing against those guys, but, I knew that I had a lot of respect for them because they had done a tremendous job for me, and I was glad that they all got opportunities. So, because they did a good job, and it was always a challenge to replace them because they did such a good job. so, but it was, you know, I think we, we all kind of respect each other as competitors, and, you know, you probably have some friend that you competed against that it was more fun to beat them, because they were your friend, and it gave you kind of bragging rights, even though you might not have bragged about it.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

It still gave you the right to. Just even on the

Speaker 2

text thread or whatever. Yeah.

Speaker 3

So,

Speaker 2

Which one of those coaches that I mentioned a few minutes ago, which one kind of do you feel like learned the most from you?

Speaker 3

You know, I can't, you'd probably need to ask them that. It'd be hard for me to know, but, I, I think they all have their own style. And when each one of them left, whoever it was to go take a head coaching job, Mario Cristobal, it didn't matter, Kirby or whatever, I said, the most important thing you have to do is be yourself. Be yourself.

Don't try to be like somebody else. Don't try to be like me. I mean, you can take some of the technical things that we did here and, you know, the way we built the program and use those things to your benefit, but you have to be yourself. You have to be you.

Speaker 2

Why? Because trying to do somebody else's thing is just a trap, you feel like?

Speaker 3

No, I, I, I think you have to be authentic and people have to see you as being authentic and people have to see you as believing, you know, in what you're trying to preach or teach or whatever.

Speaker 2

Got it. When you were, when you were recruiting, did you drive? Did you go with somebody else, dude? Did, and, or, sir? And did you drive or did somebody else drive? Like if you went?

Speaker 3

Yeah, most of the time I went with an assistant.

Speaker 2

And would you let them drive or would you drive?

Speaker 3

They would drive most of the time. I, I remember one time we were in Iowa, Mario Cristobal's, you know, Cuban from South Florida.

Speaker 2

Oh yeah, he's great.

Speaker 3

And,

Speaker 2

And eats all the snacks. He's been eating all the snacks down there.

Speaker 3

And, you know, I love the guy and he's done a great job in Miami, but. We're in Iowa recruiting a player in the dead of winter, and I mean, it's a blizzard. Sideways. I mean, it snows going sideways, blowing crazy. He'd never driven in the snow before. I said, Mario, let me drive. And, and he was so prideful, you know, that he, he wouldn't let me drive.

I mean, I grew up in West Virginia. We had snow. I lived in Michigan. I lived in Ohio.

Speaker 2

Yeah. So

Speaker 3

I was used to driving in the snow. Oh,

Speaker 2

yeah. But

Speaker 3

no way was he going to let me drive. All right. So we survived, barely.

Speaker 2

But he just wouldn't let you do it?

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Dang. Maybe he thought that warm, like, cause they got that, the machismo or whatever, maybe he thought that would melt y'all's path or something. I have no idea.

Speaker 3

No, he's a extremely hard worker and a great recruiter. Is he? Really good. Yeah. Was really good recruiter, developed great relationships with players, and, and he's done a great job in Miami.

Speaker 2

I just can't imagine you letting somebody else drive. That's the part that I think is tough for me to think about that part.

Speaker 3

But you know- Isn't it

Speaker 2

so hard to sit there and let somebody else drive?

Speaker 3

But I, I, I would actually get work done.

Speaker 2

Oh, I see. And

Speaker 3

I would go to all these places that, I, I didn't know my way around. Now, when I was an assistant coach and I went recruiting, I went by myself, I knew my way around. So I was confident and, you know, we didn't have GPS and cell phones and all that stuff back in the day. But,

Speaker 2

yeah,

Speaker 3

all these assistants now, they got to type it in their phone and get directions and all. I, I don't even know how to do that.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

So, I'd let them handle that part of it. But when I was a head coach at like LSU and you, and the head coach was allowed to go to spring practice, I would go a lot of times on my own and just go, you know, to watch guys practice. Cause I, you can tell so much more about a player if you see him live than you can looking at a film. But, I loved that, and it was great.

And, you know, there were two coaches that did it. Erdmeyer did a great job of that, and I did it, and they passed a rule that we couldn't go out on the road. Oh, the

Speaker 2

Saban rule, isn't it? Yeah.

Speaker 3

That's

Speaker 2

what they call it. Did, did you ever get into a place where you were not welcome? Like, did you ever pull up on a porch or something, knock on somebody's door where you were just not welcome?

Speaker 3

Yeah, when I first went to LSU in New Orleans, and you know, you know south of Louisiana, the people were not happy with LSU, and there was several families I went in, and they just said, we're, we're just not interested in, in talking to you. And we had to actually prove ourself that we were going to create value for players. I mean, we built an academic center there, we took the graduation rate from the low thirties to seventy-two percent, I think, in four years, and we won the national championship.

So, but we had to prove ourselves in terms of how we were going to create value for players other than just football.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I, I will say this. When you've gotten to a campus and when you've left it, it's looked nicer. That's a fact. I mean, Alabama looks beautiful these days. That campus is beautiful.

Speaker 3

And we, you know, that community's changed a lot in the last 20 years. Yeah. And, you know, the school's gotten bigger, so that created some growth. but they had a plan of, you know, if we improve the quality of the education and we improve the enrollment with a lot of out-of-state students, that would provide the resources for us to redo the whole campus, which they basically did.

And, you know, football is kind of the window that You know, people look at an institution, so us having success in football probably helped them do that.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I mean, it looks great. It's just, it's great over there.

Speaker 3

It's beautiful. It

Speaker 2

really is. It's beautiful. did you leave football because of the recruiting, because of the NIL? Like, is that kind of one of the main things that people, that's sort of what people say just off the cuff, right? Is that kind of the truth, or did you just feel like you had achieved enough?

Speaker 3

Well, it's not the reason I left. in fact, we had name, image, and likeness, I think, the last three years that I coached. And having been in the NFL, managing the salary cap and all that, it, it wasn't that big an issue. but I could see that players were changing, and I could see that the way you were going, people were making more transactional decisions.

In other words, it was more about how much money you're going to pay me than how you're going to develop me. And I think we always sort of Created more value for players in terms of personal development, academic development, and football development. And we had proof in the pudding. You know, we had high graduation rate, fewer guys getting in trouble, most guys drafted, most first round draft pick.

So we had proof that we were creating this value. Now as the, the tables started to turn, we, we were going to have to change the way we did things and cause it was going to be more about how much you paid some guys to get them to come. And, that was okay cause I'd been in a league where that was what it was all about in the NFL. I mean, players are playing for money, they're trying to play well so they can make more money.

and they're trying to extend their careers so they can make money for longer. So I, I, I was okay with all that. I, I think for me, I never wanted to ride the program down.

Speaker 2

I see. Like you, you wanted to kind of end on a high note.

Speaker 3

Right. I, I never wanted a coach where my age and my inability to have a positive impact was going to start to see the program go down. And, and, and I felt like at seventy-two years old, that last season, season was really, really hard. You know, we lost early on, and, the team really improved, and we got in playoffs, and they did a fantastic job.

But it was very challenging, and I just, I, I didn't know what I was going to do. I mean, I think this is in the documentary that I'm sitting there, I got a four o'clock team meeting, I got two speeches. I got one that says I'm staying, and this is how, what we got to do to, we had a young team, so we, we'd have been good the next year. this is what we have to do.

And then over here, I'm going to tell the players I'm going to retire. And that was ten minutes to four, and I didn't know which one I was going to do. so...

Speaker 2

How'd you decide?

Speaker 3

I called Miss Terry, and she said, you know, if you're that stressed out about it, and you're that much, there's that much turmoil, you know you have to do this at some point in time, whether it's this year, next year, or the next year. So if you feel that much anxiety about making the decision, maybe now's the time to do it while you still have your health and quality of life is good enough that we can do other things.

So that's basically, you know, what Brought us to that decision.

Speaker 2

Was it the toughest decision, like that you felt like you had to make in your life? Toughest

Speaker 3

decision, yeah. Really? Maybe ever, yeah. It's really hard. I've been part of a team for so long and enjoyed the relationship to the players and had such great relationships with the players and knew a lot of those players sitting in that room came there because, you know, of the University of Alabama, but also because I was the coach and, I had relationships with the, the assistant coaches and the staff, and I knew all that was going to get blown up.

And that was the hardest thing, was to change the changes it created for everyone else.

Speaker 2

And was that a kind of a weird drive home after that? Like, how did that feel after? That's kind of a, that's huge. Yeah,

Speaker 3

it was. It was. It was a weird drive home. Well, well said.

Speaker 2

I feel like that day when you get home and you set your keys on the counter, they kind of make a different sound, you know?

Speaker 3

Yeah, they do, but it also was a relief in a lot of ways that you didn't have the stress of continuing or worrying about making the correct decision.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 3

And I do think it was the correct decision for me and Miss Terry and our family, because, you know, I, I missed my kids growing up. I didn't really want to miss my grandkids growing up, so this has given me a little bit more time to have those relationships.

Speaker 2

Did, did it ever bleed over where like you were coaching and fathering, where they almost became the same thing sometimes, like just because it was so much, like that would seem like there would be some maybe crossover in that space?

Speaker 3

Well, I, I thought that it was really important that because I didn't have a lot of time with my kids, that I made sure that the time I had with them was quality time. And

Speaker 2

like, how'd you do that?

Speaker 3

Well, a lot of the same things that help you be successful in life are the same things that would help you be successful in football.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 3

And, in any sport, for that matter. So, we tried to teach those values and, you know, our kids turned out pretty well, so I'm not disappointed in that.

Speaker 2

Yeah, what's something that you admire most about each one of your, you have two children, right?

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

What's something that you admire most about each one of them?

Speaker 3

Well, Nicholas works in our Mercedes dealership in Birmingham, and he's a general sales manager, and he works his butt off, and he's a really, he's all into it and committed to it, and I'm proud of the fact that he's very productive doing that. I think he's a good father to his daughter. She's got a good wife, and I think they do well, and I'm very proud of him.

Kristen has a son, and I think she does a good job of parenting and a good mother, and, we're always trying to be helpful in how we can help him, and he's a boy, so he plays everything, soccer, baseball. the only thing I hate is every time I go to try to watch him play, I get bombarded with kids wanting autographs and all that, which I'm never going to tell the kids no, but I'd like to watch the game too.

So, that creates a little bit of a conflict, but it's all good.

Speaker 2

Like, yeah, what are the things that you get to see about your grandkid that you almost maybe, like, not missed out on as a dad, but it's like, it almost gives you a second chance? I guess it's like, yeah, does being a grandfather give you like a second chance almost? A little

Speaker 3

bit, yeah. And, and it's not, it's that you didn't have time. You know, like, we, we only had a family dinner on Wednesday night. Was the only night that I came home and we had a family dinner where everybody sat down together at dinner. Can you imagine your family only is one night a week you eat together? one of the things that Miss Terry did because of that was Sunday is the day that I didn't like the most because you had to finish the game you just played, start preparation for the next game.

So it was a grind on Sunday. And you didn't see the players on Sunday. So she instituted five o'clock to six o'clock was family dinner. So everybody brought their kids, all the assistant coaches brought their kids, our kids, our grandkids, everybody had to come for one hour on Sunday, so everybody had to get together. So that was the kind of stuff that she could see that was needed, that was great for morale of the staff and the families who were supporting the staff.

That made, made a big difference.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I think having just a backup set of eyes like that is nice, you know? Very

Speaker 3

nice.

Speaker 2

Cause when you're in the fire, you need somebody out there who's got, who knows how to use a hose, you know?

Speaker 3

It helps.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean, cause you're in there, it's hot in there.

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That's ten percent off at t e c o v a s dot com slash theo, takovas dot com slash theo. See site for details, Takovas, point your toes west. the CFP now, what do you, what do you think they should do with that? Cause last year it felt kinda wonky, right? It felt like some teams should be in almost a different divi, like a different big tournament, you know, or maybe they should have two tournaments for some of the larger schools and then some of the smaller schools.

What do you think the solution is there? and, and what do you worry about the most?

Speaker 3

Well, me personally, I think that people wanna see the best twelve teams in the playoffs. I think to get to a twelve team playoff, we had to do what was politically correct and make sure we included some of the schools that weren't in the power conferences.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's like DEI, division inclusion. Right.

Speaker 3

So And I get that part, but I think each year we try to take some steps to make it better. Like it was not good that Notre Dame didn't get in the playoffs last year, and it would have been bad if they got in and Miami didn't get in. Cause I said Miami is going to be one of the toughest teams in the playoffs and go a long way, and they went all the way to the finals and almost beat Indiana.

So people just want to see the best teams. And I think the other thing is, is we got to come up with a better metrics to determine strength of schedule. Like the question got asked at the SEC meetings this year, Texas loses to Ohio State 14-7. Now they had a bad loss at Florida, but they end up nine and three. So the question was, if we'd have played Texas State instead of Ohio State and ended up ten and two, would we have gotten in the playoffs? And they had a hard time answering that question.

So that in and of itself says the metrics for how we determine strength of schedule is not what it needs to be.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 3

And we always just look at how many wins a team has. And when, just like the SEC, there were six teams in the top ten. They're all going to play each other. So they're not going to end up in the top ten, but they're all really good opponents.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

So you're playing a difficult strength of schedule, and that should be taken into consideration. Like, I think they do a better job of that in basketball. You know, they say if you beat so many top ten teams, you get so many points. You beat eleven to thirty, you get so many points. You get nothing for playing somebody who's not in the top fifty.

So they have a better way to sort of figure out strength of schedule and who gets in the tournament.

Speaker 2

Well, with the evolution of it, so it's an evolving thing you're saying. and with the evolution of it, it does seem like immediately kind of bowl games turned into just something that's more of a fun thing. It almost like the tradition of a lot of the bowl games sort of seems like they kind of fell by the wayside quick.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and that's one of the things that back ten, fifteen years ago, when people wanted to expand the playoffs, I said if we expand the playoffs, we're going to make bowl games obsolete. Players are not going to want to play in them. Fans are not going to go to them. They're not going to get supported. and bowl games have been, you know, a tradition in college sports.

And it was a reward for a team going eight and four, and the team gets to go to a bowl game, the fan base gets to travel, and that's all going to go away because the playoffs will become

Speaker 2

The

Speaker 3

standard of whether you had a good season or a bad season. And we had thirty-three coaches get fired last year because the playoffs have become the standard, and everybody expects their team to get in the playoffs. So, and that can't happen. There's twelve teams that get in the playoffs. Now, we may expand the playoffs in the future. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

The only thing I'm concerned about is there is a limit to how many games a college player should play. There are three or four times where we played fifteen games in a season, and I thought that was too many. Now you've got potentially seventeen games that you could play. So, I think we got to be careful about that.

Speaker 2

Well, do you have a say in that sort of thing? Like, are you on the committee?

Speaker 3

I don't have any say.

Speaker 2

Have you ever met those people? Who is the committee?

Speaker 3

I mean, is

Speaker 2

it real people, or is it just a bot?

Speaker 3

No, they're real people.

Speaker 2

I just wonder if it's like an AI or something. It's like, who even knows, you know? It's kind of, everything's kind of confusing now. do you think social media had a big change on people? You kind of coached across this timeframe where, people didn't have social media and people were just like living in the, you know, the eyes on you were just one another's and the Lord's, that was it, you know? And then this other thing came along where, you know, we all kind of had the ability to watch each other.

What do you think the effect of social media was on players over time? Did you notice any effect?

Speaker 3

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I, I think that in the old days, you know, players were more motivated from within and weren't necessarily exposed to what other people thought, so it didn't matter as much. I think what social media has done is created an external factor that impacts a lot of people. In other words, what other people say about me is meaningful.

So...

Speaker 2

As opposed to my relationship with myself.

Speaker 3

Right. It's not about what I think of myself, it's about what everybody else thinks of me. Like I used to say to our players all the time, and people have heard me say this publicly before, is I see players on their phone getting upset because somebody puts a post on there that's negative about the way they played or something or whatever.

And I'd say, why do you care about what some fat guy running around in his underwear, living in his mother's basement... Probably

Speaker 2

pierced nipples, coach.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Puts on the internet about what kind of football player you are. Why, why would that matter to you?

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

More than what matters to yourself in terms of the truth About how did you play? What do you need to get better? What habits do you need to change? You know, what things do you need to overcome? What work needs to be done to make you better? You, you have no control of what those people say. Focus on what you can control.

Speaker 2

And when you take that out of the ex, out of the internal, right, you take that relationship with, when you put that out into the external, all that energy goes out into the external too. Now this motivation is from this foreign thing, and it's not really this like scale of a relationship with you inside of yourself of value and what do I think and what output do I want to have and what do I think of, of the outcome that I'm creating for myself.

I don't think, I don't think we know the long-term effects of like that whole thing of taking like all of this, like this, this like This template of our own relationship with ourselves and putting into this external place, it's really kind of crazy.

Speaker 3

Oh, no. That was very well said, what you just said.

Speaker 2

Was it really?

Speaker 3

And I agree with you 100%.

Speaker 2

Dude, that's awesome. Thank you. Oh, gosh, I got to write that down. I will say this. When we got to go, like, just when I was touring with comedy, we got to meet Coach Moffitt over there at Texas A&M. Awesome guy. But one of the best times that we had was we went to the Alabama campus, and they took us just on a tour of the facilities and stuff.

It's pretty magnificent they got over there. Ty Simpson gave us a tour everywhere. It was pretty cool. We had a great time. Well,

Speaker 3

Ty's a great young man, no doubt. But we built all those facilities. They weren't there when we got there. Oh, I

Speaker 2

believe that.

Speaker 3

And the commitment that the university made, the athletic department made, people made, To give us the tools to do what we wanted to do, to support the players the way we wanted to support them, with facilities, academic support, food, whatever it was, medical treatment, medical training, mental health, we had it all, and they did a great job, and it was very beneficial and helpful to us being able to build a program.

Speaker 2

Oh, yeah. I mean, the structure is there, you know? let's look real quick just at Lane Kiffin, right? It's an interesting thing that's going on here, right? We can all say that, right? Like, Lane's a buddy of mine, right? And so I love, like, Lane's the only coach that has two rosters, basically, as well, active. How do things end up with Lane overall, do you think? Because it's usually been kind of taboo if there was, like, a coach that was, like, kind of a single guy, right? What do you think's going on down there?

Speaker 3

Oh, I, I don't make any predictions about things like that, but I will say that Lane is a really good coach. did a great job for us. He's a fantastic play caller. He's got a great ability to recognize what the other team's doing and adapt in the game, to take advantage of it. He's a really good recruiter. He relates well with players. and I think, you know, that's all changed a little bit.

You know, we've got it a little more liberal in this whole, what's the expectation for how you should be as a person relative to how you can still lead. and, you know, I was always wanting to set a good example, and I think it's important that that's a part of it, but you can set a good example in other ways other than just your personal life.

He's not married, so...

Speaker 2

Oh, yeah, I think it's fine. I just think it's interesting, you know, that you've kind of had like a... But I

Speaker 3

think it's a little more acceptable, you know, now than maybe back in the day.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

So,

Speaker 2

I agree. Do you... Yeah, if, if, say if, so recruiting is kind of, do you think the value of recruiting is still the same, or it's? No. Okay. So if that's not there, what becomes the new value of a coach to an organization, do you feel like? How does that kind of morph or evolve? Does that make sense to you what I'm asking?

Speaker 3

No, absolutely. Okay. So how do you evaluate the players? Who are you going to pay? What positions are most important? Because if you pay the wrong guys, and you've heard me say this before, you're shit out of luck. So when you can't evaluate the players, and you don't pay the right guys, You're going to pay the consequences for that in the future because you're going to spend all this money, you're not going to have a very good team, and you're not going to get the outcome everybody expects.

And then the cause and effect of this paying players is we're raising money from alumni who now think they should have a say in what happens, and that's why 33 coaches got fired last year.

Speaker 2

Because of boosters.

Speaker 3

Yeah, they have a say.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so I guess the value, a lot of the value is going to become in like judgment, like the ability to be a judge of character.

Speaker 3

Character and talent and ability. If you don't, look, talent is not talent if you can't use it. So if you don't have character to go with it, you probably can't use it. And it's not just in sports. I mean, nobody, nobody that's not really, really smart gets in medical school. You got to be really, really smart. But everybody doesn't make it.

Talented enough, but they don't make it well. Some reason for that.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

So, and some of them that make it don't make very good doctors. So I always say talent is not talent if you don't, if you can't use it, which means you have to have some kind of competitive character to make the kind of choices and decisions to create the habits. So you can recruit talent, but accountability and commitment you have to develop.

Speaker 2

Got it.

Speaker 3

And most of the time you can develop it.

Speaker 2

So it's going to be the coaches that can have, have the judge of character, but then also the ability to help their players create those things.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and also have the talent.

Speaker 2

What do you tell a, a player now that can, that can have a couple of million dollars in his bank account, like, what do you say to these young men at twenty years old that other coaches might not be telling them because they're afraid that they're going to lose them or they're going to afraid that they're going to, upset the apple cart in some way? Like, what would you tell these young men, if you could?

Speaker 3

Don't let the money change you. You know, stay focused on the things that you can control to develop value for your future, because there's a lot more value out there. But I will say one thing that's very interesting to me. Former players that played for us, I'm not mentioning any names, they, they didn't make the money. They didn't get paid.

They played, they created value. They made a lot of money in the NFL. They played for a long time. And one of them said to me the other day that was kind of alarming, said, if I would have gotten paid two million dollars when I played here, I don't know if I would have become the man I became. I don't know if I would have developed into the player I became.

I don't know that I wouldn't have, but I don't know if I could have handled that at eighteen and nineteen years old, and I don't know if I would have become what I was able to become.

Speaker 2

Wow.

Speaker 3

Pretty interesting.

Speaker 2

Yeah. If you kind of live long enough, you can kind of see this, how the certain steps were shaped and the ones that maybe helped you and ones that didn't, you know, over time. I think that's one of the blessings about being alive is you get to see how all the little magic kind of worked out, the little things that maybe you didn't even know if they would.

I don't want to forget to ask about Sabin. That's the name of the documentary. It's a six-part series. what can people expect out of it?

Speaker 3

You know, this documentary is a little bit of a scrapbook. You know, my mom kept a scrapbook of when I was a player, and this will be the scrapbook for the future of what we did. And it's kind of a navigation of how did we develop this program and all the people from Friends, family, growing up to coaches and players and people who impacted.

Speaker 2

Oh yeah. And, and for

Speaker 3

the fans, it's going to be an interesting look from inside out because they did things like, I gave like talks to the team and I would never let the media hear what I said to the team in the locker room or in the team meeting or whatever. It was always taboo. I didn't know Alabama was filming all this stuff and putting it in an archive. I didn't even know they were doing it.

Well, we got all that stuff and put it in stock. So it's a, it's an inside outlook at how do you, how did this program get developed? And it should be interesting for fans to be able to see that.

Speaker 2

You know,

Speaker 3

I spent twenty, thirty hours in interviews, and seventy people got interviewed, and if I'd have wrote a book, it's just the book, but now you got all these personalities that you can see how this impacted, and they related to this, and how it helped them be successful. So I think this is going to be a scrapbook of the future for, this generation and generations in the future, just like my mom's little scrapbook.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I think I love the fact that there's, you get, you get all these different players and, and, and media personalities. There's like Mark Ingram, who I love, I see him at the UFC fights, Rolando McClain. Yeah. Yeah. there's just so many different characters. Oh, your wife is in there. your son is in there. There's so many different, like, pieces of your life that, That kind of, like, chime in about different little things.

And it's fascinating to also to see the different schools you played at, the different coaching, the different decisions that were going on. like, I wish you'd got to coach Drew Brees. I think that would have been awesome, dude. That would have been like, I start thinking of little things that I wish wanted to happen. Not in Miami, I would have wanted it to happen in New Orleans, but still.

Speaker 3

but, you know, the Drew Brees thing would have been, we would have been successful in Miami if that would have worked out. But then I'd have never gone to Alabama.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

Because we'd have probably ended up staying there because we could have had success. And one of the reasons was, you know, with getting Culpepper, he was injured, he couldn't play, not taking Drew Brees because of his injury, which turned out not to be an issue. Because we don't have a quarterback of the future, that's pretty much why I was interested in going back to college.

Because I didn't think we could be successful in the NFL if you didn't have a quarterback. And I thought that you could impact your, you had more control of how you could impact your organization in college because you could go recruit 25 players every year, it wasn't a draft and all that. But, and we didn't have any draft picks. So, I was happy to get the opportunity to go back and it's worked out tremendously.

You know, I wouldn't probably be here if I didn't go back to Alabama and have the success that we had.

Speaker 2

What's something interesting that you've noticed about yourself being away from coaching? Like what's something like, cause that's a long time to be locked in in one sort of facet, one sort of machine. What's something that's, you've either found that you, a new joy or just something that's different?

Speaker 3

Stress level is way down. And it's easier to enjoy other things because you're not so stressed about this one thing. That you can enjoy other things. So now I can enjoy other things, people, relationships, have more fun, laugh more, and all those things are pretty healthy, I think.

Speaker 2

Do you think you'd have such a good time on game day? Are you enjoying it more than you thought you would?

Speaker 3

I love it. I mean, your buddy Pat,

Speaker 2

you

Speaker 3

know, I was, I was so anxious that first time we're, we're over in Ireland. I was so anxious. Had never done that before. I got a lot of pride in performance and want to do a good job, and I'm all worried. And, you know, Pat gets up there and he starts his stuff, and I'm saying, this guy makes me feel like there's nothing I can do that's going to mess up.

So it just made me relax and, has been so helpful. you know, all the guys have been.

Speaker 2

Oh, you guys got a great group, man. Reese Davis, I mean, it's just so perfect.

Speaker 3

And they're all so helpful, and they're all much more experienced than I am, so they've, they've really helped me grow and develop. But Pat is what creates sort of the comfort level for me, thinking I'm going to do something wrong or I'm going to mess up. So.

Speaker 2

Yeah, you can't do anything better or worse than Pat, kind of in a loving way I say that.

Speaker 3

That was a good way to say

Speaker 2

it. Thank you. He does it all.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Man, he's, I, he, there's nobody like him. He is like, there's, there's nobody like that guy.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and I love being on his little show that he has every day. I always go on Friday at like at 12:15 or something. Oh, the

Speaker 2

Pat McAfee show, you mean? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3

I love, because that group of guys he has, they're all football guys, they ask questions, they're into it. I love that little 20 minutes of Bantering back and forth with those guys. It's great.

Speaker 2

Nice. So do you think you're having more fun nowadays then?

Speaker 3

Yeah. I mean, I had fun coaching.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

But there, there was, there was this whole big pile of stress over here.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

And hard work and little time to do anything else to have this much fun for this little bit of time before you had the next challenge looking you in the eye.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

So, and then we won so many games.

Speaker 2

Oh, that's true. That the

Speaker 3

expectation got so high, it was almost like, do you really enjoy winning or are you, are you just relieved that you didn't lose?

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 3

So, so now the fun starts minimizing itself. So, now the stress level is down, the fun can go up. It's easier to have relationships with people. So, I mean, for years now, we, we, we don't have a lot of friends in Tuscaloosa all the time I'm coaching cause people call and say, you want to go out to eat, you want to do this, you want to do that.

No, Nick's working tonight, can't do it, he's on the road recruiting. So they quit calling.

Speaker 2

Will Miss Terry come and eat at the office sometimes?

Speaker 3

On Sunday for Sunday family dinner, and Wednesday we ate as a family.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

So,

Speaker 2

Man. It's a long run. It's a lot of sacrifice.

Speaker 3

It is. It's not, it, coaching is not family friendly. And, I think coaches are constantly trying to make it more family friendly in terms of things that they do. But.

Speaker 2

Does it have to be that high stress? Does it have to be, you think? Or do you think it's started became this escalation ladder that made it even.

Speaker 3

I don't think there was any other way for me to do it.

Speaker 2

Got it.

Speaker 3

Hopefully there's other coaches that can do it another way, that it's not that way. But I felt like for me to do it the way I was going to feel good about the job I was doing, that's how I had to do it. And that was a trap that I couldn't get out of.

Speaker 2

Yeah, your own success almost became, yeah, it's almost a trap, I guess, huh? That's wild.

Speaker 3

Yeah. I mean, it's a nice

Speaker 2

trap.

Speaker 3

Is what it is, but I wouldn't want it the other way.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. thank you so much for your time, coach. I just appreciate you coming today and,

Speaker 3

Well, I, I appreciate you having me.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 3

it's been fun. I enjoyed Visiting with you, you got a great perspective on things, and a good ability to articulate things maybe a little better than me sometimes, and I appreciate that for making some of my points. But, at the same time, you know, hopefully this thing that we're

Speaker 2

doing

Speaker 3

is going to help people get sort of an inside look at, what it takes to build a program and have a better understanding of, how this whole thing got done. And, hopefully it'll be, something that fans can enjoy.

Speaker 2

Were you scared at first with the documentary that there was, that it was going to involve too much of your personal life, or did you even know what your personal life was because you've been coaching so long?

Speaker 3

You know, I, I'm, I'm not big on any kind of self-promotion. So I wasn't that interested in writing a book. And I really wasn't that interested in doing this, but there was so much interest in people doing this. There were like eight or nine of these whatever companies that do this that wanted to do it, and I'm kept like, I don't know if I want to really do that.

You know, what I accomplished is what I accomplished. People know what it is. But this is an inside look at it, and I, I think it'll be interesting to people, and I'm actually glad that we did it because I do think it's going to be a scrapbook for the future.

Speaker 2

It'll be a nice scrapbook for your family as well, for everyone. There's so many people involved.

Speaker 3

A lot.

Speaker 2

They did a great job. You guys did a great job. the documentary, comes out Thursday, October 8th, 5 p.m. Central on ESPN and the ESPN app. Coach Nick Saban, thanks so much for everything, man. Thanks for that championship at LSU too. Appreciate you, and, yeah, just I, I love getting to join you guys over at game day, and just thanks for all the years of, excitement.

It's been a good time.

Speaker 3

Well, thank you for having me. It's been enjoyable. Lots of fun. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes, sir.

Speaker 1

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