Nick Saban says he’s ready to support Alabama in transition،
On his first day of retirement after a legendary coaching career, Nick Saban still thought of the team first.
He wasn't playing golf, planning a vacation, or even sleeping an extra hour. Like every morning for the past 17 years as Alabama's head football coach, he would drive to the office – always there at 7:20 a.m. sharp at the latest.
“I want to be there for the players, for the coaches, whatever I can do to support them through this transition,” Saban told ESPN in his first public comments since his retirement Wednesday, a move that resonated around the world sport and even shocked. those who were closest to him within the Alabama program.
“There's a lot to clean up, to help with as we move forward. I'm still going to be present here at the university in some form or another and trying to understand all of this and how it works. It's a place that will never be far from Miss Terry's heart and from my heart.
Saban informed his staff and players that he was retiring during a 4 p.m. meeting in the team room on Wednesday. It wasn't a long meeting, less than 10 minutes, and Saban said it was important to him that they heard the news from him first.
“I wanted them to know how much they meant to me,” said Saban, who won six national championships at Alabama and another at LSU. “It was tough, all of it was. The last few days were tough. But listen, it's a bit like I told the players. I was going to go out there and ask them to commit 100 % to come back and try to win a championship, but I always said I didn't want to weaken the program, and I felt it was about recruiting or hiring coaches, now that we have people leaving, the same old problem always kind of came back — how long are you going to do this?
Jeff Allen, Alabama's head athletic trainer, has worked with Saban for 17 years. He is the last member of the football team that Saban hired away when Saban took the job at Alabama in 2007. Allen was emotional Thursday, even talking about Saban's retirement.
“It’s one of those days that you knew was coming, but when it does, you’re still somewhat in shock that it’s finally here,” Allen said. “I don't want to say it was a grieving process, because he's still there, but what helped us deal with everything was the way he handled it. He's in the office today and still wants to be a part of this place. It was special for me this morning when I was with him, just hearing him talk about how important it is to him that Alabama continues to succeed. It means a lot to all of us who We are here and love this place and want to see what it has built and continues to grow.
Saban, 72, said his age made it increasingly difficult for him to perform the work as required. He told ESPN last month that 14-hour days were much harder to manage at 72 than at 62 and reiterated this Thursday.
“Last season was tough for me just from a health standpoint, not necessarily any major mistakes, but just being able to maintain and do things the way I want to do them, the way I've always done them “Saban said. “It's become a little more difficult. So you have to decide, 'OK, this is kind of inevitable when you get to my age.'”
Saban added that it would have been unfair to everyone to continue saying he was going to stay at Alabama for four or five more years.
“Which I would have been happy to try to do, but I just didn't feel like I could do it and I didn't want to get into a year-to-year deal that doesn't help anyone and doesn't help. you continue to build and get to the level that I want to be at and I want this program to be,” Saban said.
At no point did Saban consider reducing his responsibilities or moving more into a CEO role as head coach. He is known for being involved in everything related to his program. He said he finalized his decision to retire after returning from a trip home to Florida with his wife Terry last weekend. Saban was still interviewing potential assistant coaches via Zoom on Tuesday and Wednesday. In fact, he was talking with a potential wide receivers coach about an hour before announcing to the team that he was retiring.
“That’s the way I’ve always done things,” Saban said. “You keep working until it's time to leave. I think when you stop doing what you've always done, you'll never be as effective. And that's just kind of it. I knew that it was time.”
Saban has expressed disdain in recent years for the lack of uniformity in college football, particularly regarding the use of NIL as a pretext to pay to play and the transfer portal and all the tampering that has taken place. place with players moving from school to school. school.
Saban insisted, however, that the changing landscape of college football was not the reason he was leaving.
“Don't talk about it. It's not about that,” Saban said. “For me, if you choose to coach, you don't need to complain about any of that. You need to adapt to it and adapt to it and do the best you can under the circumstances and not complain about it. Now, I think everyone is frustrated. We had a conference call with the SEC, with 14 coaches in attendance. [Wednesday]and there's not a single guy you can talk to who really understands what's going on in college football and thinks it's not a problem.
“But this [his retirement] it's not about that. We have been in this era for three years now, we have adapted to it and won in this era as well. It's just that I always knew when it was time to hand it over to someone else, and this is that time.”
Saban, who loves to play golf, has made it a point to never play during the season, except perhaps during open week. He made his first hole-in-one on the opening day before the LSU game in 2016. Now that he's retired, Saban has pushed back on the idea that he might lower his handicap below 5.
“I don’t think it’s going to happen, but we’ll be able to play more than before,” he said with a laugh.
Over the years, Saban joked, “What else am I going to do?” every time he was asked if he was retiring from training. His late father coached Pop Warner in their community of Monongah, West Virginia, and Saban entered the coaching ranks in 1973 as a graduate assistant at Kent State under Don James.
But now that he's retiring after 30 years as a head coach in the college and NFL ranks, Saban said, “There's a lot of things I can do and a lot of things I want to do “, adding that it was important for him to still have the quality of life left to do all these things after leaving coaching.
“There is life after football, but I will always be here for Alabama in whatever way they need me,” Saban said.
Allen met privately with Saban Thursday morning and said his longtime boss took a brief break before telling Allen how much he meant to him.
“But he did that all morning with everyone, literally walking around and thanking people,” Allen said. “One of our guards came up to me and said how much she was going to miss him and how much she would miss cleaning his office and how well he treated her. People don't see always that side of him. “But all that being said, we also know that what he wants us to do is move forward in the right way and help the new coach continue to be successful, and that's how we will be able to better honor coach Saban.
