This may be Saban’s Defining Moment

If Alabama makes it to the national championship in Miami in January, Nick Saban will have literally come full circle. He will be returning to the latitude and longitude where conceivably he is detested the greatest, although there are pockets of Sabanhaters dotted in perhaps every town in America that builds a college.In 2007, Saban leapt out of the Dolphin tank and landed on the Tuscaloosa tarmac like a beached fish, to the chagrin of many angry Miamians. He was excoriated by the press, branded a liar and a fake after making a vehement statement at a press conference weeks earlier that he was not, absolutely not, going to be the next coach at Alabama. Fans went ballistic and tore him apart on radio talk shows and on the Internet. Saban leaving Miami for Tuscaloosa was akin to LeBron James leaving Cleveland for Miami, the only difference: Saban’s sport coat wasn’t burned in effigy.But that was five years and two championships ago. At this hour, even the most irate Dolphins fans must agree that Saban made the right decision, if not from a personal standpoint, certainly a professional one. Saban realized that his life’s work is to matriculate in the crucible of college football, where boys can be shaped into men, instead of an arena where men play like men and act like boys. And who can argue with him?A man has the right to choose how he wants to live his life.Since taking his talents away from South Beach, Saban (with all due respect to Urban Meyer and Les Miles) has become the best college football coach on this side of Andromeda. Being the best invites a target on your back, and without question, Saban wouldn’t threaten to be considered the darling of opposing fans. He is hated. He is called names. He is likened to the imp of the universe. Darrington Sentimore, a former Alabama player who transferred to Tennessee, expressed his disgust for Saban before the Bama-UT game in Knoxville this season, claiming that Saban doesn’t talk to some players in the hallway.I would hate for my life to be adjudged by what I said or didn’t say in a hallway. And to be sure, this doesn’t encapsulate Saban, either.The science of Saban is much greater than merely an argyle-sweater-wearing horse’s behind that many claim him to be. Whatever you want to say about him, Saban is a personality that you cannot remain neutral toward. He begs the question, requires an answer, and pricks our curiosity. Adding Saban to the mix is a sure fire way of making things bubble up. You may not respect who he is, but you must respect what he does.The son-of-a-gun just wins.Saban’s success is not something that should be merely respected and analyzed by coaches; his blueprint for success should be studied by businessmen, CEOs, and other leaders. Saban’s monkish discipline to his profession is admirable, possibly bewildering (Does he laugh? Does he have fun? Is he a robot?), and should inspire case studies and books. Without sounding sacrilegious, Saban’s football philosophy should be developed into some sort of rule or creed (think St. Benedict’s Rule for monastic behavior) that is doled out when new coaches arrive into the profession.So, who is he, really?I must first add a caveat to the following analysis: I have never met Nick Saban. This Saturday in Tuscaloosa, I got within twenty yards of him, and that is the closest I have ever been. I met his wife Terri at the Tennessee game last year, but I have yet to be invited to their house for Little Debbies and a cup of coffee.What I have gleaned from him has been gleaned from afar, and from my unique perspective as a former college coach. My first thought about him is that I have tremendous respect for him as a coach, for I understand how difficult it is to win in today’s dog-eat-dog sporting world. His body of work keeps me scratching my head and wondering how he continues to do what he does year-in and year-out. It is one thing to have a successful season, and it is quite another to maintain it. It is one thing simply to be a great recruiter, and it is quite another to translate those efforts into championships. It is one thing to win championships, it is quite another to build a program that makes the kind of money Saban’s program makes, to increase the fan base to the point that Bourbon Street is drowned more in a sea of crimson than it is in whiskey, and to heighten national exposure to the point that no fan in the country can ignore Alabama, even if they wanted to.All of this while graduating players, maintaining a marriage, speaking to alumni groups, participating in community service events (including his own Nick’s Kids), conducting camps, signing autographs, answering fan mail, coordinating a coaching staff, responding to interview requests and business offers, overseeing scheduling, reporting to superiors, ensuring that the program isn’t inviting the NCAA to sniff around, preparing game strategy, watching film, diagnosing tendencies, controlling head-cases, and doing all the other myriad things that college coaching requires.Truly amazing.That said, I want to learn from him. I want to follow him around one day with notepad and pen.How does he do it? What does he do? What does he say?If I had to outline Sabanology from a “distance education” perspective, the following would be my bullet points:1) Take responsibility and ownership of your actions. I think the greatest mistake I made as a college coach was worrying too much about my opponents. Largely, this is something that is out of a person’s control—what the other guy does. If you are constantly fixated on the other guy, you cannot concentrate on what you can do to have success. It’s hard to focus on two things at one time. So focus on what you can do. Focus on being your best. Take responsibility for your life. Take ownership of your role and then pursue your own personal best.2) Take it one play at a time, one game at a time. Don’t look back, don’t look ahead. Stay focused on now. Each play has a life of its own, and similarly, each day has a life of its own. What happened yesterday has very little to do with today, although we can learn much from studying yesterday. And just because you performed well yesterday doesn’t mean that you will today. Today breathes life of its own.3) Learn something from every situation. There is a radio spot for a Ford commercial that features a story by Saban. It is a true story about a fisherman that keeps throwing back the big ones after he catches them. A young Saban asks the man why he keeps throwing them back. The man replies that his frying pan won’t hold them; it’s too small. Saban says, “That stuck with me.” Saban continues to be a student of the game and a student of life. He understands that there is no ceiling on what you can learn, and just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, that’s when real difficulty strikes. Upward progression to the mountaintop and the ability to stay there must be fueled by knowledge and wisdom.4) Life is a mental game. The greatest adversary in life is Self. Overcoming Self—fears, insecurities, flaws, instabilities—is a key to success in life. Have self-determination to be the best you can be. Have the will to prepare. Have the resolve to endure. Do not get sidetracked by clutter and the fame of life. Stay humble, and work hard.and 4) Demonstrate class. Say what you want to about Saban, but he runs a class program. A foul word may slip out from time to time, a short fuse may burn out when dealing with the press, and a rear-end chewing may ensue on the field. But chiefly, he runs a class (and without any indictable evidence, a clean) program from top to bottom. His players conduct themselves with class in the way they speak and act on and off the football field. There is no place on his team for thuggery, egoism, or self-promotion.This past Saturday, I was watching closely as Saban wrestled with a decision: get greedy and go for more points against Alabama’s most bitter rival, or do the right thing by not running up the score. He chose the latter. By doing this, he did what he said he was going to do—run a class program. That made a statement to me, and it should have made a statement to the college football world.It should have reverberations that reach much farther than ESPN.Today, I have a greater appreciation who Nick Saban is. Not because he is my coach, but because for just a moment he let us in.Saban understood that there was something more important than just one more touchdown. He understood that there was something greater than the discrepancy between points on a scoreboard:Showing class.If he would have chosen to run north the score on Auburn, you could have taken the “cl” out of that word, and he would have been, literally, what some claim him to be. But he didn’t, and it taught his players he is accountable toward on a daily basis how to be a gracious winner.Besides, it’s always better in life to simply take a knee.