Nick Saban is considered the most enigmatic person in the world of college football.. His skills have resulted in packed stadiums, a consistently winning program at the highest level, countless NFL draft picks and four national championships. Saban: The Making of a Coach, by Monte Burke, is an in-depth look at this both influential and polarizing University of Alabama football coach.
To the fans, and the greater University of Alabama community, Saban sought to completely wipe out any lingering sense of entitlement. “I have respect for history and tradition, but none of that impacts what we do now,” he said, whenever he spoke to booster groups, to fans, and to the media. “We cannot depend on the successes of the past to help us be successful in the future. That’s the kiss of death.”
Of course, there was Saban’s workforce—his players, coaches, and staff. They, too, were given the sheet music and were expected to follow it, to the note. Saban met with his players individually. “It was all very methodical,” says Preston Dial, a freshman tight end in 2007. “He told us that there was no secret to success, that it came with hard work. He made it clear that our scholarships were one- year agreements. It was clear that he had a way of doing things and that he had done this all before at every change he’d made.”
John Parker Wilson, Alabama’s starting quarterback in 2007 and
2008, says: “Everybody knew his direction, from the coaches down to the cafeteria staff.”
It started with creating a cultural framework that focused on the mental side of things as much as the physical. “Our goal is to help the players become more successful people, to develop thoughts, habits, and priorities to make good decisions,” Saban says. “We lose games because of a lack of good judgment, both on the field and off. A player who is doing poorly in school can cost us a game. If you have the right thoughts, habits, and priorities, which in one sense is the definition of character, that determines the choices you make. We’re trying to affect those things. If they can do those things here, they can do them anywhere. They can be successful as players, stu- dents, and people.”
Saban reinforced that framework, stalking the meetings rooms, the weight room, and the practice field, constantly spewing a hand-ful of maxims, updated versions of the ones once posted on the walls of Big Nick’s Idamay Black Diamonds bus:
• We want to develop thoughts, habits, and priorities.
• How you do anything is how you do everything.
• Everybody wants to win. Are you willing to do what it takes and what is necessary to win?
• You can’t hoot with the owls late at night and get up and soar with the eagles in the morning.
• You never stay the same. You either get better or you get worse.
Saban knew that, to elite athletes, these maxims weren’t the trite clichés they appear to be to most—they meant something. As with any motivational speaker, he also knew that saying these words over and over not only kept his players, coaches, and staff focused; it acted as personal reinforcement as well.
Everything was tailored to help his players achieve their poten- tial. They were completely taken care of. Rosen continued to speak to all the players individually, eliciting what by that time must have felt like a familiar response. “When I first saw the Wizard, I was like, ‘Who the hell is this guy?’ ” says Damion Square, a defensive lineman. “But then it started to make sense. We could see the results in real time. You have to brainwash your players, and I don’t mean that in a bad way, to get them to all do something together.” Saban supplemented Rosen’s sessions with ones from the performance and motivational gurus Trevor Moawad and Kevin Elko, and the corpo- rate consultants at the Pacific Institute.
Scott Cochran, the gravelly voiced strength coach, was hired to
take on the role that Ken Mannie and Tommy Moffitt had filled be- fore him, as the shaper of the players’ physical beings.* Saban hired legions of unofficial coaches—far more than most other college programs—who were called “quality control coaches” or “analysts,” to support him and his staff by organizing practices, watching and cutting film, and assisting in on-campus recruiting. One former “ana- lyst” described his role as being part of the team’s “assembly line.”
Nutritionists tailored meals by different positions (linemen needed protein for strength; skill players were fed carbohydrates for fuel). Facilities were eventually upgraded—Saban’s new thirty-thousand- square-foot football building features a $9 million weight room, a 212-seat theater, a waterfall, meeting rooms, a hydrotherapy room, a cooling bench and tent that stays at 65 degrees, an ice bath that players jump into after practice with their pads on, and a drying station for their pads and shoes. “You always hear that guys like Pete Carroll are players’ coaches, but Saban really is, too, in a different way,” says Colin Peek, a transfer from Georgia Tech who played tight end on the 2009 Alabama team. “He would do whatever it took to make sure we were taken care of. If the players about food, he had it changed. At Georgia Tech, they would hide the receiving gloves so we wouldn’t go through them too fast. At Alabama, we could have new gloves every day if we needed them. He did everything to make us feel like we could go out and be the best in the nation.”
Saban effectively put his players in a cocoon, where they could concentrate on football and all it entailed—mental and physical conditioning, academics—and remain as sheltered as possible from potential off-the-field pitfalls. “The one thing people always ask me is ‘What was Saban like?’ ” says Damion Square, who now plays for the San Diego Chargers. “They don’t ask about the national championships. And I mean it’s everyone who asks me that. Teammates, NFL coaches, and even people who don’t know anything about football. And I always say the same thing: He was exactly what I needed when I was 18 years old.”
From “Saban: The Making of a Coach” by Monte Burke. Copyright 2015 by Monte Burke. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York.