St. Nick Saban

When our exterminator, Ervin Humes, showed up at the house back in September 2023, he and I did what Alabamians do: We talked football and Jesus, the two forms of Alabamian religion. Ervin enthused over Paul’s hymn to Christ in his epistle to the Colossians, we lamented the state of the world, and we agreed that prayer was our most potent weapon. The football part of the conversation was gloomy. Alabama had lost to Texas and, like all spoiled fans, we were worried. The dynasty seemed shaky, quarterback Jalen Milroe didn’t have the stuff, and we weren’t sure about the defense. We were bracing ourselves for that rarest of Alabama experiences: a mediocre football season.

Nick Saban wouldn’t have it. The coach, his staff, and his players willed the Crimson Tide through ragged victories to a 12–2 season that included a victory over the reigning national champion, Georgia. And he did it with typical daring. After the Texas game, in which Milroe threw two interceptions and completed only half his passes, Saban benched him for the next game, a tough win over lowly South Florida. The shock treatment worked. Milroe developed into a Heisman Trophy contender, darting past defenses and pinpointing bombs. The defense solidified, and skeptics were converted: Bama was in the thick of it yet again. After falling to eventual national champion Michigan in overtime in the national semifinal, Saban called 2023–24 one of the most remarkable seasons in Alabama football history. Evidently he felt it was a good final act. On January 10, he announced his retirement.

Down here, football isn’t just a sport. It provides many of the aspects of culture that once were the province of religion: meaning, community, festive seasons, and above all the thrill of factionalism. Unlike Tennessee or Georgia, Alabama is a divided state, with two strong SEC football programs, at Auburn and the University of Alabama, whose mutual hostility rivals that of Duke–UNC in basketball. In 2011 Alabama fan Harvey Updyke poisoned the trees at Toomer’s Corner in Auburn, an act of desecration for which he received a prison sentence after calling in to Paul Finebaum’s radio show to confess (or boast).

Though certainly a partisan in this intrastate rivalry, Saban—regarded by most as the greatest college football coach of all time—has over the years assumed a philosopher-king role. Some sports analysts have speculated that his concern for the meaning and direction of college football may be the reason he decided to retire when he did. Radical changes have come to the game in just a few short years, and the coach’s role as mentor, as maker of men, may be on the way out.

Today, student athletes make hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions, from “name, image, and likeness” (NIL) deals, and new transfer rules make it easy for players to enter the “portal” and emerge at new schools with, perhaps, more lucrative NIL possibilities. NIL and the transfer portal have changed the complexion of college football. Saban’s skill as a recruiter had been one of the keys to his success. In the past, Bama seemed always to have a future star to sub in at any position at a moment’s notice. That’s no longer a given. A bench-riding running back can move to a school where he won’t have to wait to start.

This is certainly a boon for players. For teams, though, the effects of the new arrangement are ambiguous. Coaches can use the portal to fill gaps, but it’s becoming rare for a team to stay together for more than a year or two. As a result, the relation of coach and players has changed. Coaches have always been dependent, like Hegelian Masters, on their players, but now players have direct clout. Saban’s recruiting pitch had always been, “I’ll guarantee you an opportunity, not immediate playing time; what you do with the opportunity is up to you.” Nowadays, some players don’t find that challenge appealing.

In a post-retirement interview with ESPN’s Rece Davis, though, Saban said that NIL and the transfer portal had not caused his retirement—at least, not by making it harder to win. Rules and playing styles have changed before, and Saban has always adjusted. Once upon a time, his teams were known for their vicious defenses and their smashmouth “three yards and a cloud of dust” offenses. Then, when college football went freewheeling, with no-huddle offenses and run-pass options, Saban transformed Alabama into an offensive juggernaut.

Saban’s objections to transfer mania have nothing to do with wins and losses. Multiple transfers keep players from graduating, which means they aren’t prepared for life after football. Though he’s justly proud of his win–loss record, Saban told Davis that his primary legacy is to help players live well. Saban and his wife, “Miss Terry,” have established the Nick’s Kids Foundation, which raises money for children, families, teachers, and students, and sponsors home-building through Habitat for Humanity. Saban beams when he tells of players who built houses while at Alabama, then went on to establish foundations of their own. The Sabans helped raise money for the Saban Catholic Student Center on the Alabama campus, which opened in 2016.

Saban’s coaching mantras evince an unusual degree of psychological penetration and concern for the formation of character. He’s thought deeply, for instance, about the dynamics of success and failure. Saban fears success more than failure. Competitors react to failure; they don’t like losing and strive to improve. If you win consistently, you’re no longer climbing the mountain; you become the mountain. Saban berates players who make mistakes when Bama is up by fifty in the fourth quarter. A player who slacks off when ahead is training himself for slackness when it really matters.

Saban makes a sharp distinction between external factors, which neither players nor coaches control, and the internal factors for which each individual is responsible. In his 2022 book The Leadership Secrets of Nick Saban, John Talty says that one of Saban’s guiding principles is “Don’t let outside factors impact your goals.” That principle is integrally linked to “The Process,” which Saban developed from conversations with Michigan State University psychiatrist Lionel Rosen. To follow “The Process” means to do the things you are assigned to do as well as possible and work to improve constantly. The alternative is the “if only” attitude of losers: If only I had given more effort, if only I had done it right. By the time you say “if only,” it’s already too late.

Athletic programs, with their motivational tactics, can sometimes seem like ersatz religions. P. J. Fleck, the football coach at Minnesota, was recently the target of a not very compelling exposé charging him with running a cult centered on his “Row the Boat” mantra. Saban perhaps invites such criticism by terming his ethic of intensity “the church of what’s happening now.” But before anyone decries idolatry, it is worth listening to the fans. The Alabama faithful certainly venerate Saban. But when they call in to Finebaum’s show, they pepper their conversation with references to Jesus and the Bible (often genially acknowledging the Jewishness of their host). On an episode taped after Saban’s retirement, one caller (“Dustin”) vehemently defended another caller, the legendary “I-Man,” against the criticisms of a third caller (“Sandy”). Sandy called in the following day to clarify that she had not meant to cast doubt on I-Man’s “integrity or his salvation,” merely to call out his lack of faith in Bama football. Both charges are serious, but one is definitely worse than the other. Jesus is the major coordinate in the life of the Bama fan, surpassing even football.

Saban’s life has never revolved entirely around football. He said in 2020 that he would miss the announcement of which teams had made the playoff because it conflicted with Mass. He has spent most of his adult life preparing young men for life after football. Surely, he has been doing the same for himself.

Next time Ervin Humes drops by to kill our roaches, I’m sure he’ll have more to say about his prayer meeting and the apostle Paul. We’ll again mourn the state of the world, but our conversation about Alabama football will be brighter. We’ll marvel at Jalen Milroe’s transformation and share our pride in the resilience our team showed this past season. But we’ll know things are different, and we’ll wonder whether future players will balance football and life as they have under Saban’s guidance. Bama may keep winning under new coach Kalen DeBoer, but it won’t be the same without “St. Nick.” 

Peter J. Leithart is president of Theopolis Institute.

Image by Ron Cogswell, licensed via Creative Commons. Image cropped.