Give Saban a break

By Robert Rousseau  |   Sunday, June 29, 2008  |  Comments( 2 )

Alabama Crimson Tide
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Satan is the epitome of evil, right? Well, some have been calling a very successful college football head coach just that.

Of course, we’re talking about Alabama's Nick Saban.

Yet Saban recently did something that has to stop and make those who detract his character think. Specifically, he and wife Terry pledged $1 million to the University of Alabama for first-generation college student scholarships. Add that to the fact the Sabans, when they arrived in Tuscaloosa two winters ago, gave $100,000 to the school for such scholarships.

"Terry and I have always felt that the education of our youth is a key to a successful future in our state as well as our nation," said Saban. "As first-generation graduates ourselves, we support first-generation scholarships and hope that many of our fans will take the challenge and help a first-generation student get the opportunity to obtain an education."

Those who dislike Saban will still simply point to his jumping ship from the Michigan State Spartans to the LSU Tigers to the Miami Dolphins and then to the Crimson Tide, forgetting his off-the-field act of kindness. They're right that Saban has moved around a lot and broken his word on multiple occasions, but is that really something which other coaches haven’t done before?

Let’s look at the changes that Saban has decided to make more closely. First, can anyone blame him for leaving the Spartans to coach at LSU? Not unless you can blame Rich Rodriguez for leaving West Virginia for Michigan (all Mountaineers fans please refrain from commenting) and Les Miles for departing Oklahoma State to coach at LSU. In other words, this was a clear uphill change for Saban, one that the majority of coaches would’ve strongly considered.

Then, of course, he left the Tigers for the Dolphins. Let’s put together a quick list of some of the coaches who have made similar moves from college to the pros: Jimmy Johnson, Steve Spurrier, Bobby Petrino, Rich Brooks and Lou Holtz. The point is that Saban certainly isn't the only college coach who was ever lured by the NFL's siren song.

But then he came back to college football after only one season with the Dolphins. The way it happened wasn’t very good, with Saban actually verbalizing, "I'm not going to be the Alabama coach,” before deciding to become just that. After he left, many Dolphins players had bad things to say about him, and when asked if he was a ''raging fraud,'' former Miami coach Don Shula said, “What other conclusion can you draw? The guy likes to hear himself talk and then doesn't follow up on what he says."

Nevertheless, Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor defended Saban.

"I loved Nick; I thought he was great," said Taylor.

Wanting to leave the pro ranks after one season has been done before, obviously. But the way Saban departed left something to be desired. Therefore, that was strike one.

Still, as we discuss the coaching transitions it would seem important to note what he did for Michigan State and LSU while at those institutions. Sure, Saban didn’t do much for the Dolphins; maybe he even hurt the club the way things went down. Still, his own words in 2007 regarding recruiting would seem to reinforce the fact that his other stays haven’t really broken down in the same way.

"I think we have a pretty good track record of recruiting. I think recruiting is all about attention and relationships with people and developing trust. Michigan State, I think they were 3-8 (actually 5-6). We ended up 10-2 in the fifth year there and were the first Spartans team to beat Ohio State, Notre Dame, Michigan and Penn State in the same year since 1965," said Saban.

"LSU was 3-8 when I went there. In the second year, we won the SEC championship. In the fourth year (2003) with a team of players we had recruited we won the national championship. I think that the players you saw last night for LSU were primary players that we were recruiting when I was there. JaMarcus Russell, Early Doucet, Buster Davis, Dwayne Bowe, LaRon Landry. They were all players that we recruited when I was there," he continued.

In other words, Saban did a lot for both the Spartans and Tigers, including leading LSU to its first national championship since 1958. Further, he coached at both schools for a significant amount of time (Michigan State from 1995-99, LSU from 2000-04), so he wasn't exactly a mercenary.

What has served as reinforcement for the negativity attached to Saban’s image are the unfortunate verbalizations he has made in recent years. In specific, there was the situation in which he used the word “coonass" -- which is a derogatory term for people of Cajun descent -- after taking the Alabama job, something that he apologized for. Then there was his decision to correlate football to significant historical events by saying that “changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event. It may be 9-11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, or whatever, and that was a catastrophic event."

After some criticism, a spokesperson for Saban later said, "What Coach Saban said did not correlate losing a football game with tragedy ... The message was that true spirit and unity become evident in the most difficult of times. Those were two tremendous examples that everyone can identify with.”

Saban clearly did not communicate as well as he could have; he said some things that got him in trouble, and deservedly so. It's also a fact that has left a lot of jobs. But when you look at things more closely, perhaps the amount of criticism he receives isn't fair. Why? Because he's a coach who has readily donated major money for scholarships and left each school he has been with in better position than it was prior to his era.

Nick "Satan"? Hardly.
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About Robert Rousseau

Robert Rousseau is a sports writer that has been published in a variety of print and online venues. He’s been writing for RealFootball365.com for almost three years now. When Rousseau isn’t writing about college football he tends to be penning mixed martial arts pieces for MMAFighting.com or ...
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