This is an opinion column
“It’s not about being better than someone else,” he said. “It’s about being the best that you can be.”
– Nick Saban
I’ve been out of Alabama for a few days, so I missed some big stuff. Like Nick Saban playing second fiddle to Donald Trump at my alma mater.
“I feel like I’m the warm-up band for The Rolling Stones,” Saban quipped at Trump’s University of Alabama commencement-and-me speech.
I’m trying to imagine a Stones show on the Alabama campus these days. Pretty sure UA System lawyers would nix “Brown Sugar” and “Paint it Black” from the set list because, you know, DEI. And don’t even get ‘em started on that woke anthem “Gimme Shelter.”
At least “Sympathy for the Devil” might still fly in Alabama. Like the Confederate flag.
Saban did say some very Saban things when he talked briefly to graduates at Coleman Coliseum:
“You got to earn it,” he said. “Have accountability for what your job is.”
Mmmhmmm.
“It’s not about being better than someone else,” he said. “It’s about being the best that you can be.”
But as he said it, the only thing I could hear was the voice of The Sphinx, that very mysterious character from the controversial but underrated turn-of-the-century film “Mystery Men.”
The Sphinx offered pearls of wisdom like, “When you care what is outside, what is inside cares for you.”
Or…
“He who questions training only trains himself at asking questions.”
Until the Ben Stiller character – Mr. Furious – screamed what everyone was thinking:
“Okay, am I the only one who finds these sayings just a little bit formulaic? ‘If you want to push something down, you have to pull it up. If you want to go left, you have to go right.’”
Without having to say anything at all.
People of course, have different opinions on Saban’s injection into this very political event. Saban’s personal politics have long been the subject of debate and speculation. If you presume to talk too much about it in one of the fine drinking establishments across Alabama you could easily find yourself defending your honor in the gravel parking lot outside.
I don’t think you can read a lot into it. At least not about what Saban thinks about party or politics. But I do think his presence there answers one question that has been as mysterious as The Sphinx:
Just what does Nick Saban do to earn the $41,666.67 that the University of Alabama pays him every month to be the ex-coach?
He comes when Mama calls. And he smiles about it.
Of course some would argue that $41k a month is duck feed for this guy with Aflac and ESPN gigs, with Mercedes dealerships pushing him toward becoming the first college coach to become a billionaire. In a state with only one billionaire.
I still let that $41K a month bug me, though my kid reminds me, indignantly, that Auburn paid football coaches Gus Malzahn and Bryan Harsin a combined $36.75 million to go away.
If you made $41,000 a month it would take 75 years – longer than the average Alabama man’s life expectancy – to match what Auburn paid those two guys not to coach at all.
Hey, when your game is money, money becomes your game.
Roll Tide. War Eagle.
Or as Saban said, “You got to earn it. Have accountability for what your job is.”
Or isn’t.
