At SEC Media Days, Finebaum says Nick Saban is tired. Tired of what?
By Ronald Evans
After Nick Saban’s 16th SEC Media Days, Paul Finebaum said he thinks Nick is tired. We ask, tired of what?
There is an oft used old phrase that typifies Nick Saban and his response to any foolish statement made about football. “He does not suffer fools gladly.” For example,
If Paul Finebaum’s perception is acute and Nick Saban is tired – it is because Nick is slavishly serious about football. He has no tolerance for those unwilling or incapable of understanding there are two paths in Nick’s world. One is right and the other is wrong and everything in the development of college football players follows one of the paths.
As we wrote a few weeks ago, there is no secret to the Saban Process. In that post, we quoted acclaimed writer and fellow Crimson Tide fan, Warren St. John.
"He (Saban) has a saying: Right is never wrong. It means, in essence, there is only one way to do things: the correct way."
Beyond having to ‘suffer fools’ at 16 SEC Media Days, there could be something else tiring Nick Saban. Saban has said many times he hates losing more than he loves winning. The Crimson Tide and Nick Saban lost their last game. An offseason made longer by coping with hating that particular loss is understandably tiring.
Next: 10 Players who could surprise in 2017
Even Finebaum does not buy the premise that before long Saban will leave the football field for television. No one, who knows Saban well, believes ‘taking it easy’ in retirement will appeal to Nick.
A man of such exceptional purpose can never be content with idleness. The line Nick keeps using was repeated again Wednesday morning in a relaxed chat with the WJOX team of Al Del Greco and Jay Barker,
"“I’ve been a part of a team since I was 9 years old, and it scares me to death to figure what it’s going to be like when I’m not a part of a team.”"
We have no crystal ball. Any prediction of the end of Nick Saban’s coaching career is pointless. In a more serious tilt, Finebaum opined Nick may, at some point, face a ‘no exit’ situation. That Finebaum premise asks, how close is Nick to having nothing else to prove in football?
To us, Nick Saban is driven less by ‘proving anything’ than he is by a yeoman’s satisfaction of good work, done well. Once that passion is discovered, doing good work well never dissipates … until the work can no longer be done well.
Then it becomes tiring. Nick Saban is nowhere near that point.