Alabama head football coach Nick Saban announced his retirement, citing the difficulty of maintaining his high performance standards as he ages.
Saban, at 72, expressed that the decision was influenced by the impact on players, coaches, and staff.
He emphasized that health wasn’t the primary concern, but rather the grueling nature of the past season and the challenge of sustaining his coaching commitment. (Trending: GOP Rep. Mace Clashes Directly With Hunter Biden At Hearing)
“To be honest this last season was grueling … it took a little more out of me than usual.”
Nick Saban on how his age impacted his decision to retire. pic.twitter.com/uLCmNuY6cL
— ESPN (@espn) January 11, 2024
Known for his dominant coaching career, including seven national championships, Saban’s intense recruiting and focus on “the process” made him a standout figure in college football.
Saban said, “The thing that made it more difficult for me, is I felt like it might be the right time for me, but how it impacted the players, the coaches, all the people who work here in the building and contributed to the success of the team, how would it affect them?”
“That was the hard part and that was the part that I kept vacillating on,” he continued.
“When people mention the health issue, it was really just the grind of ‘Can you do this the way you want to do it?’ ‘Can you do it the way you’ve always done it and be able to sustain it and do it for the entire season?’,” said Saban.
“If I couldn’t make a commitment to do that in the future the way I think I have to do it, I thought maybe this was the right time — based on those two sets of circumstances. There’s never a good time. But I thought maybe this was the right time,” explained the coach.
“When I was young, I could work ’til 2 in the morning, get up at 6 and be there the next day and be full of energy and go for it. But when you get a little older, that gets a little tougher,” confessed Saban.
“When you get my age, it’s inevitable that it’s coming. This year, next year or the next year [after]. And I didn’t want to work on a year-to-year basis. I don’t think that’s fair to your staff. I don’t think that’s fair to the players. I think you need to make long-term commitments to people,” he concluded.
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