Watch: The day Nick Saban was introduced as Alabama's head football coach
Updated: 6:43 PM CST Jan 10, 2024
I first wish to thank uh, our chancellor, Doctor Pao, our president, Doctor Whitt and the Board of trustees for their steady support and confidence throughout this process, it could not have been successful without their support. When we began the process of hiring the head coach for the University of Alabama, I stated the express goal was to hire *** coach with championship credentials while *** number of outstanding individuals expressed interest in becoming the coach of the Crimson Tide. One person who always stood out was Nick Saban, *** man who has coached *** team to the pinnacle of college football. His teams always play with confidence and pride and I know in order to win *** national championship, *** team has to be mentally as well as physically tough coach, Saban's teams have always possessed those qualities. Alabama has *** long storied football history, complete with memorable moments and time honored players. Importantly, there have been legendary head coaches who in who inspired those players to achieve those moments in time. Today, we move forward, uh, move toward *** future with *** new coach who will write his own chapter in Crimson Tide history and there will be more of these moments that will never be forgotten. As an old football coach, I can tell you, Nick Saban is *** man who I've Agnar because of the way his teams play the game. He is *** man filled with relentless energy to excel and he exerts it in shaping his players into being better individuals as well as the best athletes. They can be on the football field. This is *** great moment for the University of Alabama. And before I introduce the coach, I would like to take just *** moment and, and introduce his family and, and, and certainly uh in introducing Terry to say to you how important she was in the decision that was made by the coach, she loves college football and longed to be back in it. So does coach Saban, but Terry Saban was the one that uh made me feel good when I called her. Terry. Would you please stand? I, yeah. Yeah, they have *** son, Nick junior that is not here. He is in college at this time. Their daughter Kristen who is 1/10 grader and *** friend of Kristen's Nicole this in school with in, in Florida. Welcome to the University of Alabama. And it, it gives me uh *** great pleasure to introduce the next coach of the Crimson Tide. Nick Saban. Good. Thank you. Thank you very much. I can't tell you how pleased and honored I am to be your coach at the University of Alabama, uh the spirit and enthusiasm that has been demonstrated to myself and my family has been uh phenomenal uh since we arrived here yesterday afternoon, it's certainly appreciated. Uh But I want you to know that it would be our goal to um give you the kind of football program by *** kind of football team that you can be proud of and that will complement the tradition uh that this institution has uh been so proud of through the years. And that's gonna be our goal as *** football program. I'd like to thank Doctor Wit and Mao uh for extending the wonderful opportunity um to my family to be your head coach at the University of Alabama, to the fans and supporters, the boosters and everybody that's here. Um That loves this program and loves Alabama football. Uh I want everybody to know that we need *** lot of positive energy uh for everybody to make *** difference in how we go about what we try to do to have the best football team in the Southeastern conference, the best football program in the Southeastern Conference. And I think everybody should take the attitude that we're working to be *** champion, that we wanna be *** champion in everything that we do. Every choice, every decision, everything that we do every day, we wanna be *** champion. Everyone take ownership for what they need to do relative to their role and whatever it is. Whether it's being *** fan, being *** booster, be *** good one, any kind of supporter that you are for this team, everyone take ownership that we support each other so we can have the best possible football program uh that Alabama's ever had. And there have been some great ones through the years, but the tradition here is phenomenal and that's certainly *** standard of excellence uh that we wanna work and make our football program *** part of our mission statement here is to create an atmosphere and environment for everyone to be able to succeed. First of all, as *** person, we want players to be more successful in life because they were involved in our program by the principles and values that we're able to uh develop with them so that they can be successful relative to the character and attitude that they have as *** football player here at this institution. The second thing is that we wanted to be successful with students. I I always tell players in recruiting, there's two things that we want you to do here. You got two careers, one on the field and one off the field. And the one on the field means you gotta graduate from college and that's the one that's gonna have the greatest impact on the quality of your life forever. So we wanna have *** great academic support program and we want our players to succeed as students. The third thing is we wanna be the best possible football players that they can be whenever guy here to reach their full potential as *** football player, play together as *** team and know how important it is to be *** part of *** successful team and fulfilling your role to that team. And the last thing is is to use all the resources that this institution has to help everyone launch their career when they represented this institution, when they lead this institution, that we help them launch their careers. So they can be most successful in life because of their association with this university and the people that have made this university great. So that's what we wanna try to accomplish as the football coach here. Now, expectations, I know there's tremendous expectations here for what you're, what you would like to accomplish with this football program. And I can tell you that however you feel about it, I have even higher expectations for what we want to accomplish. I want to win every game we play. I've never gone out to play *** game. We've never gone out to play *** game where we didn't want to win and it wasn't important to win and we didn't focus on winning and put all our energy into winning. But I think it's more important that you're able to take your expectations and bridge them into the process of what it takes to be successful. And I wanna use this as an example and we won *** national championship at LSU in 2003. The players develop the goals for the team. And I thought it was interesting that that was the first team that I ever coached that didn't have *** goal that was result oriented, like go to *** New Year's Day bowl game or win the SEC championship or some goal that was result oriented. But this team, the five goals they had had nothing to do with winning the game, didn't say anything about results. The first one was, is be *** team together. Everybody can accomplish more. And when I speak to you as fans boosters, people who love this program, you're part of that team too. And together we can accomplish more, takes trust, respect for each other and what everyone's role is and what they need to do. So that's the first thing that's important is for us to work together and use all the resources we have to make this, everything that it's capable of being. The second thing was, is work every day to dominate your opponent. And you know, we have an opponent in this state that we work every day, 365 days *** year, all right to dominate. But that's, that's our goal. That's what you get up every day to do to dominate the people that you have to compete against and play against. Everyone needs to be responsible for their own self determination. We don't want to point any fingers in any direction other than what we control what we can do. And I would like for everybody that's associated with this team to do the same thing, be responsible for what your role is and what you need to do, be positive to affect the team and your teammates. This is *** team's goal, but I'm trying to relate them *** little bit to the whole big picture of what we're talking about here positively affect your teammates every day and the choices and decisions that you make and then the last one was be *** champion. Now, this team did that and they did what won the national championship. And I think that's the kind of process that I think you, you can expect from us in terms of how we approach what we do. We're not gonna talk about what we're gonna accomplish. We're gonna talk about how we're gonna do it. Now, what kind of football team that we wanna do? We wanna have here. You know, we wanna be *** big physical, aggressive football team that is relentless in the competitive spirit that we go out and play with week in and week out. And what I would like for every football team to do that we play is to sit there and say I hate playing against these guys. I hate playing their effort, their toughness, their relentless resiliency to go out every play and focus and play the next play and compete in the game for 60 minutes in the game. I can't handle, can't handle. That's the kind of football team we want. Now that takes *** lot of conditioning, takes *** lot of preparation and it takes *** mindset that you're gonna play for 60 minutes in the game, regardless of what the scoreboard says. And you're gonna compete that way throughout the game. You know, I've learned *** lot about myself in the last two years. You know, I like the pro game. I like the pro players had some great relationships with the players that we had at the Miami Dolphins, had *** wonderful owner in Wayne Heiser, who I truly respect and adore and love as *** man as much as anybody except my own father that I've ever met in the world. He came and, and gave me that opportunity, came back on Christmas Eve and talked me into going to the Miami Dolphins when I was going to stay at LSU. And he is *** wonderful person and very supportive. But what I realized in the last two years is that we love college coaching because of the ability that it gives you to affect people, young people, young people and their development and their character, their attitude, as students, the importance of getting education, the choices and decisions they make every day, seeing them develop the character attitude, work ethic, perseverance, overcoming adversity, pride and performance, all the things that are important for them to become good football players. And also seeing her go out and being successful, you know, as I coached in the national football league, almost every team we played, had guys on it that played for us in college, we played New England. They have two or three gu guys, whether it's Jarvis Green or whatever, we played the Buffalo Bills, you know, they had three or four guys. Uh Josh Reed, Kyle Williams. I, but what the self gratification that gave me is that I helped those guys fulfill their dreams when I was *** college coach and that was important to me and that's why I wanted to come back to college. My heart's here. I love it here. Uh I like to affect people and that's why we're here and this obviously is one of the best places in the country to have an opportunity to do that. Obviously, what we wanna do right now is first thing we need to do is hire good staff. I think having good people is the most important thing you can do in having *** successful program. There's *** lot of good people here that we would like to, to get to know and we will have to hire *** coaching staff. We'll interview the coaching staff that's here. See if there's anybody that we would has the characteristics that we're looking for, that would contribute to the kind of staff that we wanna wanna have and the second order of business will be to try to pull together the recruiting class uh in terms of where we are with the players that we're recruiting, those that are committed. Uh and any other players that aren't committed, uh that we might be able to get involved with in the very near future. So with that being said, any questions?
Watch: The day Nick Saban was introduced as Alabama's head football coach
Updated: 6:43 PM CST Jan 10, 2024
Nick Saban is synonymous with Alabama college football.It all started in November 2006, when Mike Shula was fired as Alabama鈥檚 football coach.That's when then-Alabama Director of Athletics Mal Moore decided to go after the big fish -- or in this case, the big Dolphin. RELATED: Nick Saban retiring from AlabamaSaban was coaching in the NFL with the Miami Dolphins, when he was asked to return to the college football ranks and revive one of its most storied programs, which hadn鈥檛 won a national title in 15 years.Early on, it was a no-go. "I don't know how else I can say it, guys, I said it on three different occasions... I am not going to be Alabama coach," Saban said amid rumors leading up to his tenure in Alabama.But Moore would not take no for an answer. He had the University jet sit on a Miami tarmac, and tried to convince the NFL coach and his wife that it would be a good thing to go back to coaching the college ranks.The rest, as they say, is history.RELATED: Key moments from Nick Saban's time with the Crimson TideBelow video: On Jan. 3, 2007, Nick Saban arrived in TuscaloosaSaban turned Alabama back into a powerhouse that included six national titles in just 17 seasons. On Thursday, Saban announced he will retire at the age of 72. Saban led the Crimson Tide from a shaky start this season to a Southeastern Conference championship and back into the College Football Playoff before falling to Michigan in a semifinal game at the Rose Bowl.Saban led the Tide to nine Southeastern Conference championships and won his first national title at Alabama with a 14-0 season in 2009. Titles came again in 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2020. Alabama was always a contender but had fallen short of the title since then.
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Nick Saban is synonymous with Alabama college football.
It all started in November 2006, when Mike Shula was fired as Alabama鈥檚 football coach.
That's when then-Alabama Director of Athletics Mal Moore decided to go after the big fish -- or in this case, the big Dolphin.
RELATED: Nick Saban retiring from Alabama
Saban was coaching in the NFL with the Miami Dolphins, when he was asked to return to the college football ranks and revive one of its most storied programs, which hadn鈥檛 won a national title in 15 years.
Early on, it was a no-go.
"I don't know how else I can say it, guys, I said it on three different occasions... I am not going to be Alabama coach," Saban said amid rumors leading up to his tenure in Alabama.
But Moore would not take no for an answer. He had the University jet sit on a Miami tarmac, and tried to convince the NFL coach and his wife that it would be a good thing to go back to coaching the college ranks.
The rest, as they say, is history.
RELATED: Key moments from Nick Saban's time with the Crimson Tide
Below video: On Jan. 3, 2007, Nick Saban arrived in Tuscaloosa
Saban turned Alabama back into a powerhouse that included six national titles in just 17 seasons.
On Thursday, Saban announced he will retire at the age of 72.
Saban led the Crimson Tide from a shaky start this season to a Southeastern Conference championship and back into the College Football Playoff before falling to Michigan in a semifinal game at the Rose Bowl.
Saban led the Tide to nine Southeastern Conference championships and won his first national title at Alabama with a 14-0 season in 2009. Titles came again in 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2020. Alabama was always a contender but had fallen short of the title since then.