Top 150 Quotes & Sayings by Nick Saban
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American coach Nick Saban.
Last updated on September 13, 2024.
Everybody thinks when I say a guy is a good game manager, that's a negative, but I think it's a real positive. You have the ball in your hand every time when you're a quarterback. Whether you're handing it off or throwing to somebody, I think that's extremely important.
You get excited about getting married, aight, but after you're married for awhile, you gotta have a process to make it work, aight.
We all have anxiety about things. We all have little insecurities, but eventually you have to face your fears if you want to be successful, and everybody has some fear of failure.
I certainly like to win. But I really hate to lose. So when you think about that, you're always motivated to, 'I don't want to lose the next game. I don't want to lose the next game.'
There needs to be somebody that looks out for what's best for the game, not what's best for the Big 10 or what's best for the SEC or what's best for Jim Harbaugh, but what's best for the game of college football - the integrity of the game, the coaches, the players, and the people that play it.
One thing about championship teams is that they're resilient. No matter what is thrown at them, no matter how deep the hole, they find a way to bounce back and overcome adversity.
What makes Freddy Krueger such a horrible character? What makes him scare you to death? You can't get rid of the guy. He never goes away.
I think there's a certain pride people have in competition.
I don't know that there's any particular scientific evidence that you could say, more guys get hurt in this offense versus that one, or hurry-up, or whatever, but everything that we've ever done in the NCAA is about exposure. How many exposures does a player get?
I think center is a critical position.
I don't think I'm complicated at all. I'm not political, and I'm not trying to be diplomatic. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, and I don't say bad things about people. There is no agenda. There's no trying to fool somebody.
When people have success, one of two things happen. They either get really satisfied and want to keep thinking about it and talking about what they did, or the success becomes a little addictive, and it makes them want to keep having more.
I feel like I've been very blessed to have some great mentors through the years, starting with Don James, who was my college coach, who really inspired me to want to be a coach, which is not something that I really had in mind.
I don't believe you name a starter until the starter wins the team.
College football is the only game in the country, of any kind, that the college game is longer than the pro game.
We create a standard for how we want to do things, and everybody's got to buy into that standard or you really can't have any team chemistry.
It's never OK to lose a game.
I don't know if I'm different from everybody else, but there's really only two things to me that are really, really important - recruiting good players in the program and developing those players once they get here.
All I know is that if we play well, we control our own destiny in terms of what we do.
If you're a coach, you're a teacher.
When you play quarterback, you have to process information quickly, get the ball out of your hand to the right guy.
If I say I like one person, that means everybody that voted for the other person doesn't like me. So, why would I do that?
When you have a system, you kind of get in a routine of what's important. And then you spend a lot more time on thinking of things that would make it better.
When you invest your time, you make a goal and a decision of something that you want to accomplish. Whether it's make good grades in school, be a good athlete, be a good person, go down and do some community service and help somebody who's in need, whatever it is you choose to do, you're investing your time in that.
Honesty and integrity is an important part of our character, my character.
One thing I always tell players is that there are three bad things: Nothing good happens after midnight, nothing good happens when you're around guns unless you're going hunting, and you don't want to mess around with women that you don't know because a lot of times, bad things happen.
I try to stay out of the spotlight.
Mick Jagger can sing. Mick Jagger is a great entertainer.
I've had a lot more success helping guys then just being punitive.
My wife goes to Birmingham five times a week. My mom lives in Birmingham now after moving from Myrtle Beach. It's not just the job. A lot of people don't get that. My life is here.
One of these days when I'm finished coaching at Alabama, I'll write an authorized book because there's only one expert on my life, and guess who that is... me. And there won't be any misinformation. There won't be any false statements. There won't be any hearsay. There won't be any expert analysis from anybody else. It will be the real deal.
Once you get good, you need a total disposition about staying good.
Teachers are always trying to inspire people to do better, to learn, to grow. That's what we do, and we're proud of the success we've had here doing that, and it's something we'll certainly continue to do.
I think people who grow up in one particular environment, like the Alabama-Auburn game, they don't ever get the same appreciation for the Ohio State-Michigan game or the Michigan State-Notre Dame game or the Michigan-Michigan State game, the Browns and the Steelers.
Talent is talent, and everybody knows somebody who has talent or ability, but they never really converted it into a productive performance for whatever reasons.
You can't allow yourself to be vulnerable.
You can blame the other guy for saying it, or you can look at yourself and say, 'I must have contributed to this.'
First of all, you've got to have a vision of 'What kind of program do I want to have?' Then you've got to have a plan to implement it. Then you've got to set the example that you want, develop the principles and values that are important, and get people to buy into it.
I think I'm pretty misunderstood, because I'm not just about football.
I think anytime you play somebody on a yearly basis, you develop a history for what they like to do.
There's certain things that I was taught growing up about not quitting and seeing things through. I think if I would have come home and told my dad that I was going to quit the team, I think he would have kicked me out of the house. I don't think I'd have a place to stay.
It's been our goal as a program to always give our players the best opportunity to be successful, whether it's personally, academically, or athletically.
I think a lot of times you have to face your fears. I think everybody has to face their fears.
We played in a number of these neutral site games, I would call them, whether it's a playoff game, a bowl game, or one of these kickoff classic type things, which I think is helpful to, you know, our players in terms of playing some place that's not really a home game for them.
Now, everybody always says there's no 'I' in team, but there is an 'I' in win, because the individuals make the team what it is, and how they think and what they do is important to the team. So when you act like the individual is not important, well, it is damn important who these people are and what they are.
When you have the ability to affect other people and be somebody that somebody wants to emulate, care enough to help somebody else for their benefit, that's what makes you a good teammate, and that's what everybody's looking for.
There's two parts of leadership. You've got to be a good leader - you've got to be somebody that people want to emulate and care about the other people. But the other guys that you have have to accept their leadership. They have to respond to it. That's the chemistry that you never know how that is going to happen.
I loved it at LSU.
I'm not going to be the Alabama coach.
I always ask myself the question, do you like to win, or do you hate to lose?
I guess I'm motivated by the fear of failure to some degree and knowing what can happen when you don't do things the way you need to do them to have success.
If we'd had Drew Brees, I might still be in Miami.
I don't know how many times I've been 114 yards from the hole and made double bogey. Well, I hit a great drive, but it doesn't matter. It's only the next shot that matters.
The way I look at it is, if you don't want somebody to know something, don't say it. If you don't want them to see you do something, don't do it.
I think when you win the national championship, it works throughout your team. Where human nature is to say, I did well. I got my quota this month. Now do I get some time off? Do I get a bonus? Do I get to go on a cruise? But it's not to keep trying to be the best. That's not necessarily human nature.
Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people.
I think you have to be more flexible to be a pro coach because once you pay the guy the money, whether he can backpedal the way you want him to or whatever, his style of play may not suit you, but you still are going to play him, and he is going to be a part of your team.
Steph Curry is special in terms of the kind of competitor he is.
Bill Belichick was probably the most organized coach that I've ever been involved with.
Soccer is a continuous game, rugby is a continuous game, but for the physical elements that are involved in playing a football game and the number of plays that you play, I don't know that it was ever intended to be a continuous game.
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