So let me get this straight…
Nick Saban got out of college sports because it became a competition of “who has the most money?” instead of “who has the best team?”
I don’t want to call the legendary college coach a hypocrite, but isn’t that why the Alabama Crimson Tide “rolled Tide” for so long? Because they threw the most money at their team?
The recently retired Alabama head coach went to an NIL roundtable discussion hosted at Capitol Hill early on Tuesday to speak out against the financial changes happening in college sports. Specifically, the ruling that recently came from ruling in lawsuits in Tennessee and Virginia that stated:
“The NCAA cannot prohibit any recruits or student-athletes from negotiating compensation for NIL with any third-party entity, including but not limited to boosters or a collective of boosters.”
Translation: If you thought NIL made college athletics the “Wild West” before, there’s an even bigger storm coming.
In an effort to change the current path that NIL money and college athletics are on, Saban decided to join in on the NIL Roundtable that took place in our nation’s capital. It was while he was there that we got to hear more about why the 7-time National Championship winning coach walked away from the sport:
“All the things that I believed in, for all these years, 50 years of coaching, no longer exist in college athletics. It was always about developing players, it was always about helping people be more successful in life.”
Saban explained that once it started to get away from that, he found that it was harder for him to be passionate about coaching. He credited his wife Terry with opening his eyes to the changing landscape, which played a role in his retirement:
“My wife even said to me…we’d have all the recruits over on Sunday with their parents for breakfast, and she would always meet with the mothers and talk about how she was going to help and impact their sons and how they would be well taken care of.
She came to me right before I retired and said, ‘Why are we doing this?’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘All they care about is how much you’re gonna pay them. They don’t care about how you’re going to develop them. Which is what we’ve always done, so why are we doing this?'”
Needless to say, that type of speech from Saban didn’t land so well with those on social media. As I mentioned earlier, a number of people were quick to call out the longtime Alabama coach for complaining about something that he and the Crimson Tide might have been guilty of themselves during their dynastic run:
Never fun when the rabbit got the gun
— Dr. Rajpal Brar, DPT (@3cbPerformance) March 12, 2024
But he had no issues when boosters and others were paying these kids under the table!🤨
— TCBigSarge (@TCBigSarge) March 12, 2024
He’s a hypocrite
— natedogg (@datpurpledrank9) March 12, 2024
Nick much preferred when Bama was outbidding every other school under the table and against the rules more than the level playing field for sure.
— judstin (@JV_PITT) March 12, 2024
