Nick Saban Breaks Down Decision To Retire From Legendary Coaching Career

 Alabama head football coach Nick Saban said during an interview Thursday that he decided to end his illustrious coaching career because as he has gotten older, it has become increasingly difficult to live up to the performance standards he has set. Is.

The hard-working 72-year-old, who decided to retire on Wednesday, will be remembered as arguably the greatest college football coach of all-time, finishing his career with seven national championship titles, more than any other coach.

“The thing that made it more difficult for me was that I thought it might have been the right time for me, but how it affected the players, the coaches, everyone who works here in the building and the success of Contributed to. The team, how will this affect them?” Saban said in an ESPN interview. “That was the hard part and that was the part I hesitated on.”

He said he was not experiencing any health problems, but he found the previous season "difficult", adding that it "bruised me a little more than usual."

“When people mentioned the health issue, it was really just a tough question of 'Can you do it the way you want to do it?' This for the whole season?',” he said. "If I couldn't make the commitment to do it in the future as I felt I had to do it, then I thought maybe now is 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.”

He said he has two speeches he can give to his team during the 4 p.m. He had a meeting about his future at the event and he was still mulling over the decision just five minutes before the meeting.

"When I was younger, I could work until 2 in the morning, wake up at 6, and be there the next day and full of energy," Saban said. "But when you get a little older, it gets a little harder."

He later said, "When you get to my age, it's inevitable." “This year, next year or the year after [later]. And I didn't want to work year after year. I don't think this is fair to your staff. I don't think it's fair to the players. I think you need to make long-term commitments to people.”

Saban won his first national championship in 2003 when he was the head coach at LSU. He later won six titles at Alabama, including in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017, and 2020. Saban also won 12 conference championships and 19 bowl games in his career and never had a losing season.

Saban dominated the college football landscape as the most powerful recruiter ever in the game, placing in the top five recruiting class every year he was at Alabama except his first year, when he had a #10 ranked class. Had entered. According to Rivals.com, in his 17 seasons with the Crimson Tide, Saban received ten #1 ranked recruiting classes and three #2 ranked classes.

In a career field dominated by intense personalities, Saban stood out for taking intensity and drive for perfection to the next level, earning him the nickname "Nicktator".

Saban preached "the process" in training his players in which he told them not to focus on winning, but to focus on whatever they were doing at the time and do the job the best they could, Which included everything from excellence to excellence. In the classroom, lifting weights, focusing on competing at a high level during every game on the gridiron.