NICK SABAN HAD mixed emotions as he left his home in south Florida on Jan. 3, 2007 and headed for the airport. Initially, he hadn’t been interested in leaving for Alabama, and had said so publicly. He was committed to being the head coach of the Miami Dolphins. He loved and respected the team’s owner, Wayne Huizenga, and despite finishing his second season at 6-10, he wasn’t looking for an out.
But then Mal Moore, Alabama’s athletic director at the time, came over for dinner. Saban slept on what he’d heard, and after some soul-searching, he’d had a change of heart, calling that morning to accept Moore’s offer to become the next coach of the Crimson Tide.
Word got out quickly, and the public backlash was intense. Never mind his reasons for going back to college — he was better suited to it, preferring recruiting and development to the NFL draft and free agency — Saban had gone back on his word. And for that, fans and the media were outraged, calling him a snake and a liar.
Speaking to ESPN about that tumultuous time 15 years ago, Saban called Jan. 3 “one of the most stressful days in my life.”
“Not because I was arriving in Tuscaloosa but because I was leaving Miami,” he said. “People were not pleased.”
Changing jobs had always been difficult for him. When he left his first head coaching job at Toledo, he said it felt like he was “bailing” on the players. It took him a year to come to terms with it.
But was there ever really a good way to quit? He admitted that, “Sometimes there’s a little roadkill from any decision you make.”
Still, it weighed on him during the roughly two-hour flight to Tuscaloosa.
“And then we got off the plane,” Saban said, “and there was a huge throng of people there that were so excited. It was like a spiritual uplift.”
Saban laughed.
“That was a surprise,” he said, “but it was very welcomed and probably needed at the time.”
Thousands of people came out to the Tuscaloosa Regional Airport to greet Saban on that overcast day. It was like a…
Source : espn
