Nick Saban knows being a leader is difficult. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

Giving a speech to the Alabama Football Coaches Association this week, Saban gave a powerful speech of what it means to be a leader and why no one wants to do it anymore.

As you can see below, Saban cited Las Vegas Raiders WR Henry Ruggs III, a former Alabama star, and his drunk driving incident that left a woman dead. He explained that if Ruggs had stronger leaders around him, perhaps tragedy could have been averted:

“People are more apprehensive about being leaders than they’ve ever been before because they’re worried about what everybody thinks” Saban said. ” … If there was a player in Las Vegas, who was drinking at 3 o’clock in the morning with his buddies and his girlfriend, and somebody would have taken his keys away, probably would have pissed him off, probably would have made him mad, probably wouldn’t have thought very much of you for doing that. But would he be better off now? Or, would he be better off where he was, going 156 mph running into the ass end of somebody and killing them? And he’s in jail. And he doesn’t have a career anymore. And he’s a good kid. And he never had 1 problem while he was on our team at Alabama. What kind of friend were you? What kind of leader were you when you allowed the guy to do it? But nobody wants to do that, because they’re afraid of what somebody is going to think of them.”

Powerful words from Nick Saban.

Yes, Ruggs is in the situation he’s in because of the bad decisions he’s made. But, if one of his friends would have stopped him from making that same bad decision, things would be a lot different today.