TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — If you paid attention to anything Nick Saban said last week the Secretariat analogy is already a familiar one.
About how the owner was in such financial straits that the famous racehorse had to win the Triple Crown or she would lose everything, yet with the pressure mounting just said “Let the horse run.” The result was a 31-length victory at Belmont.
“Well that’s what we’re trying to let our guys do, just let them run. Just let them play,” Saban said, and Alabama subsequently crushed Texas A&M 59-0.
Only the analogy wasn’t his. It came from Crimson Tide men’s golf coach Jay Seawell. His team just won back-to-back national championship rings like the football program did in 2011-12, and when the pressure started building last season showing his players the Disney movie helped them relax.
Granted, it sounds like the buildup to a really bad joke — “A golf coach, a horse and Diane Lane walk into bar” — only no one is laughing after the way Alabama played last Saturday.
“He’s my friend, and I say that with great honor and humility at the same time,” Seawell said about Saban. “We created a friendship. It started as maybe just helping him with golf, wanting a tip from the golf coach.
“He’s very busy and I’m very busy so it’s hard to do a lot, of course, but I think he’s been very helpful to me through this run. We’ve kind of gone hand-in-hand, I’ve been able to bounce a few things off him, of course. He’s got great wisdom and he’s been very kind to share that with me.”
Football and golf may not have a lot in common with how they’re played — in one sport they yell “Fore!” when contact may be imminent, while in the other a possession is defined by four downs. Yet at Alabama they’ve essentially been tied together for more than 60 years and not just because the football coach usually plays golf with boosters during the offseason.
For example, while the Alabama men’s golf team has only had three head coaches since 1972 – Conrad Rehling (1972-88), Dick Spybey (1989-2002), and Seawell – the program’s origins were directly tied to the football building.
Malcolm Laney was the inaugural coach (1952-54), and had been an assistant football coach since 1944. At the time Alabama’s athletics director was Pate Cawthon, a former Crimson Tide assistant football coach.
The two subsequent golf coaches were assistant football coaches as well. James “Bubber” Nesbit (1955-57) was an All-American player for the Crimson Tide as a fullback in 1936, and was followed by none other than future football head coach Gene Stallings.
He headed the golf program from 1958-60, during Paul W. “Bear” Bryant’s initial years back at the Capstone. After helping the football team win national championships in 1961 and 1964 Stallings was named the head coach of his alma mater, Texas A&M, at the age of 29.
Stallings’ history with golf went back years and at Paris High School in Texas he was a captain of the football, baseball and golf teams.
Saban’s background on the links isn’t so elaborate, but Seawell’s been able to help him with his game.
“He’s a great teacher,” Saban said. “I’m just not a very good student.”
Saban does play fairly frequently during the offseason and this past April he and 2009 Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram Jr. tied for 5th and won $30,000 in scholarships for the university in the annual Chick-Fil-A Bowl Challenge Golf Tournament. He’s also been known to talk to recruits in between shots.
“I talk a lot with Jay. I talk a lot with (Alabama women’s coach) Mic (Potter), because golf is kind of like a metaphor in life,” Saban said. “You hit a good shot and you have to hit the next one good and re-focus. You hit one in the drink, or the hazard, and you have to re-focus and do it again. That’s a lot like any competitive sport. It’s a lot like life.
“Focus on the next play. Keep on competing, try and be consistent. Don’t let what happened on the last shot affect the next shot, which is how we try and play with our team as well.”
Saban’s even been known to use golf analogies to try and explain what’s going on with his players, like recently while describing sophomore Adam Griffith’s kicking: “It’s kind of like your golf swing, you have to have confidence in it, and every now and then you’re going to hit one to the right. But if that affects everything you do, you’re probably going to play bad for the next couple of holes. Griff has always been a guy that seems to stay focused on, ‘Alright, here’s the benchmarks of what I have to do to kick well.’ He’s been able to do it fairly consistently and doesn’t get bothered by a lot of stuff.”
Although the two coaches didn’t know each other when Director of Athletics Mal Moore brought Saban to Alabama in 2007, they’ve been known to call one another during critical times in a season. They talk about preparation in the postseason, what the process means in both sports and the best ways to build teams.
The coaches of the only male sports in Alabama history to win national crowns, they can relate to each other in ways few others can.
“The biggest thing is our job is to build a team, and I think championships are the results of that,” Seawell said. “I don’t think coaches have the mindset of building championships.
“He’s been very supportive.”
Saban’s also helped him with being in the spotlight more and being the face of his respective sport. This season Seawell’s also going after something the football program fell just short of last year, a three-peat, but has a very different roster of players.
“I think I’m in a new light and I have to understand that,” Seawell said. “I’m no longer coaching an obscure sport and I’m thankful for that.
“It’s an adjustment. They want me to go speak at things now. I mean gee-whiz.”
Christopher Walsh has covered Alabama football since 2004 and is the author of 19 books. In his free time, he writes about college football.
