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Alabama Football

Nick Saban: Retirement decision was made minutes before Alabama’s team meeting

Paul Harvey

By Paul Harvey

Published:

Nick Saban agonizingly wrestled with his decision to retire. In fact, the legendary head coach says his ultimate decision was not made until the very last minutes leading up to Alabama’s Wednesday team meeting.

On Thursday, Saban sat down with ESPN’s Rece Davis to discuss his retirement. In that interview, Saban referenced multiple times how “difficult” the decision proved to be.

Saban specifically pointed to the impact his decision would have on those around him, no matter which path he took:

“It was a hard decision. Look, I love coaching, I love the relationships with players,” said Saban. “The thing that made it more difficult for me is, I felt like it might be the right time for me, but how it impacted the players, the coaches, all the people who worked here in the building and contributed to the success of the team, how would it affect them? That was the hard part. That was the part I kept vacillating on back and forth.”

In fact, Saban says he was going back and forth on his retirement in the minutes leading up to the team meeting. That meeting was set for 4 p.m., but he was still on the fence and discussing his final decision with Miss Terry with minutes to go before his announcement.

“I was on the phone — we had a meeting at 4 o’clock, it was 3:55, I was sitting in my chair, looking at the clock, saying you’ve got 5 minutes to decide which speech you’re going to give,” Saban explained. “I was actually talking to Miss Terry right up until that time. It was a difficult decision because it impacts and influences the lives of so many people.”

Ultimately, Saban decided to hang things up while admitting he could no longer give a clear answer on how long he would remain in coaching. He said he never wanted to coach on a year-by-year basis, something he felt would be unfair to those he works with and the players.

As for Miss Terry’s final message, Saban said she gave him support on either decision, but the end result was “inevitable” at some point:

“She said I will support you whatever you choose to do. She said I will work hard if you choose to stay and do it one more year,” said Saban. “But that’s the problem. When you get my age, it’s inevitable that it’s coming at some point in time… And I didn’t want to work on a year-to-year basis. I don’t think that’s fair.”

In the end, Saban steps aside as one of the all-time legends in the world of college football as the Crimson Tide look for a successor to their longtime leader.

Paul Harvey

Paul Harvey lives in Atlanta and covers SEC football.

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