Ad Disclosure
Nick Saban is used to authoring storylines on a football field, but the college football coaching icon is retired from that now.
Saban has made a detour into broadcasting for ESPN, becoming quite comfortable in his role on College GameDay last year during his first autumn away from the game. And now, the 73-year-old native of Fairmont, West Virginia, is taking on yet another challenge for a fellow West Virginian.
This time, Saban is delving a bit into the political world for his longtime friend Joe Manchin, who has a memoir coming out in September. Manchin is calling his work a “declaration of independence from the extremes on both sides” of the political aisle. Fittingly, the memoir is called “Dead Center: In Defense of Common Sense.”
And guess who will be writing the foreword to Manchin’s memoir? Yes, it’s Nick Saban, arguably the greatest coach in college football history with his 7 national championships, 6 at Alabama and 1 at LSU. Manchin was an idol to Saban, and the retired Senator once called Saban a “little brother.”
After all these decades on the sidelines, with stress galore coaching football games, Saban is settling into his new post-coaching life with this latest activity that really has nothing to do with football and everything to do with friendship.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
