Nick Saban
I enjoyed the NFL. I respected the players. It was a great opportunity to learn a lot of things, but the challenges were a little different, and it didn't seem that you could control your own destiny, especially in terms of how you could bring players to the team.
When I talk about a successful program, define that. It's not just winning the national championship every year because nobody can do that.
You get excited about getting married, aight, but after you're married for awhile, you gotta have a process to make it work, aight.
Steph Curry is special in terms of the kind of competitor he is.
I think when you win the national championship, it works throughout your team. Where human nature is to say, I did well. I got my quota this month. Now do I get some time off? Do I get a bonus? Do I get to go on a cruise? But it's not to keep trying to be the best. That's not necessarily human nature.
I don't think I'm complicated at all. I'm not political, and I'm not trying to be diplomatic. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, and I don't say bad things about people. There is no agenda. There's no trying to fool somebody.
If I were a high school coach, I would put my best players on offense. The best athletes on my team, I would give them the ball and score points. I wouldn't play them on defense. I would play them where they can get the ball and score points.
I want what's best for our country. I'm not sure I can figure that out.
People talk about you won four national championships. Well, I feel like we've had good enough teams to win eight. So I feel like we failed four times. I feel like I failed four times.
If we'd had Drew Brees, I might still be in Miami.
I think center is a critical position.
I think a lot of times you have to face your fears. I think everybody has to face their fears.
I don't know how many times I've been 114 yards from the hole and made double bogey. Well, I hit a great drive, but it doesn't matter. It's only the next shot that matters.
I just want everybody to know that I'm opposed to an unauthorized biography on anybody.
I feel like I've been very blessed to have some great mentors through the years, starting with Don James, who was my college coach, who really inspired me to want to be a coach, which is not something that I really had in mind.
I think I'm pretty misunderstood, because I'm not just about football.
I think anytime you play somebody on a yearly basis, you develop a history for what they like to do.
There needs to be a college football commissioner.
We don't have rules that people can't use Twitter. We just want people to be responsible. We certainly don't want them to do anything that's going to affect themselves in an adverse way or affect our program, our university, or our team in an adverse way.
I played so long ago, I don't think anybody even knew you could transfer. I don't think they knew anything about it.
As a coach, when it comes to football players, we're trying to change their behavior and make them better. As people, we're trying to change their behavior and make them better.
I don't know that there's any particular scientific evidence that you could say, more guys get hurt in this offense versus that one, or hurry-up, or whatever, but everything that we've ever done in the NCAA is about exposure. How many exposures does a player get?
It's a free country. I know we have a lot of regulations in the world right now in what we can and can't do. I would rather our people be responsible and not have to be regulated.
College football is the only game in the country, of any kind, that the college game is longer than the pro game.
I said as soon as we had a playoff, we were going to minimize the importance of all the other bowl games. I'm not saying it's good or bad; it kind of is what it is.
I don't want people to think I'm not happy when we win - I am. But there's a difference between being happy for the feeling of accomplishing something and being overjoyed and feeling, 'This is it - we conquered the world.' We didn't. We just won a game.
There needs to be somebody that looks out for what's best for the game, not what's best for the Big 10 or what's best for the SEC or what's best for Jim Harbaugh, but what's best for the game of college football - the integrity of the game, the coaches, the players, and the people that play it.
If I say I like one person, that means everybody that voted for the other person doesn't like me. So, why would I do that?
I don't ever want the players to relax in a game.
Mick Jagger can sing. Mick Jagger is a great entertainer.
You wear your team out, and it's hard to get them back.
I think you have to be more flexible to be a pro coach because once you pay the guy the money, whether he can backpedal the way you want him to or whatever, his style of play may not suit you, but you still are going to play him, and he is going to be a part of your team.
Our players get scrutinized pretty hard at Alabama.
My wife gets so mad at me because I don't like to cook on the grill.
We played in a number of these neutral site games, I would call them, whether it's a playoff game, a bowl game, or one of these kickoff classic type things, which I think is helpful to, you know, our players in terms of playing some place that's not really a home game for them.
Everybody thinks when I say a guy is a good game manager, that's a negative, but I think it's a real positive. You have the ball in your hand every time when you're a quarterback. Whether you're handing it off or throwing to somebody, I think that's extremely important.
I try to stay out of the spotlight.
I don't try to sensationalize anybody. I'm not trying to entertain. I'm trying to give information and give access to me and tell about our program.
I think people who grow up in one particular environment, like the Alabama-Auburn game, they don't ever get the same appreciation for the Ohio State-Michigan game or the Michigan State-Notre Dame game or the Michigan-Michigan State game, the Browns and the Steelers.
Probably the number one position that has the greatest number of players to choose from is receiver. When we're out there recruiting, there are a lot of receivers out there to recruit. It's harder to find defensive players.
I don't Twitter. I don't text for those very reasons. I don't want anything to be misinterpreted. I would encourage our guys not to do that.
There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment.Collection: Pain
Success doesn't come from pie-in-the-sky thinking. It's the result of consciously doing something each day that will add to your overall excellence.Collection: Thinking
It's not human nature to be great. It's human nature to survive, to be average and do what you have to do to get by. That is normal. When you have something good happen, it's the special people that can stay focused and keep paying attention to detail, working to get better and not being satisfied with what they have accomplished.Collection: Average
The process is really what you have to do day in and day out to be successful, we try to define the standard that we want everybody to sort of work toward, adhere to, and do it on a consistent basis. And the things that I talked about before, being responsible for your own self-determination, having a positive attitude, having great work ethic, having discipline to be able to execute on a consistent basis, whatever it is you're trying to do, those are the things that we try to focus on, and we don't try to focus as much on the outcomes as we do on being all that you can be.Collection: Determination
What happened yesterday is history. What happens tomorrow is a mystery. What we do today makes a difference - the precious present moment.Collection: Opportunity
Becoming a champion is not an easy process... It is done by focusing on what it takes to get there and not on getting there.Collection: Champion
We create a standard for how we want to do things and everybody's got to buy into that standard or you really can't have any team chemistry. Mediocre people don't like high-achievers and high-achievers don't like mediocre people.Collection: Team
We're not going to talk about what we're going to accomplish, we're going to talk about how we're going to do it.Collection: Accomplish