Joel Klatt details if Nick Saban is happy with his career

During a segment on the “Will Cain Podcast” this week, Joel Klatt was posed an existential doozy: Is Nick Saban happy with his career? And the Fox college football analyst and former quarterback had an insightful answer.

In short, Klatt does not think Saban wakes up every day and lives his life full of outward joy. But a dearth of cheeriness should not be mistaken for doom and gloom with Saban, who Klatt suspects is living a content and fulfilling life with plenty of joy, too.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. And I don’t think that he would tell you he’s chasing happiness, to your point. I think purpose is what drives him more. I think purpose is what he was referring to in terms of the chase and the capture. I think happiness is the capture. I think that all of us in every walk of life, if we put our value in the capture or in some sort of circumstance or outcome or situation, we will ultimately be let down, period. Whether that’s a high or a low, it will let us down,” Klatt said.

Saban still loves to win, surely, but to Klatt’s point the Alabama head coach likely finds as much fulfillment and purpose from seeing a workout plan pay dividends or integrating a new drill into practices so his team can get better.

Klatt suspects that the chance to get up and inch closer to a championship — and pouring himself into that pursuit — is what makes Saban go and motivates him for more.

And it certainly makes it better when one does achieve a championship.

“I think joy is something very different. And I think joy and contentment are probably related in a certain degree. And I think he finds joy in the purposeful action of the chase,” Klatt said. “And so I would venture a guess that he would answer this by saying ‘I find great purpose in my life and through that purpose, I find great contentment and great joy.’ Now part of that is a maniacal drive towards success and championships, right? But I don’t know if that’s where ultimately he finds his joy or identity.”

All told, though, Klatt is confident that Saban is living a life he’s plenty happy to be living, even if happiness isn’t filling every moment of every day.

“This is a profound question and something that I think that as you get older, you wrestle with. Because you realize that the circumstances and situations and more specifically the outcomes in your life, will not fulfill you. And your joy, ultimately, is only going to be as strong as what it’s built on. What your identity is in,” Klatt said.