Kristen Saban reveals when she found out Nick Saban was retiring

Kristen Saban found out that her father Nick Saban would be retiring as the head football coach at Alabama in quite an unusual way. Kristen had received a heads up that news could be coming soon about her father retiring, but she didn’t actually learn that he was calling it a career from Nick, her mom or anyone else in her family.

Instead, she learned the news while in the middle of a flight. Kristen Saban recently shared the full story on The Next Round.

“So that morning I kind of got a little heads up. … My mom was like, ‘You know, maybe. Maybe not. But don’t be surprised if you see something.’ And later that afternoon I was on a plane to Orlando with my son to go to Disney World, and I had just bought the Southwest Wifi. And my phone is just blowing up. And I’m like, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on?’” Kristen Saban recalled.

“And a friend of mine who works for the Tuscaloosa News texted me and said, ‘Hey, can you confirm this for me? Chris Low’s tweet.’ Because Chris is great and everything that comes from him is going to be the real deal. And I said, ‘What do you mean? What’s Chris’s tweet?’ And I pulled up Instagram and the first article I saw was retiring.”

As you can imagine, Kristen Saban was a bit surprised to find out about Nick Saban retiring via Instagram. It quickly made sense why her phone was blowing up.

“I’m on the plane. I can’t text anybody. I can’t call anybody. And so I’m like, ‘OK, are you doing this? Am I finding out on Instagram on my way to Disney World?’” Kristen Saban said.

Kristen Saban also explained that this past season wasn’t the first time she thought Nick Saban might be retiring. A while back, her father had warned her that he could be entering his final year of coaching.

Instead, Saban continued to coach for several years past that, before retiring in January. It was announced on Monday that Nick Saban is on the 2025 College Football Hall of Fame ballot. He is sure to be a first ballot Hall of Famer.

“Every year, we treat every year, especially the last five to 10 years of, you know, he might. He’s talked about it before,” Kristen Saban said. “Maybe about five years ago he was like, ‘Oh, this might be the year.’ And then it wasn’t. And five years later he keeps going. So we kind of treat it every year like it could be the last. But it just kind of felt different this past season.”