Nick Saban shares challenging emotions of announcing retirement to team

It isn’t easy to walk away from everything you know. On Wednesday, Alabama head coach Nick Saban announced his retirement. In a sit-down interview with ESPN’s Rece Davis, Saban revealed just how difficult it was to take the massive step.

“Difficult, very difficult,” Saban said. “Because I love those guys sitting in that room. I love those players. There’s nothing more that I respect than great competitors, and these guys all overcame tremendous resiliency. They committed to the program. They committed themselves to the team for next year. 

“I wanted to go in and say, ‘Hey, I want everybody to make 100% commitment for the next 12 months.’ But I’ve got to be able to make that same kind of commitment if I’m going to be the leader and the coach, and that was a little bit of a dilemma.”

It’s the first time in 50 years Saban has faced such a dilemma.

Saban’s storied coaching career started in 1973 when he was a graduate assistant at his alma mater, Kent State. From there, he had assistant coaching stints at Syracuse, West Virginia, Ohio State, Navy and Michigan State before he got his first head coaching opportunity at Toledo in 1990.

After just one season, though, Saban headed to the NFL with the Cleveland Browns under the legendary Bill Belichick. He worked as Belichick’s defensive coordinator from 1991-94 before becoming a head coach once again at Michigan State from 1995-99, amassing a 34-24-1 record before he took over at LSU in 2000 — where he won a national title three years later.

All told, Saban had a 292-72-1 record as a college football head coach, including a 201-29 mark in Tuscaloosa. He also had a stint with the Miami Dolphins from 2005-06 where he went 15-17 before taking over at Alabama.

Saban is a breathing embodiment of college football. In his final words to his team as head coach, Saban informed them how to carry the Alabama torch forward.

“I encouraged them to continue to do the things that they’ve always done to be successful,” Saban said. “One of the things I encouraged the team to do was – ‘You guys all need to play for each other. They’ll hire a really good coach here. You’ll have good coaches. You’ll learn more things from more different people that can enhance your development. And you guys got to trust in that and believe in that and play for each other.’”