Nick Saban shares life lessons he learned from father, applied to coaching

Over the course of his career, Nick Saban made himself a legendary head coach, finding more success than anyone else in the 21st century. It’s success that came from lessons he learned going all the way back to his childhood.

In a recent appearance on The Pivot, Saban shared some of the life lessons that he learned directly from his father. That included both caring for other people doing your job properly the first time.

“The first thing was having compassion for other people,” Nick Saban said. “That was the number one thing. But the second was you’ve got to be responsible for your own self-determination and doing your job.”

Nick Saban was raised in Fairmont, West Virginia. There, his father ran a service station and coached football.

“There was always a reckoning for whatever he told you to do. I don’t care if it was washing the car, cutting the grass, it didn’t matter. Did you cut the grass, did you clean the mower, did you trim, did you sweep? And if you didn’t do any of those things exactly like he wanted, you had to do it again. So, you learned cause and effect of doing things the right way. It turned me into a bit of a perfectionist because I knew I had to do it right or I was gonna have to do it again,” Saban said. “And I wanted to go swimming or go see where the girls were, go to the dance, whatever. I didn’t want to have to be home doing all this shit again.”

Putting those lessons into his work as a coach, Nick Saban had more success than just about anyone else in the history of college football. He won 292 games and seven national championships over the course of 28 seasons. The majority of that time and success would come with the Alabama Crimson Tide.

“So, those two things were probably the biggest lessons that I learned from my dad. It was just, you have to do your best at whatever you’re trying to do. That’s the expectation, that’s the standard, and if you don’t do it, I’m gonna make you do it again. It was never a bad thing. You just kind of knew it. You just expected it,” Saban said.

“And that became a part of who I was and I think that that really helped me develop as a person, as well as have success as a coach.”

Nick Saban retired following the 2023 college football season. Since then, he has stayed around the sport and is an analyst with ESPN’s College GameDay.