Nick Saban shares challenge he faced getting honest feedback from assistant coaches

As Lane Kiffin and many others can attest, Nick Saban wasn’t always the easiest head coach to work for.

Whether it was the frequent ass-chewings at both practice and games, or the severe standard of excellence he demanded of everyone within the organization — especially from his assistants– coaching under Saban was not for the faint of heart.

But as the national championships began to pile up, leading to the annual turnover of his Alabama coaching staff as veteran assistants like Kiffin, Kirby Smart and Steve Sarkisian moved on to their own head coaching opportunities, Saban found himself in the unenviable position of being unable to get honest feedback from his new assistant coaches due to his emerging status as the “G.O.A.T.” — the greatest of all-time. Even when he didn’t view himself the same way.

“You know, not really, because I think that was somewhat of a problem for me later on in my career,” Saban said during a recent appearance on The Pivot Podcast with former NFL players Ryan Clark, Channing Crowder and Fred Taylor. “Like, I’d ask the (assistant) coaches stuff, and they wouldn’t tell me what they thought. They didn’t want to disagree, because they looked at me like, ‘This guy is a really good coach, he doesn’t really want to know what I think.’ But I really did want to know what they think.”

Saban has frequently cited college football’s ever-evolving landscape that now includes NIL and the NCAA Transfer Portal, as well as the all-too-frequent questions from both prospective assistant coaches and recruits about his future at Alabama with his ultimate decision to retire in January 2024.

Nick Saban recalls impact of painful life lesson from late father

Now, as he enters his second year as a retiree and ESPN College GameDay analyst, the seven-time national championship-winning head coach still doesn’t quite grasp the lofty pedestal he stands atop in the minds of his former assistants and college football fans everywhere.

Because, to Nick Saban, he’s the same West Virginia kid that received his last “ass whooping” as a high schooler for disrespecting a local drifter.

“I always thought I was more that kid growing up in West Virginia, and I cared what people thought when I was a kid growing up. But I didn’t ever change and think that I was better or people should treat me a certain way or I should be able to get in the front of the line when you went someplace. I never do that stuff. Because I always thought treating people with respect and having compassion for other people, that’s what my dad told me was the No. 1 thing,” Saban recalled. “My last ass whooping that I got, aight, was when (my father, Nick Saban Sr.) used to give the hobo coffee and donuts at my dad’s service station. I was in there breaking down tires, and I don’t know if we lost a game the night before and it was basketball season or football season, but the hobo is getting on my ass about something, and I told him [whispers] ‘go f*** off.’

“And my dad was in the other room in his office and I’m jacking this tire up, and WHAP, man, I get the belt across my ass. And I said, ‘What was that for?’ And he said, ‘I don’t ever want to hear you disrespect an older person.’ And this guy was a drunken-ass bum, walked the railroad tracks every day to get coffee.”

Suffice it to say, Saban understands the value of respecting your elders, even if the 73-year-old has a hard time viewing himself in the same vein when it comes to his assistant coaches’ perspective.