Alabama is off this weekend, but Nick Saban is set to reach another milestone. The head coach will celebrate his 70th birthday on Sunday as he takes a brief break from football with his family.
That being said, don’t expect him to get too comfortable with his time away from the sideline anytime soon.
During the SEC teleconference Wednesday, Saban was asked about longtime NFL and college coach Lou Saban, who was hired at Chowan University in 2001 at the of age 80. The reporter reminded Alabama’s Saban that at the time he had remarked that he did not think he’d be coaching that long.
That brought out a laugh from the usually stoic head coach.
"I've got 10 more years, man," Saban interjected.
To be clear, Saban doesn’t have a timetable for when he’ll hang up his whistle. Instead, the head coach said he plans on “just kind of keep on keeping on.”
“The only thing that I’ve ever said is that if I felt like I was riding the program down or I wasn’t able to make a positive contribution to the program, then that would probably be time to let somebody else carry the torch.”
Saban is in his 15th season as Alabama’s head coach, leading the Crimson Tide to a 177-24 record and six national titles over that span. He doesn’t seem to be slowing down either, as coached Alabama to a 13-0 perfect record last year and currently has the Tide ranked No. 3 in the nation this season.
As for how he feels at 70 compared to how we previously imagined, he said he hasn’t given that much thought.
“I can tell you that I’m thankful every day and feel blessed that I have the opportunity to continue to be healthy and able to do this job without a lot of issues or problems,” Saban said. “I’m not really thinking a lot about what’s gonna happen 10 years from now either because I try to focus on what’s happening now and try to take advantage of whatever opportunities that we have and do the best job that we can to be a good husband, granddad, father, coach, whatever and feel blessed to have the opportunity that we have and the opportunities that we’ve had in the past.”
