VESTAVIA HILLS, Ala. — Nick Saban has moved on from coaching, but his Nick’s Kids foundation is still going strong. Tuesday, the retired head coach took time to speak to reporters during his annual charity golf event at the Old Overton Club.
Saban was joined by current Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer and the rest of the Crimson Tide’s coaching staff. There were also several current and former players at the event, including NFL stars Tua Tagovailoa and Mark Ingram.
Here’s everything Saban had to say about the growth of charity and his life after moving on from coaching Alabama.
On how proud he is to see Nick’s Kids grow
“I think that’s the goal. The more we can grow, the more people we can help. That’s something we work hard at. That’s something I do quite a bit is making sure that we’re making the contributions we think we need to do. We’ve made another significant gift to the Saban Center. Miss Terry is kind of on the ball on this. We have to get bigger because she’s getting bigger with both what we’re doing and who we are supporting and that type of thing, which I think is a good thing. It’s an opportunity for us to give back to the community.
“One of the things that I’m most proud of is, you know, how many guys when they were playing at Alabama over the last 17 years would help build houses, help do things to support Nick’s Kids because they had a great feeling about giving back to the community and starting foundations of their own when they became NFL players or whatever. So I think that’s a really significant accomplishment. I think part of development as a person is how to be a servant leader and help other people for their benefit.”
On if his relationship with former players changed after coaching
“I don’t think the relationships change because you’re not the coach. Tua [Tagovailoa] and Mark [Ingram] are here, and some of our players that are still playing on our team. So that hasn’t changed. How it changes in the future will be something I can’t predict. But to have Kalen [DeBoer] here and the current Alabama coaching staff support this is also pretty significant because this is a community effort. This is not about us. All these people support Nick’s Kids, so to have the university continue to do that is an important part of it.”
On what aspect of the Saban Center he’s most excited about
“I think the opportunity for children to learn, grow. Coaching’s all about teaching, and teaching is the ability to inspire learning. So hopefully we can inspire learning. I think having a STEM hub for teachers. They can come there and actually learn new technologies they can take back to classrooms all over the the state.”
On if his wife Terry is putting him to work now that he’s retired
“She’s so used to me not being around, I think she’s looking for things to keep me that way, which is good for golf. I’m able to do things I’ve never been able to do before, whether it’s work things, whether it’s speaking, whether it’s doing TV, whether it’s to continue to try to support things like this, you know helping the community.
“We’re actually in the process of starting a sort of a foundation for career development for our players which Molly Dowd is going to head up with the university. We are funding that to some degree. You know, when players get finished with playing, they aren’t done with me. We have so many great resources to help these guys move on to the next career. That’s something we want to get organized and do a better job of. Projects like that, I’ve never had a chance to do that.”
On early conversations about Nick Kids and how he was able to maintain that goal
“I want it to be bigger. I want it to get bigger. One of the things I’ve had an opportunity to do, whether it’s through Reggie Jackson’s foundation or the one we had in Nashville last week is to see how other people do things and how much money they raise for the benefit of other people. We want to continue to use some of those ideas to continue to grow.
“If you’re asking me 20 years ago would it ever be what it is today, I probably never thought we’d get this big. I want to keep keep getting bigger.”
On what his assistant Cedric Burns means to him and what his role is after retirement
“Cedric is still attached to my hip, so that hasn’t changed. He’s the most servant person I’ve been around in terms of helping other people and very selfless in how he spends his time to help other people at the university as well as myself. We feel very indebted to him.”
On which one of his former players is the best golf partner
“You know, Mark [Ingram’s] pretty decent. I actually mark and Tua [Tagovailoa] when we were in Florida cause they’re both in Florida at Jupiter Hills where we’re members. It was my most fun — we played with one other member — but that was my most enjoyable round of golf I’ve had this year, playing with the two of them.
“Mark and I took on Tua and [the other member]. It was very competitive. But man, did I get killed on all the stuff that’s happened over the last, when those guys were playing. Whether it was stories about practice, stories about games, talks that I gave. I mean, it was brutal for me to get killed by both. And they’re two offensive guys. I was was always viewed as the defensive guy. They were telling stories about how the offense would have good practice and the defense would have a bad practice, and I’d chew everybody out afterward because the defense had a bad practice but the offense had a good practice. I was getting killed the whole evening, but it was fun.”
On how big it is to help former players with their careers
“One of the things we wanted to do with the program was, you always want the players to have a better chance to be more successful in life because they’re involved in the program. So that’s helping them develop as people, helping them develop a better career off the field which means graduating from school, and see if we can help them develop a career on the field and maybe play at the next level someday. But that last one doesn’t last long, so eventually you’ve got to have that next career.
"You’re preparing yourself for when you can’t play football when you go to college. We have great resources at Alabama. We have a 1st and 10 Club, which is an organization for just that. So we haven’t been able to tie all those resources together and always have somebody’s that getting to the players. So to be able to do that now I think will be huge in being able to used the resources we have to help them.”
