Nick Saban Is a Goddamn Maniac, Part CDLXXXII

A few days after Alabama beat LSU to win the 2012 national championship, Nick Saban and [golf partner Steven] Rumsey were on the phone together. Most of their conversations take place precisely between 7:12 A.M. and 7:17 A.M., when Saban calls as he drives to work. But this call happened to be in the afternoon. The two men almost never discuss football…. But given that his golf buddy had just won the national championship, Rumsey figured he ought to say a few words of congratulations. So he did, telling Saban his team had pulled off an impressive win.

“That damn game cost me a week of recruiting,” Saban grumbled into the phone.

Rumsey at first thought he'd misheard. He asked for clarification. Saban repeated himself. He just knew that while he was preparing for the title game, enduring all the banquets and media bullshit that came with it, some other coach was in the living room of one of his recruits, trying to flip the kid. The thought was making him crazy….

“I said, 'I'm not sure, but I think that helped you,'” Rumsey recalled. “And he said, 'I just don't know. Maybe. Maybe that was good.'”

 

This has been the latest in the running series: Nick Saban is a Coaching Machine Who May One Day Eat the Soul of Les Miles. Read the rest of the (very good, and actually kind of humanizing) Saban story at GQ.