Nick Saban

Coach and Servant Leader

Nick Saban is a sportscaster, sports analyst, entrepreneur, and retired college and professional football coach, best known for his coaching of the Crimson Tide football team at The University of Alabama (2007-2023). Saban’s coaching leadership, focusing on hard work and attention to detail, translates to the business world. Saban calls his unique set of principles The Process: a philosophy emphasizing consistency over outcomes. As head coach, Saban urged his players not to focus on long-term goals like championships, but instead to invest fully in the moment, in the work at hand, delivering repeatable excellence play-by-play, game-by-game. He ran a football program that routinely earns upwards of $100 million a year like a highly-effective CEO.

After playing defensive back at Kent State University, Saban graduated in 1973 with a bachelor’s in business, then in 1975, from the same university, with a master’s in sports administration. His coaching career began in graduate school as a graduate assistant to coach Don James. He went on to work as assistant coach to several college football programs from the mid-1970s to late-1980s, before starting his career as head coach at the University of Toledo in 1990. After one season with Toledo, Saban left to join the Cleveland Browns as defensive coordinator under Bill Belichick. He stayed until 1995, when he became head coach of Michigan State University, then LSU in 2000, and then the Miami Dolphins in 2005. Saban took on the head coach position at The University of Alabama in 2007, where he led the team to six national championships, and steered the Crimson Tide into ranking #1 in the AP Top 25, at some point in the season, from 2008 until 2022 — the longest in college football history.

Saban now works as an analyst for the nationally-televised ESPN College GameDay. He has also applied The Process to his own business concerns. He is co-owner of the Alamite Hotel in downtown Tuscaloosa and of Dream Motor Corp., which operates automotive dealerships in five U.S. states and has over 500 employees.

Along with his wife, Terry Saban, he cofounded Nick’s Kids Foundation, a charitable organization that has donated more than $14 million to support children, teacher and student causes throughout the state of Alabama and beyond and honored more than 650 teachers with the Nick’s Kids Teacher Excellence Award. Completed projects include career tech classrooms at the Tuscaloosa County Juvenile Detention Center, the Tuscaloosa Riverwalk Playground, building 21 Habitat for Humanity homes (18 National Championship Homes, two SEC Championship Homes, and the Sugar House), and the Alberta School of Performing Arts playground. Nick’s Kids is also a major donor to the Tuscaloosa All-Inclusive Playground, Boys & Girls Club of West Alabama, and Freedom Farm. The Sabans’ legacy project is the Saban Center, a project that will elevate education and combine STEM programs and the arts to provide a unique and interactive learning experience for children in West Alabama. Saban Center will be home to the state of Alabama STEM Hub, Ignite, and the Tuscaloosa Children’s Theatre.

Saban and Terry have two children and two grandchildren and live in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

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