Nick Saban Catches up with a Former Player on Football, Life, and Golf
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Nick Saban is a busy man. The Alabama football coach has little time for interviews and appearances.
However, he had no problem giving almost an hour of his time to a former player and Alabama’s first Heisman Trophy winner.
This week, Saban was the guest on the Truss Levelz podcast, hosted by Crimson Tide icon Mark Ingram and Cam Jordan. Ingram and Jordan were NFL teammates with the New Orleans Saints.
Saban discussed a variety of topics, including differences in college and NFL coaching styles, discipline and maintaining success, his football upbringing, and the status of his golf game.
Ingram was the star for the Crimson Tide during Saban’s early years at Alabama. Being from Michigan, Ingram had no interest in playing for the Crimson Tide, which was a mediocre program when Saban arrived in 2007. That changed after a campus visit, and some prescient words from Saban.
“He sat in my living room and said, ‘your first year we are going to have a pretty good team (in 2008), but your second year we are going to win the national championship.' Let me tell you, he was verbatim,” said Ingram, who led the Crimson Tide to the national title in 2009.
It was almost as if Saban were a prophet. Alas, no; it was just a recruiting tactic.
“I didn’t know for sure. I was just trying to get you to come to Alabama,” Saban joked.
Saban said he was grateful for athletes like Ingram, Julio Jones and Marcell Dareus taking a chance on coming to Alabama, before the program was the power house it is today.
“All those guys came here when we weren’t any good,” Saban said. “They all sort of bought into the concept of what we could do. That first championship was pretty special.
“To win a championship, to be the best you can be, to work hard, to get to the next level, to not be satisfied with the success that you’ve had, you have to continue to work. Success is not a continuum, it’s momentary.”
Ingram has benefited greatly from Saban’s simple philosophy of staying in the moment and staying committed to the task at hand.
“You taught me how to be where your feet are,” Ingram said. “If you worry about the future you get anxious. If you think about the past you get complacent. Capitalize on this moment. Success isn’t something continuous, it’s momentary. You have to live in the moment and work on improving yourself."
Saban responded, “You wanted to be good, so bad that you got tied up with the outcomes and putting pressure on yourself. That doesn’t really help your performance. Just worry about the next play. That simple-minded approach to compete is to not think about the outcome but what you need to do play in and play out to get the outcome you want.”
Ingram enters his 11th season in the NFL and his first with the Houston Texans. It’s a much longer pro career than Saban had as a head coach. Saban left the Miami Dolphins after just three seasons to take the Alabama gig. He told Ingram and Jordan on the podcast that it would have been a different story had it not been for one incident.
“I think if we had not failed Drew Brees on the physical…things would have really taken off in Miami,” Saban said of the Dolphins organization doctors, who recommended the team not sign the free agent Brees, who was recovering from a torn labrum. “That’s what we needed was a quarterback. Because that happened, that’s probably why I ended up at Alabama. It’s been a really good 14 years no doubt.”
It worked out well for both. Brees won a Super Bowl with the Saints and is the NFL’s all-time passing leader in his 15-year career. In 14 years at Alabama, Saban’s won six national titles, coached three Heisman Trophy winners and put several players in the NFL, including 38 first-rounders.
Ingram is one of those first-round picks. He was taken by the Saints with the 28th overall pick, and he played for several seasons with Brees in New Orleans. Ingram left Alabama after the 2010 season, but he’s never strayed far from the Crimson Tide program. Fans can usually spot him on the sidelines at some of Alabama’s big games.
He also finds time to team up with Saban on the golf course. It was there that Ingram had to remind his football mentor about the importance of the process and finishing.
On the podcast, Ingram shared the story of when he and Saban teamed up to play in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl Challenge in Atlanta in 2015. The Crimson Tide duo was playing for the championship against Paul and Jon Berry.
"We were in a playoff,” Ingram said. “We played the 18th hole like three times in row. On the third time on the 18th hole he says, ‘if we don’t finish this I’m going to have to go.’ I’m saying, ‘the jet waits on you. You are the one who told me we have to finish. You are the one who said we can’t be complacent.’ We end up losing the hole. Our mindset wasn’t right.”
Said Saban of the moment, “He really jumped my tail like you can’t believe.”
