Actual Story: Nick Saban Went To The White House To Speak, And Told Everybody That Paying Players Is Ruining College Athletics
Yahoo Sports - Former Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban spoke at President Trump's White House roundtable regarding the future of college sports.
Saban, who won seven national championships, is worried about what college sports have become.
"All athletics. I'm talking about football, basketball, Olympic sports, revenue, nonrevenue, it doesn't matter," Saban said. "My goal as a coach for my players, our players, was to help them be more successful in life; that we would create an atmosphere and environment that would help them through personal development, academic support - 668 degrees in 17 years at Alabama - and help them develop a career as a football player. That was our goal, so that they were creating value in life, and we were preparing them for their future past athletics. So, what happened?
"In this current system that we have, that became impossible to do, because people, instead of making decisions about creating value for their future, they were making decisions about how much money could they make at whichever school they could go to or transfer to."
No, this wasn't one of those fake news skits that opens up Saturday Night Live. This was very, very real life.
The Donald called a round table last week to get the biggest perpetrators opponents of the current college money-machine, all in one room to discuss the problems they feel its causing.
The roundtable was- honest to G-d- touted as bringing the biggest and best in the sport to "Save College Sports."
You honestly have to hand it to Trump on this one. Who better to call for help curing the disease, than the people who caused it?
That's big brain thinking right there.
I got nothing but respect for what Nick Saban built at Alabama. Seven national championships. Greatest college football coach who ever lived. Not even close. The man is a certified legend and I won't pretend otherwise.
But I am BEGGING somebody- anybody actually, to explain to me how the guy who ran the most sophisticated, well-funded, under-the-table bag operation in the history of college football just walked into the White House and complained about players getting paid.
The definition of bananaland.
Saban sat down with President Trump last week and had the AUDACITY to say that NIL has ruined college sports because kids are now making decisions "based on how much money they can make."
As opposed to what, Nick?
The love of the game?
The academic experience?
The 668 degrees in 17 years you kept bringing up like that's the point?
Come on, man.
(Sidebar- 668 degrees in 17 years at a school with 38,000 students is like bragging that your restaurant served salads. Get fucking serious.)
You know what NIL actually is? It's everybody finally getting to do legally what Alabama was already doing better than everybody else illegally.
That's it.
That's the whole story.
The bag men didn't disappear when NIL passed, they got LLCs and linkedIn profiles.
Saban didn't quit because college football lost its purity. He quit because the one advantage he had over every other program- an unlimited, untraceable, zero-accountability money pipeline- suddenly became available to Clemson and Georgia and Ohio State too.
The second the playing field leveled, he was gone. RETIRED. At 72. Right on schedule.
Just like Shane Gillis said to his face.
Not gonna lie, I almost respect the timing.
And being totally honest, I don’t think he’s wrong. I just think it’s extremely bold for him of all people to be complaining about this now. This shit is getting out of control and it went 0 to 100 really quick. Per usual the people in charge with the NCAA definitely didn’t think things through all the way. But at the same time, it seems a little unfair to start raising a stink now that the Indianas of the world are on the same level playing field. It’s the ultimate case of “rabbits got the gun” or Dr. Frankenstein‘s monster
And then there's John Calipari, who wasn't there but absolutely should have been, because he's the same exact guy in a different sport.
With a fucking bankroll the size of some third-world country GDPs.
Recruited McDonald's All-Americans for 20 years, with a direct high school-to-him pipeline thanks to his good buddy World Wide Wes, he ran the same one-and-done factory at Kentucky that everyone pretended was player development, and still couldn't win a national championship after 2012.
One title. With Anthony Davis. Against Kansas. And he'd have every right to sit at that table and complain about NIL ruining the sport he spent decades gaming better than almost everybody.
At least Saban paid the best players AND won.
Calipari paid the best players and choked in March like clockwork.
His version of this complaint would basically be "I can't cheat as effectively anymore and I still can't win." Tough scene,