DALLAS — Dressed in a freshly pressed gray suit and pink tie, a microphone poking out from behind his left ear and a thin layer of makeup on his forehead and cheeks, the 72-year-old stares into a television camera as four stage spotlights illuminate his features.
Meet the newest member of the college football media contingent making his debut at SEC Media Days: Nick Saban.
He started things off by forgetting his ID card in his hotel room.
“It’s a little different,” Saban said on air Monday. “I’ve never worn a credential in my life and I’ve been able to get into SEC media day for 17 years without a credential. I had to go back in today and get my credential to get in.”
That’s right: A security guard initially denied Saban access without his badge to Monday’s media day, the first of four days of the extravaganza at the Omni Hotel in downtown Dallas. He rushed to his room, retrieved his badge and found his way to the event.
Disaster averted.
What began then was a very unusual day: Nick Saban, the analyst, not the coach, marched into media day not as an interviewee but as an interviewer. He spent nearly four hours, not at the podium in the main room answering questions from hundreds of reporters, but toward the back of the room, from an elevated stage on the SEC Network, offering opinions and analysis and even giving a prediction (gasp!).
His 22nd media appearance was perhaps his most entertaining performance to date.
He predicted Georgia and Texas would play in the SEC Championship Game, took a chance on new colleague Paul Finebaum, and even picked a surprise team to contend for the league title (Ole Miss).
Saban went so far as to create, perhaps unintentionally, a viral clip — not unlike those media jokes he once viewed with contempt as a coach.
“What really pleases me is that all these (media members) are asking these questions about how Texas has always run the (Big 12),” Saban said. “They’re not going to run the SEC.”
Tweet it. Post it. Publish the title.
But this new media member isn’t all hot air. He’s also got substance, able to talk intelligently about every SEC team, position by position, their strengths and weaknesses. He’s watched replays of all 16 spring games. He has notebooks and film of everyone, spending his summer months studying all 16 teams from his lake house or beach house.
In fact, he began preparing for media days more than a month ago, when in mid-June he had phone calls with nearly every head coach in the league to discuss their teams.
“He’s preparing like crazy,” said Josh Maxson, Alabama’s associate director of athletic communications, whose new role is much like his old one for the past nine years: managing communications for Saban, this time as a top media personality and not a top football coach.
The coaches here are quite happy with Saban’s new role. After all, it surpasses his old role, where during nearly two decades at Alabama, he won 87 percent of his SEC games, nine league championships and six national titles.
“I’d rather Nick do that than sit on the sidelines,” LSU coach Brian Kelly said. “At least he’s not plotting against me.”
Oh, but he’s plotting.
“I’ve never seen anyone study a TV highlight reel like he does,” SEC Network host Peter Burns said. “It’s surreal. He’s focused like he’s at halftime of the SEC championship game.”
On set, he’s not afraid to pit himself against his new colleagues. Finebaum, half-joking, said Saban’s retirement resulted in “the worst six months of my life.”
Saban responded, “He’s been trying to ruin mine for 17 years, so I guess we’re even.”
He is now one of them. One of us. The media.
On Monday, Saban left the SEC Network set and headed to the ESPN green room, sipping coffee and eating snacks like all the other TV talent.
“I went from being the most nervous I’ve ever been on the court interviewing him to standing next to him drinking coffee,” SEC Network reporter Alyssa Lang said with a laugh.
But not everything has changed.
To avoid too much interaction with individual reporters, the SEC has designed hidden hallways and back passages for coaches to use as they move from one group interview session to the next, navigating a maze of service elevators, dining rooms and even kitchens to get from point A to point B.
Coaches weren’t the only ones using them Monday. Saban was, too, a clever way to avoid the many loud voices in the 44 — forty-four! — radio booths set up along the league’s famed “radio row.”
But he couldn’t avoid attention completely.
In his opening remarks Monday, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey mentioned Saban’s presence here. Maybe he can help the league “avoid rat poison,” Sankey joked, referencing Saban’s famous line from years ago about overly high expectations of oneself.
“He can evaluate my performance because he’s sitting in the room listening,” Sankey said, gesturing to Saban, who was in the back of the room, cross-legged on the SEC Network stage and scribbling notes in a notebook — as any former media member would.
It turns out that a few hours later, during an exchange between the two men, Saban did indeed evaluate Sankey. “Very good work today,” Saban told him.
Has the Commissioner just received the blessing of the media darling? Of course he has.
Coach or not, Saban remains the star of this extravaganza while also being part of the media horde itself — as hard as that is to believe.
“I didn’t expect that,” Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said with a smile. “I had a phone call with him (in June) and today we talked. It reminded me, even though you can be conservative and old school and all that, he’s so good at adapting and growing and changing, even on offense. And now what’s he going to do? He’s so serious about it. He’s so unique. That’s why he’d be great at anything he did.”
News Source : sports.yahoo.com
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