Nick Saban Talks a Lot, Says Nothing, Does Even Less

Nick Saban has been remarkably vocal the last couple weeks. In the words of the immortal Stephen A. Smith, he should shut the hell up…unless, of course, he decides to start being a leader instead of a coward.

At the beginning of August, the Washington Post reported that SEC football programs were told by medical advisers that cases of COVID-19 among SEC football players were a “given.” Similar conversations with medical teams resulted in the Big Ten and PAC-12 canceling their football seasons just two weeks ago.

Well, not exactly. The Big Ten and PAC-12 were still set to play as late as Aug. 10^th when a story broke:  At least five Big Ten athletes had developed myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) after contracting COVID-19. At the time, it felt like the emergence of this story along with the PAC-12 players threatening to boycott the season and even unionize helped push the Big Ten and PAC-12 to cancel the seasons in hopes everything could return to normal in the spring.

Meanwhile, an unverified Twitter account with 20,000-plus followers reportedly authored by Matt Rhea, the Director of Sports Science at the University of Alabama, responded to the myocarditis story and season cancellations by tweeting, “Cancel culture needs to be replaced with some good old fashioned common sense and civic responsibility.” He followed that up with, “One thing that really irritates me about covid paranoia is the apparent thought that we know nothing about how the body responds to viruses.” Epidemiologists are routinely learning new information about how COVID-19 affects people, but point taken.

Now, I’m no PhD like Rhea is, but it’s hard to take his COVID takes seriously when he’s tweeting them alongside 40-yard dash times, weightlifting videos, and platitudes about “goals.” Don’t get me wrong—there’s a lot of math in his Twitter feed, too, but math has no inherent narrative. Based on his Twitter feed, Rhea appears to believe the University of Alabama football team is the center of the universe and immune from math unrelated to barbell split jumps.

Rhea notes in his Twitter bio that his opinions are his alone, but I have a feeling he’d be wrong about that given he works under the umbrella of Nick Saban.

On Monday, the University of Alabama reported that they’ve seen 566 new COVID-19 cases on campus since classes started less than a week ago. That was in addition to the 310 cases among students before classes started. Just hours later, Saban gave a press conference after football practice. That’s right—SEC football is still on (for now). And what did Saban have to say about it?

“Everybody acts like we want to play for the money,” he said. “We want to play for the players. I want to play for the players.”  

For weeks now, Saban has been saying variations of the same thing. Two weeks ago, he said, “players are a lot safer with us than they are running around at home.” He continued, “It’s going to be a challenge when the other students get on campus…but we really don’t know what that entails until it happens.” Last week, he said spring football could turn into a “JV season” with players opting out left and right to avoid tainting their “value.”

Unsurprisingly, Saban is actively trying to discredit any solution that isn’t playing fall football. He dresses this up with meaningless hedging about listening to medical experts or letting the SEC ultimately decide what to do as if he has no agency. And you know what? Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he feels beholden to those who pay him. Pro-rating his $9.1 million salary, he’s made upwards of $525,000 since the SEC decided to go on with the season just a few weeks ago. 

Fun fact: That’s roughly a dollar per new COVID-19 case in the U.S. in the last twelve days.

Saban truly is a good soldier. Frankly, I pity him…well, as much as anybody can pity a 68-year old multi-millionaire who’s profited and continues to profit from the underpaid labor (if unfinished, empty-promise scholarships qualify as “payment”) of teenagers. I find it sad that an older man of his stature and with his resume could be such a pawn. Then again, nobody’s ever given me access to a private jet, so what do I know?

As news breaks today that Tuscaloosa bars are closing (why they weren’t closed to begin with, we’ll never know…), I fear Saban will be up at the podium again later this week forced to explain away the inevitable. Like clockwork, he might stand before the press and say that any decision outside of who to start at strong safety is above his pay grade. He may also say that the players have a right to play if they want to. He’ll probably say they should be able to raise their “value” on the field as he cashes in on their powerlessness at the bank.

The saddest part of all of this is that college football players are not powerless in this moment. They forced two major conferences to postpone their seasons by threatening what would amount to unionization. They have the power in this moment to redefine the system that exploits their bodies for cash. It took a pandemic to give them this power, which reveals just how entrenched the system is to begin with. But the power right now is real.

If Nick Saban were a fraction of the leader he’s made out to be, he would support a player movement towards an equitable system in which players are paid commensurate to what they earn. He would support sharing TV revenue with them. He would not let them be lab rats left to juke and hurdle over COVID-19 as the country gleefully, ungratefully watches. He would speak up against those who pay him. Then again, that would go against everything Saban has become.

Remember that Black Lives Matter video Saban and Alabama players made in June?  Would you be surprised if Saban’s appearance was merely a recruiting method? It’s no coincidence that he sided with the movement after it became fashionable and profitable for him to do so. Just like multi-billion dollar companies, he went down that path only when it became the lucrative thing to do.

Saban may say all the right things when engaging with a press that lobs him softballs about the inherent goodness of football. Yet, when he’s left to his own devices, Saban speaks like he did at the beginning of Monday’s press conference: “The most important thing at this time of the year is…how many guys can we develop to play winning football on this football team?”

Ultimately, that’s all Saban cares about. Ultimately, that’s all he’s paid to do. Ultimately, his legacy will be discussed in these terms. How can the University of Alabama play winning football this year? How about next year? How much winning did he do? How many championships did he win? People will be left to judge his success without much of the necessary context that is his failure to materially support the players who suffered to make him rich and famous.

Pandemic and all, the history of today will indeed be written by people who worship people like Saban. Whether or not this college football season is finished, Saban has already won by avoiding any real discussion about his players’ safety and “value” while putting his head down and focusing on what matters most to him: Nick Saban. 

But, you know, it is a pandemic after all. It’s vital that we all take care of ourselves right now. I just wish Nick Saban would self-care by himself in a place where he’s not risking the well-being of others and cupid shuffling his way around responsibility for the corrupt system that has made him who is today: a rich coward.

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