Special Guest Blogger: Nick Saban

I'm taking the afternoon off to get my car out of the impound lot... long story, but my consiglieri advised me it's okay for me to reiterate that all of those spider monkeys in the crates were fully licensed and part of a completely legitimate business arrangement. Anyway, Nick Saban volunteered to guest blog today to keep you savages entertained this lovely Friday morning. Enjoy. -fightinamish

Man Alive, Life is Busy This Time of Year!

Greetings, gentle readers, it's Nick Saban, but you can go ahead and call me Nick, or Nickles, or the Sabe-meister, as all of those are loving sobriquets my dearest of dear friends often use when referring to me in the vocative form. Whatever makes you most comfortable, quite frankly. Fightinamish told me to give you cats a scoop on the life of the Sabe-meister, and I'll be damned if I'm going to hang up the whole mutual enjoyment of it all on formalities surrounding appellations, you hear?

Look at me, I'm getting carried away. You guys really need to let me know if I start carrying on like that, otherwise I'm liable to spend this entire chat session boring you to death with my niceties and the like. So you want to hear about the life of Big Nickles, do you? Well, let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, it's a billowing bag of crazy, particularly this time of year, what with my big fancy job change and my new digs coaching at the great University of Alabama, God love 'em. How about I give you a whiff of it by giving you a sneak peek at my dayplanner? It's a rare treat, as the Nickster keeps this baby under lock and key most of the year. So have a gander, will you?



As you can see, there's not a single moment that I have to myself as I busy myself with preparations for the next season. Hell, there's hardly even any room for my signature doodles that help me unwind. See, I'm heading out on a big ole recruiting trip next week and hitting up every high school, chatting with the young men, sizing up some talent, and, of course, enjoying me some lovely home cooking from the charming and fascinating mothers of these young men who will be the future of Alabama football.

Let's see here... the 19th is an interview with the Arizona Cardinals, then it's back onto the duties of the head coaching job at the University of Alabama, which, I might add, is the finest head coaching job in college or professionall football, as I tour around some of the great alumni and booster clubs, shaking hands, talking football, and speaking to all these great supporters of the team about the long and prosperous future of the program under Nick Saban. It's going to be a gas, and it will be a great opportunity to show off my devotion to this University of Alabama football coaching legacy that I am just tickled to be the benefactor of. See, there's been some talk that I'm disloyal, which suffice to say is insulting and damaging to my character. I'm looking forward to talking to these folks face to face so I can put to bed once and for all these outlandish rumors and show them how genuine I am.

A quick jaunt over to Tulsa for some more recruiting and a quick sitdown with the University of Tulsa folks, then I'm off to Costa Rica for some R&R. You know, a chance to cool my jets a little bit and clear my mind. I always find it's easier to design the future of a football team in those peaceful and serene surroundings. Plus, my old friend Wayne Huizenga will be stopping by, so we can chat for a few hours about the recently-vacant head coaching gig for the Miami Dolphins, you know, spitball some ideas back and forth. I don't want to send the wrong impression, no sir, I am Alabama for life. However, I'd be doing myself a disservice (and being rude to my dear friend Wayne Huizenga at the same time) if I refused to sit down for an hour or two and get a good sense of what's out there.

But don't get the wrong impression, it's not all fun & games. No sir, once I'm done with my mini-vacation, it's right back to work for the University of Alabama. I'll be moving into my big new office and getting myself nice and comfortable for a real long career coaching at the finest University in the land. I'm shipping my vintage mahogany desk in (I found it in an antique store in Baton Rogue several years ago... it was hand-crafted by Dutch merchants back in the 16th century... a real one-of-a-kind), interviewing for the Oakland Raiders job, getting my voicemail set up, introducing myself to the support staff, familiarizing myself with campus, sending out a few more resumes, touring the practice facilities, and, at the end of the day, settling down at my trusty phone to keep in contact with all the recruits, both from this class and the class of 2008. Whew! No sleep for the wicked, am I right?

After that, it's basically just day-in and day-out stuff... you know, the not-so-glamorous hard work of the coaching job that you probably didn't even know existed. Some fellas over at Viacom will be stopping by to chat with the Sabermeister about their CEO job, which I guess just opened up. Keep in mind, ole coach Nick is Bama for life, but it's always good to check out other markets and at least get an idea of what else is going on in the world, am I right? Coach Nick is probably going to have to do some research about this "Viacom", at least enough to sound like I know what I'm talking about during the interv-... well, let's just call it a friendly meeting.

Well, my my, look at me. I did it again, rambling on and boring you to death. Didn't I tell you to stop me if I started to do that again? Well, no bother. I should probably get moving along, anyway. I'd better get back to my job... I'm going to have to be on top of everything if I'm going to keep this job for the rest of my life. These folks at Bama sure have high expectations, but I promise you I will spend every last waking hour of my life working round the clock to make sure those big dreams come true. Catch you on the flipside, readers. And thanks for letting me jaw with the readers, fightinamish. Hopefully I didn't do such a good job that your readers will be demanding that I write full-time. But, hey, you know who to call if they do.