Wade’s 101: Nick Saban’s to-do list
By Wade Kwon- Houndstooth jockstrap.
- Find a way to bring back the Statue of Liberty play.
- Trademark motivational bumper sticker, “Get thee behind me, Saban!”
- Get sweet tattoo of Big Al …
- … and get that stupid “Dolphins Forever” tattoo lasered off.
- Recruit large impressionable teens to beat the holy hell out of other large impressionable teens for 12 or so Saturdays.
- Paunch it up with steady diet of Golden Flake and Coca-Cola.
- Give 110 percent. Take the team to the next level. Play with intensity.
- Finally, finally splurge on premium unleaded gas.
- Walk on water. Then turn water into dirty, well-trod wine.
- Live up to hype.
- Sneak back to Miami to reclaim bottle cap collection and terrier.
- Convert to Baptist. Or Lutheran. Or Shinto. Whatever god pulls team out of clutch situations.
- Spend 1 percent of contractual salary on listmaking wiseass. (P.S. Worth every penny.)
- Make sure bobblehead likeness gets his damn eyebrows right.
- Pledge Tappa Kegga Bru.
- Figure out which of those Rammer Jammer guys is Rammer and which is Jammer.
- Burn old Tide playbook with well-worn “fumble” and “lose to no-name team” plays.
- Rub Finebaum’s head for luck.
- Score 20-yard-line tickets to next Papajohns.com Bowl.
- Repeatedly pinch himself to see if it’s really Tuscaloosa or just some wonderful dream.
- Use as stepping stone to become NFL coach.
- Have Daniel Moore paint him wrestling a tiger and an eagle.
- Then, sue him.
- Prepare series of motivational speeches on “Win or lose, I’m still rich.”
- Start health care rehab company, then destroy it from within.
- Get it on with those twins in the houndstooth hats.
- Invest in Kobe-size diamond for Mrs. Coach Saban.
- Pre-enroll players in classes on life coaching and English as a first language.
- Tune and polish bells at Denny Chimes.
- Fire dead weight Saban style: dolphin head in bed.
- Pen next book, “Lying, Tigers and Bear, Oh My!”
- Remember, O means offense, X means defense.
- In honor of Bear Bryant, 323 shots.
- … or, have Jake Busey play him in biopic.
- … or, harness energy of Bryant’s spinning body.
- In honor of Ray Perkins, dedicate failed NFL coaching career to him.
- In honor of Bill Curry, heave brick through lucky fan’s window.
- In honor of Gene Stallings, win championship using players from ’92 team.
- In honor of Mike DuBose, pay secretary 300 grand for naughty tryst at La Quinta.
- In honor of Dennis Franchione, pull a Franchione.
- In honor of Mike Price, end all media conferences with “It’s rollin’, baby, it’s rollin’!”
- In honor of Mike Shula, bland it up for four years.
- In honor of Paul Bryant Jr., be the father he never had.
- Have kids dump Gatorade on him in multiple trial runs.
- Pitch reality series “Two-a-Days: The College Years” to MTV.
- Actually play Hoover High for state championship.
- Disarm hecklers with ol’ “I’m just a simple West Virginia boy on the sidelines” routine.
- I’m guessing a much fatter wallet is in order.
- New cheer: “Go, go, Power Rangers!”
- Swing by Kentuck for a new lucky folk art ceramic championship vase.
- Swap steroids for fluoride in university water supply.
- Open up trendy knitting pub on The Strip.
- Incorporate warmup routine to avoid strain on yelling voice during halftime “motivational” rampages.
- Use ergonomics, feng shui for more effective goal line stand.
- Punchline we wish we had thought of: Teach Defense Against the Dark Arts.
- Aw, hell, just add another 20,000 seats to Bryant-Denny Stadium and call it a day.
- Really listen to what crazed Internet and radio wackos have to say.
- Do not acknowledge or work with The Machine, which does not exist or exert any influence over campus and state politics (wink).
- Undergo mandatory transfusion to bleed crimson and white.
- Moon “College GameDay.”
- Insist all coaches, assistants, custodians and clerks be genetically tied to the Bear.
- Go hard or go home. Or maybe, go hard then go home. Whatever.
- Revive old feud with Eastern Division; drive-by at Spurrier’s crib.
- Reach deep down inside, and check for liver cancer.
- Add Mal Moore to Christmas card list.
- Personally spit on every opponent’s mascot.
- Stand in the schoolhouse door, allowing only varsity players inside.
- For no reason, go to Africa to adopt baby. Then place on reserve list.
- Become Tide up in word play: Pun, Bama, pun.
- Use forensic evidence, lab work and deductive reasoning to determine which players break curfew.
- Change group name to the Thirty Million Dollar Band.
- Take team to Shakey’s after game, win or lose.
- In spare time, design station wagon of the future at Mercedes plant.
Institute rigorous academic standards and enforcement.Hire braniac test takers and homework imagineers.- Lean against goal post just so.
- Start new scrapbook with sparkly “A” decals.
- Check if Forrest Gump still has any eligibility left.
- Pad schedule with teams from prisons, community colleges, park leagues …
- Convert game films to holographic simulator.
- Obligatory stop at Dreamland for the blessing of the ribs.
- Customize sideline headset: color, sponsor logo, material, style, ringtones.
- Inspect each cheerleader for “It factor.” Twice.
- Design and sew costume for SabanCon 2007.
- Explain to Crimson White about how “the Jews control college football and the NCAA.”
- When in doubt, laps.
- Use winning as a team-building exercise and morale booster.
- Find enormous marshmallow and/or wienie to roast at bonfire.
- “Deliver” “laundry money” to “student-athletes.”
- Jazz up weekly TV show with 26 models holding shiny numbered briefcases.
- Give paparazzi what they want, à la Britney Spears.
- Design secret play not only to stymie opponents, but also to medically sterilize them.
- Get on Eli Gold’s good side. Or else.
- Use Xbox simulations to determine which uniform style is most intimidating.
- Knit new team flag.
- Play at least one Samoan per quarter.
- Rig bullhorn to record and upload daily podcasts.
- Put out feelers for next job.
- Make sure his entourage can handle media spotlight and flying bottles.
- Lobby Forbes to publish annual 100 sexiest, highest-paid coaches list.
- If it’s not too much trouble, outscore Auburn in a regulation football match.
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Read more Wade’s 101.
Saturday, July 12, 2008, 12:07 pm
WILL SABAN DO BAMA LIKE HE DID THE DOLPHINS ??
Saban left Dolphins as a loser, weasel
BY DAN LE BATARD
dlebatard@MiamiHerald.com
The punctuation on the Nick Saban Dolphin Error is greasy and greedy. You know what he was as Dolphins coach? A failure. A loser. A gasbag. And one of the worst investments Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga has ever made. He was less of a success than Dave Wannstedt and more of a traitor than Ricky Williams. There has been very little in franchise history that came with more expectations and fewer results than this hypocrite who at the end avoided the hard questions one last time.
Talk like a warrior. Behave like a weasel.
Maybe Saban would be better off in college. Because, in the pros the last few days, he has looked like a complete and utter amateur.
He will be remembered in these parts as a quitter and a liar. He leaves the franchise in last place, with what used to be his good name somehow far lower than that. And for this he’ll get a $25 million raise and more job security in Alabama. Makes you wonder what USC’s Pete Carroll or Ohio State’s Jim Tressel are worth, doesn’t it?
Larry Coker, a decent man, gets fired for his one championship. Saban, a duplicitous one, gets the most lucrative job in college football.
Saban could have fixed his reputation today if he had that mental toughness he is always sermonizing about. We have the meandering spiel memorized by now. About ”competitive character” and ”overcoming adversity” and blah, blah, blah. You preach it, Nick. But you don’t live it. Not when it’s easier to run away and hide.
Miami, 6-10 against an easy schedule, was swept this year by younger teams in its division — the Jets and Bills. The team isn’t better than when Saban arrived, just older. What little winning Saban has done has been with players left for him by Jimmy Johnson and Dave Wannstedt. What’s the best decision Saban has made in two years? Can you name one?
So it makes sense that he would lack hope. But when his players are losing, he asks them to be proud and fight and overcome, even though what they do hurts a hell of a lot more than what he does. But now, reputation in tatters, integrity stained, he runs away from this fight — to be a dictator to kids who question less and have less power to challenge him. Of course he’d go. It’s a good deal easier. And a new crowd eager for a savior can hear his hot-air speeches about being a gladiator.
Saban made Huizenga look like a public fool with all his condescending talk of integrity recently, reprimanding reporters at every turn while his agent secretly kept taking slimy calls from Alabama in the shadows. What a raging fraud Saban sounds like today, every bit as counterfeit as Miami’s Super Bowl expectations.
Oh, a man, even one under contract, is allowed to change his mind and listen to other offers, especially those that double his salary. But what makes Saban’s behavior so unctuous recently is that he had the audacity to question the questioners with super-sized arrogance even while lying all along to his players and his boss. Huizenga has given this man everything he has wanted — given him more than any NFL owner anywhere has given any other coach. He deserves better than this. He deserves better than Saban leaving him to answer the hard questions today.
Makes you wonder, too: Huizenga went after Ricky Williams and his money with cutthroat zeal, and Williams is still paying him back. But Saban just broke a contract, too. There are no outs in Saban’s contract to go back to the minor leagues.
Remember how mad you were when Williams retired? Well, he wasn’t cheating on you. He wasn’t grabbing for more money. His body hurt from a beating, and he wanted to rest. What Saban has done is a more traitorous act — the most traitorous act in the history of the franchise. He’s leaving simply because he couldn’t handle a hard job on the sidelines of a game in which he asks others to be violent. He gave up, in other words. And filing it under ”family” now as a diluter, in search of understanding, rings hollow because you can’t believe anything the man says about this situation. You think he’d be leaving if he were 3-13?
Saban, infomercial sermonizer, talked a lot about loyalty and integrity and toughness.
But, in the end, these were not his guides.
They were only the kinds of things he demanded of others.
Monday, July 21, 2008, 4:52 pm
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