Nick Saban's 48 Hours

Nick Saban's self-allotted 48 hours of enjoyment for winning the national championship is just about half over. In case you missed it, he said in his post-game interview that he gives himself two days to enjoy a national championship before buckling down and starting to prepare for the next one. If you haven't seen it, the video is embedded at the bottom.

I had already heard Saban talk about how he doesn't allow himself to enjoy championships much in his 60 minutes interview (his interview begins at 10:30). If you haven't watched this video yet, you totally should, especially because Michigan football is featured in it. Anyways, here's a transcript of the interview.

Interviewer: How long will you let yourself savor a win like that, a win over Michigan?

Saban: When we won the national championship, about two hours after the game, somebody said, "You don't seem very happy". And I said, Well I'm just worried about what the issues are going to be for next year, 'cause something's happening.

Interviewer: So you allowed yourself a whole 120 minutes of pure pleasure?

Saban: Not very long..

Not very happy?! Just two hours after attaining the highest possible achievement in college football? Wow. Just two hours after winning a national championship, Saban was already anxious about the next one. Even in the post-game interview yesterday, when he was asked "Are you satisfied?", Saban couldn't help but qualify his answer saying, "Well, I'm satisfied with this team." Saban couldn't say that he was satisfied, especially when there's another year of football coming up and another team to coach. Even though he won the championship 3 of the last 4 years, it still feels like Saban's stuck in a rat race, along with all the hundreds of other college football coaches, that probably won't end until he retires.

This isn't a post to denigrate Saban in any way. Actually, I'm convinced that it is this mentality of Saban that makes him so great, and it obviously rubs off on his players, who continue to play hungry and stay discontent with anything less than a championship. But still. Doesn't it seem crazy that someone could only enjoy one of the greatest accomplishments in sports for only 48 hours, or even just 2 hours?

Ravi Zacharias says, "Author Jack Higgins has said that the one thing he knows now that he wished he had known as a younger man is that when you get to the top, there's nothing there." Being at the top doesn't bring true contentment. Winning doesn't bring lasting satisfaction. Often times, success actually reveals the emptiness inside of us.

It's precisely this emptiness of success that made Primetime Deion Sanders to Christ. He realized his loneliness and emptiness after winning the Super Bowl and called up one of his Christian friends to ask about Jesus. He says:

“I remember winning the Super Bowl that year, and that night after the game I was the first one out of the locker room, the first one to the press conference, and the first one to go home. And I remember my wife, Carolyn, saying to me, “Baby, you just won the Super Bowl! Don’t you have a party downstairs or something to go to?” And I just said, “Nah,” and rolled over and went to sleep. That was the same week I bought myself a brand new $275,000 Lamborghini, and I haven’t even driven a mile before I realized, “No, that’s not it. That’s not what I’m looking for. It’s got to be something else, I’m so hungry.” [Full testimony here]

"When you get to the top, there's nothing there." I don't think there's anyone who understands this quite as well as Nick Saban.

"Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done

and what I had toiled to achieve,

everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;

nothing was gained under the sun."

- Ecclesiastes 2:10-11

Highly recommended related Ravi Zacharias talks - The Problem of Pleasure, What is Worthwhile under the Sun?