Nick Saban: Big Game Hunter

He built a better trap and look what big game he is catching.

Nick Saban has built what can only be described as a successful “big game hunt” atmosphere in Tuscaloosa. Is there a secret to his success? There is and it’s not just one, but several.

First to build his better trap he has to have the right parts; strong, fast and durable, one that can stand up to incredible pressure. Saban is a relentless recruiter and has a powerful message to sell to potential recruits. Come to Alabama and become a champion. He has taken this message far and wide and has brought back the parts he needs to build this bigger better trap. All you need do is check Rivals or Scouts to see the results of his efforts in this area over the past three years.

But that is just the beginning of the process as he likes to call the Alabama football experience. Once these individual pieces are added to the mix he has to put them in place to make his trap work properly. A piece goes here and another goes there and if one part breaks he inserts a replacement. Nick Saban is a master at putting those parts in the right place. He has built this trap before and snared the biggest game there is.

Once all those parts are in the right place they have to be able to work smoothly even flawlessly together. All parts have to mesh as one functioning unit to achieve the desired results. They have to be molded, tested and trained to do what is expected and in some cases to do the unexpected in order to successfully spring the trap on unsuspecting pry.  

Saban acquired the parts, assembled them perfectly, and after numerous tests against smaller game he sprang the trap on an unsuspecting Florida Gator in front of a national audience. The capture was perfect as the trap sprang shut on the foe. It came down with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel or more aptly like a dagger thrust with strength, speed and unerring accuracy at the heart of its victim. The prey was caught and destroyed and never realized what just happened.

The final secret is that once the trap is sprung and once a trophy is captured he resets the trap, sometimes in a different way, so that when sprung again the result is the same but the method of the attack is different, and the adversary never realizes the trap was there at all.

Those are but a few of the secrets to the success of the deadly trap that Nick Saban used to dispatch a very tough Gator, in the SEC Championship big game.  I am sure there are others that are not really secrets at all such as hard work, undying determination and a total belief in his own process. As he savors the moments after his last capture he is preparing to reset the trap one more time for the biggest game of all; a Texas Longhorn awaits. Steaks anyone?