Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban Announces Retirement

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SEC Championship - Alabama v Florida

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University of Alabama head coach Nick Saban has finally called it quits without any warning leaving the sports world shocked.

The day most Alabama fans dreaded has finally arrived. At 4 p.m. on January 10, one tweet broke the news that head coach Nick Saban was riding off into the sunset. After the tweet went out most considered it a troll after all this happens every off-season.

Unfortunately this time it was legit and Saban was riding off into the sunset citing health concerns. When you say health concerns everyone thinks the worst. However, according to ESPN, it’s just the grind of college football took a toll on the coach. He broke this down in his sit-down with ESPN discussing his decision.

“Last season was difficult for me from just a health standpoint, not necessarily having anything major wrong, but just being able to sustain and do things the way I want to do them, the way I’ve always done them,” Saban told Low. “It just got a little bit harder. So you have to decide, ‘OK, this is sort of inevitable when you get to my age.’”

In a move that surprised no one, Saban showed up to work today at 8 a.m. with longtime Bama staffer Cedric by his side. A preview of what’s to come in the months at the University.

“I want to be there for the players, for the coaches, anything I can do to support them during this transition.”

“There are a lot of things to clean up, to help as we move forward. I’m still going to have a presence here at the university in some form and trying to figure out all that and how it works. This is a place that will never be too far away from Miss Terry’s and my hearts.”

Furthermore, Saban revealed to players he would still be around and is getting a new office above Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. Great for the fans but might not be fun for the players and staff.

“I wanted them to know how much they meant to me,” said Saban, who won six national championships at Alabama and another one at LSU. “It was hard, all of it was. The last few days have been hard. But look, it’s kind of like I told the players. I was going to go in there and ask them to get 100 percent committed to coming back and trying to win a championship, but I’ve always said that I didn’t want to ride the program down, and I felt whether it was recruiting or hiring coaches, now that we have people leaving, the same old issue always sort of came up — how long are you going to do this for?”

If you listen to Saban’s interview with ESPN it sounds like he is about to have a huge role in college sports. With NIL changing the game in ways many didn’t imagine someone has to oversee it. Who else better than the greatest football coach of all time?

You can watch his full interview below and click the next page to see some tributes to Goat Saban.

When you’re the winningest coach in all of College Football of course you’ve impacted more lives than you even remember. So when the news hit of Nick Saban’s retirement the tributes came rolling in. Let’s take a look at those tributes to the greatest coach of all time.

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