View Single Post
Old February 19th, 2014 #1
Alex Linder
Administrator
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 45,756
Blog Entries: 34
Default Coach Strategies: Nick Saban: "Total-Control, Detail-Oriented, Evaluation-to-Graduation system"

If we, as a movement, or as individuals, want to succeed, we need to look at how winners do it, find the right model, and follow it.

From Sports Illustrated (August 2012):

Pat Buchanan says rising movement are intolerant. Same with successful people in every sector: they don't tolerate mistakes. They don't leave things to chance. They don't walk around drooling "everything happens for a reason" because they are passive losers who can't figure out why nothing they do ever turns out right. They take responsibility and they insist and ensure that things are done correctly. Those not on the same page are gotten rid of. This creates confidence and buy-ins among the indians, and soon enough success for the program. This example's in football but it could just as well be in business, in politics, or in (anything).

Quote:
Alabama's Nick Saban has established a total-control, detail-oriented, evaluation-to-graduation system, and now that the Tide has won its second national title in three years, the imitators have arrived
Quote:
Instead of talking about wins and championships, Saban speaks about the Process. In its most basic form, the Process is Saban's term for concentrating on the steps to success rather than worrying about the end result. Instead of thinking about the scoreboard, think about, think about dominating the man on the opposite line of scrimmage. Instead of thinking about a conference title, think about finishing a ninth rep in the weight room. Instead of thinking about graduating, think about writing a great paper for Intro to Psych. Since Saban has won three of the past nine BCS titles..., the phrase has morphed into the mission statement for Saban's program-building philosophy. After watching the Tide coach raise all those crystal footballs, athletic directors and coaches across the country are trying to replicate his philosophy and results.
Quote:
Saban's philosophy is basic, not cool-new or gimmicky. Manager QB, muscly RB. Line that can create holes. QB that can pass to receivers if the defense stacks the box.

...the true success of his system hinges on the selection of players and the way they are trained once they arrive on campus. That is why Saban's system can endure when schemes can't, and it is also why several programs have made big bets that it can be duplicated.

Every players currently recruited by Alabama, Florida and Florida State gets graded using a similar list of criteria. Coaches calculate the grades by scoring each recruit based on three sets of criteria: character/attitude/intelligence, position-specific critical factors and a height/weight/speed chart. On Saban's grading scale the critical factors for a cornerback are:

- can he judge the ball?
- can he play man-to-man?
- can he tackle?

The ideal height for a cornerback is between 6 feet and 6' 2". The ideal weight is heavier than 180 pounds. The ideal speed is less than 4.5 seconds in the 40-yard dash. Saban is quick to point out that these are not firm requirements. For example, Javier Arenas, who was recruited by Mike Shula and inherited by Saban when he first came to Alabama, was only 5' 9", 198 pounds, but he helped the Crimson Tide win the 2009 national title game with two picks in the championship game. Saban says he would have recruited Arenas because he scored high on his critical factors and in the character/attitude/intelligence department.

Those evaluation forms didn't originate with Saban. They came from Don James, who coached Saban at Kent State and made Saban a graduate assistant... James...borrowed the idea from former Colorado coach Eddie Crowder, who forbade his assistants from watching film of recruits and required them to grade based on in-person observation and discussions with high school coaches. At Kent State, James tweaked the criteria to suit his own preferences. "We were looking for guys who could start right away," James says. "We weren't sure we were going to be around for two or three years."

Saban borrowed another key piece of philosophy from James. When James became the head coach at kent State midway through Saban's career as a defensive back, James beefed up the academic support system for his players. "He really was into teh personal, motivational, moral development," Saban says of James. "There was a belief there that who you are mattered in terms of how successful you were going to be or how you played."
that is one reason that we should see whites, not blacks, come to dominate football over time, i add parenthetically - whites are MUCH higher than blacks on brains-character-attitude

Quote:
Having tutors and an academic adviser made staying eligible easier for the players, and it made for fewer academic headaches for James. By the time Saban took over at LSU, many major athletic programs had an academic-assistance unit -- a group of advisers, counselors and tutors that support athletes -- but he considered LSU's inadequate. He soon hired more personnel ande spearheaded the drive for a $15 million, 54,000-square-foot academic center, which opened in 2002. When he arrived at Alabama in '07, Saban also beefed up the academic unit. His most recent project is a $9.1 million weight-room renovation scheduled to open in January.
What if there were an Aryan Institute, with fifteen million in the bank? And it developed courses and curriculum specifically for whites. Gave them, for the first time, a context not based in jewish ideological bullshit like diversity or some other anti-white universalism nor in catholic universalist anti-white religious superstition?

The right process...the right system...the money to make it work...the right people...all of a sudden you might have something.

Quote:
While a defensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns from 1991 to '94, Saban worked for another critical mentor, Bill Belichick, who not only gave Saban a master course in defensive philosophy, but also taught Saban how to get the most out of his staff and players. Saban took note of the sign Belichick hung in the Browns' complex. It said DO YOUR JOB. Saban loved it because Belichick clearly defined the expectations for every employee in the organization. "Everybody says, 'Be accountable,' but sometimes nobody ever tells you exactly what the expectation is," Saban says. "Bill was good at defining what he expected from everybody, and everybody buying in. Then the team had a chance to flourish because of it." Every year Saban provides everyone who touches the program with a list of responsibilities and expectations, from defensive coordinator Kirby Smart to media-relations director Jeff Purinton. Smart can accept the occasional tongue-lashing because he knows what Saban expects of him. "Is he demanding? Yeah," Smart says. "He requires you to do you job. And I appreciate that."

Though it may come as a shock to many, Saban is more comfortable than most of his colleagues in admitting what he doesn't know. In his quest to train the whole player, he realizes he can't address the mental aspect of the game as well as a sports psychiatrist. When he was head coach of the Miami Dolphins, Saban hired Trevor Moawad, the director of performance at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., to work with his players. He now uses Moawad as a consultant at 'Bama. While Moawad's efforts don't provide empirical data -- a change in attitude can't be quantified like an increase in bench press -- Saban and the players have noticed results. ...

As he has during the past preseason camps, Saban has brought in speakers -- at significant expense -- to highlight various lessons. Saban can preach accountability but the mesage hits harder when former basketball star Chris Herren explains how his drug habit cost him his professional basketball career. Saban can ask his players to stick to their guiding principles, but that won't mean as much as it does coming from former amateur boxer Dewey Bozella, who served 26 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit and who, when offered his freedom in return for an admission of guilt, declined and waited to be exonerated. "Probably one of the toughest things for these coaches to do is convince their administrations that the investment in these other areas is important," Moawad says. "The athletic director says, 'Well, isn't that your job?'"

...

Can Saban's system be replicated at a school that generates about one tenth the revenue that Alabama generates? McElwain, teh former Alabama offensive coordinator, will soon find out, because Colorado State totaled $7.7 million in football revenue in 2010-11.

McElwain contends that some facets of the Process require little money. It doesn't cost him anything to fill out an 18-month master calendar similar to the one Saban keeps at Alabama. It costs Coolorado State a pittance more to print the individual job descriptions for each employee in the football program. And it costs nothing for McElwain to draw a picture of a bus on the grease board in the staff meeting room, on which he can write an employees initials inside the bus anytime that person tries to pass blame for his own failure to someone else. Throw a co-worker under the bus and you ride the bus of shame. "In any business organization, whether you have a bunch of money or not much money, the people are the difference," McElwain says.

...

Is there an approach that can beat Saban's system? The cyclical nature of college football suggests so, but Saban's holistic Process is less susceptible to gimmicks and schematic ingenuity. Saban finds the most talented players with the best mental makeup; trains their mind, body and soul; and then unleashes them.

...

"You have to pay the price for success up front," Saban says. "Everybody wants to do it. Not everybody is willing to do what they have to do to do it."

Last edited by Alex Linder; February 19th, 2014 at 01:32 AM.