Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people.
Nick Saban
One thing about championship teams is that they're resilient. No matter what is thrown at them, no matter how deep the hole, they find a way to bounce back and overcome adversity.
One thing I always tell players is that there are three bad things: Nothing good happens after midnight, nothing good happens when you're around guns unless you're going hunting, and you don't want to mess around with women that you don't know because a lot of times, bad things happen.
When you invest your time, you make a goal and a decision of something that you want to accomplish. Whether it's make good grades in school, be a good athlete, be a good person, go down and do some community service and help somebody who's in need, whatever it is you choose to do, you're investing your time in that.
We all have anxiety about things. We all have little insecurities, but eventually you have to face your fears if you want to be successful, and everybody has some fear of failure.
Now, everybody always says there's no 'I' in team, but there is an 'I' in win, because the individuals make the team what it is, and how they think and what they do is important to the team. So when you act like the individual is not important, well, it is damn important who these people are and what they are.
When you have the ability to affect other people and be somebody that somebody wants to emulate, care enough to help somebody else for their benefit, that's what makes you a good teammate, and that's what everybody's looking for.
Honesty and integrity is an important part of our character, my character.
What makes Freddy Krueger such a horrible character? What makes him scare you to death? You can't get rid of the guy. He never goes away.
We create a standard for how we want to do things, and everybody's got to buy into that standard or you really can't have any team chemistry.
I always ask myself the question, do you like to win, or do you hate to lose?
You can control your own destiny a little bit better in college. It's hard to control all the variables, especially with the salary cap and things like that, in pro football. You can't keep your team together, and you are going to have more changes all the time. Personnel decisions aren't always made by you, especially who you bring to your team.
I think when you win the national championship, it works throughout your team. Where human nature is to say, I did well. I got my quota this month. Now do I get some time off? Do I get a bonus? Do I get to go on a cruise? But it's not to keep trying to be the best. That's not necessarily human nature.
I don't know if I'm different from everybody else, but there's really only two things to me that are really, really important - recruiting good players in the program and developing those players once they get here.
I think people who grow up in one particular environment, like the Alabama-Auburn game, they don't ever get the same appreciation for the Ohio State-Michigan game or the Michigan State-Notre Dame game or the Michigan-Michigan State game, the Browns and the Steelers.
One of these days when I'm finished coaching at Alabama, I'll write an authorized book because there's only one expert on my life, and guess who that is... me. And there won't be any misinformation. There won't be any false statements. There won't be any hearsay. There won't be any expert analysis from anybody else. It will be the real deal.
If you're a coach, you're a teacher.
There's two parts of leadership. You've got to be a good leader - you've got to be somebody that people want to emulate and care about the other people. But the other guys that you have have to accept their leadership. They have to respond to it. That's the chemistry that you never know how that is going to happen.
I think a lot of times you have to face your fears. I think everybody has to face their fears.
When you have a system, you kind of get in a routine of what's important. And then you spend a lot more time on thinking of things that would make it better.
George Perles at Michigan State was the first coach that gave me responsibility as far as being a coordinator. I learned a lot from that experience.
If I were a high school coach, I would put my best players on offense. The best athletes on my team, I would give them the ball and score points. I wouldn't play them on defense. I would play them where they can get the ball and score points.
When I talk about a successful program, define that. It's not just winning the national championship every year because nobody can do that.
I'm not going to be the Alabama coach.
I enjoyed the NFL. I respected the players. It was a great opportunity to learn a lot of things, but the challenges were a little different, and it didn't seem that you could control your own destiny, especially in terms of how you could bring players to the team.
I certainly like to win. But I really hate to lose. So when you think about that, you're always motivated to, 'I don't want to lose the next game. I don't want to lose the next game.'
Teachers are always trying to inspire people to do better, to learn, to grow. That's what we do, and we're proud of the success we've had here doing that, and it's something we'll certainly continue to do.
I don't ever want the players to relax in a game.
I want what's best for our country. I'm not sure I can figure that out.
The thing I like about college football so much is you can affect these guys a lot more when they are 18-22, 23 years old in terms of people and having a chance to be more successful. They are still a value type development, where you have a chance to help them mature a bit and help them be a little more successful in life.
First of all, you've got to have a vision of 'What kind of program do I want to have?' Then you've got to have a plan to implement it. Then you've got to set the example that you want, develop the principles and values that are important, and get people to buy into it.
I think the worst thing a player can do is just not be yourself.
When people have success, one of two things happen. They either get really satisfied and want to keep thinking about it and talking about what they did, or the success becomes a little addictive, and it makes them want to keep having more.
I don't want people to think I'm not happy when we win - I am. But there's a difference between being happy for the feeling of accomplishing something and being overjoyed and feeling, 'This is it - we conquered the world.' We didn't. We just won a game.
I don't know that there's any particular scientific evidence that you could say, more guys get hurt in this offense versus that one, or hurry-up, or whatever, but everything that we've ever done in the NCAA is about exposure. How many exposures does a player get?
One of the easiest shots in golf is chipping. It should be the easiest. It's like throwing a ball or pitching pennies. It's easy. And I struggle with that, and the struggle is all mental.
I want what's best for people who want to improve the quality of their life. I hope whoever our leader is will do all that he can do to make our country safe and improve the quality of life for a lot of the people we have in our country, and I don't think I am qualified to determine who that should be.
Soccer is a continuous game, rugby is a continuous game, but for the physical elements that are involved in playing a football game and the number of plays that you play, I don't know that it was ever intended to be a continuous game.
I don't know how many times I've been 114 yards from the hole and made double bogey. Well, I hit a great drive, but it doesn't matter. It's only the next shot that matters.
Everybody thinks when I say a guy is a good game manager, that's a negative, but I think it's a real positive. You have the ball in your hand every time when you're a quarterback. Whether you're handing it off or throwing to somebody, I think that's extremely important.
My wife goes to Birmingham five times a week. My mom lives in Birmingham now after moving from Myrtle Beach. It's not just the job. A lot of people don't get that. My life is here.
I guess I'm motivated by the fear of failure to some degree and knowing what can happen when you don't do things the way you need to do them to have success.
I think anytime you play somebody on a yearly basis, you develop a history for what they like to do.
If I say I like one person, that means everybody that voted for the other person doesn't like me. So, why would I do that?
It's great to see our players get some of their dreams come true.
Our players get scrutinized pretty hard at Alabama.
People talk about you won four national championships. Well, I feel like we've had good enough teams to win eight. So I feel like we failed four times. I feel like I failed four times.
When you play quarterback, you have to process information quickly, get the ball out of your hand to the right guy.
If we'd had Drew Brees, I might still be in Miami.
I don't think I'm complicated at all. I'm not political, and I'm not trying to be diplomatic. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, and I don't say bad things about people. There is no agenda. There's no trying to fool somebody.
