The disequilibrium we injected into the game hijacked what made it great.
“There is an argument that Saban retired because ‘now NIL has leveled the field & he can’t compete!”
lol.
He’s the most accomplished man in the sport & he’s 72.
He retired because the current landscape of the game is not congruent with his true passion:
Building young men.”
-Ray Zingler on X
You don’t get into coaching for yourself.
And that goes for any level of sport or training.
If you do, well you’re in it for the wrong reasons, and the only way you’ll last is if your superiors are in it for the wrong reasons, too. The reason I make this point is because as much as it’s bullshit, the good ‘ol boy system is still alive and well.
I recognize many will jump react at what I’m saying about Saban and my “boomer” mentality, but my issue is not with the evolvement of the game, NIL, or the transfer portal.
Do I want to see enhanced safety measures in our sport to further protect the players? Of course.
Do I have a problem with a 19-year old kid being compensated? A kid who works 365 days a year for a university, risking his brain and limbs for rich old men to grow richer off his back, while they sit in press boxes to be entertained? Not at all.
Am I against a kid having the ability to transfer to a different school if his first selection doesn’t work out for whatever reason? Family, coaching change, personal choice? Not one bit.
The “problem” I have is when we go from 0-100, overnight.
When you turn a model (even an imperfect model) upside down on its head, you destroy any sense of equilibrium and create a breeding ground for chaos.
And for sports sake, the first thing this newly found disequilibrium attacks are the values that made the sport great in the first place.
What makes any sport great is not the ball or the playing surface.
It’s what the sport can provide beyond the playing surface.
Why?
Because ALL sports come to an end, but life continues beyond them.
Saban started coaching football, not because he had an affinity with pigskin.
Saban started coaching football because he wanted to USE football to impact and develop the hearts and minds of young men.
Football was simply the vessel he used.
And in my opinion, now that football no longer has anything to do with the underlying values that had the potential to make it great, he rode his horse off into the sunset.
We’re getting away from and missing the whole point of sport.
