Life lessons learned from Nick Saban

Now that Nick Saban has declared himself a resident of Florida by signing up for the $50,000 homestead exemption on his new home on Jupiter Island, I want to be one of the first to welcome him to my beloved home state. I also want to thank him.

During the national recession of 2008 — two years after I had started Indian River Media Group, which includes Treasure Coast Business, my family and I moved back to our home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for financial reasons. I commuted back to Florida as needed to run the magazines. Like many other Florida businesses, it took years for the magazine company to come out of the recession.

Back in Tuscaloosa and with Nick Saban as coach of the University of Alabama and amassing a winning record, in early 2009 I started a football publication called Crimson Magazine that covered Crimson Tide football. 

While there were other competitors out there, I set Crimson apart through a talented editorial staff and making it more of a glossy magazine with cover and paper stock like we use in the Florida magazines. 

Crimson turned out to be a big hit both with subscribers and advertisers. The success of Crimson Magazine helped my family weather Florida’s tepid economic recovery. 

Watching Saban up close, I admired what he was doing. Who couldn’t? 

In one of my early columns in Crimson I advocated adapting the principles in football of what he calls The Process to business: having high standards and accountability, recruiting a talented staff, engaging in continuous improvement, focusing on the immediate challenge ahead and adapting new ideas, to name just a few. 

I’m guessing that Saban applied The Process to his own business interests, which seem to be quite successful. In addition to his $11.7 million salary, he is also co-owner of Mercedes-Benz of Birmingham and Infiniti of Birmingham as well as a Mercedes dealership in Nashville. His Jupiter Island home cost $17.5 million.

After Saban won his third national championship in 2012, I foolishly wondered whether he could win more. One thing I observed with Crimson Magazine was that single-copy and advertising sales were a lot better when the Crimson Tide was winning, so when I got an offer to sell the magazine in 2013, I took it. 

The sale allowed me to focus on the Florida magazines, and we eventually moved from Alabama back to Florida. I probably sold too early given the fact that Saban and his Tide would go on to win three more national championships. 

Since Saban in January announced his retirement as head coach of the Crimson Tide after winning six national championships for the team, a lot has been written about what a great coach Saban was — arguably the best in college football. But I don’t think enough attention has been paid to what he did for the University of Alabama and the Tuscaloosa economy. 

During his years, we witnessed the University of Alabama transform into the impressive campus that it is today. We also saw the student body diversify more geographically, as Alabama drew students nationally, many of them wanting to experience SEC football at its finest. 

One of Saban’s often repeated expressions was: “It’s 60 minutes of football.’’ He implored players to devote themselves to those 60 minutes and focus on the next play ahead regardless of what might have gone wrong on the previous play.

One of his principles in The Process was also “to finish.” It’s not surprising that he retired because he thought the aging process wasn’t allowing him to fully devote himself to the game. 

I’m guessing he’ll play a lot of golf while retired on Jupiter Island. Maybe he’ll come off occasionally to give business seminars on the Treasure Coast.

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