CNS: The Most Powerful Coach in Sports

[DKW 86 7,438]

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0901/092.html

The Most Powerful Coach in Sports

Monte Burke 08.07.08, 6:00 PM ET

Forbes issue date 09.01.08

Coach Nick Saban

College football has long been a big business. But the money and control Alabama gave Nick Saban raised the stakes to an unprecedented level. Is he worth it?

On New Year's Day in 2007 Mal Moore, the athletic director at the University of Alabama, boarded a private plane bound for Miami. A little over a month earlier the university had fired Mike Shula, its fourth football coach in eight mediocre years. The pursuit of a new coach to that point had been bungled badly--the once proud program was reportedly turned down by Steve Spurrier, from South Carolina, and Rich Rodriguez, at the time the coach at West Virginia. Moore was on his way to Miami to try to woo Nick Saban, then the coach of the NFL's Dolphins. It was all-or-nothing, with no real backup plan. "I told the pilots when they dropped me off in Miami that if I didn't come back to this plane with Nick Saban, they should just go on and take me to Cuba," Moore says.

Saban, a onetime head coach at Louisiana State, fretted over the decision to leave Miami for two restless days, then took the job and flew with Moore back to Tuscaloosa--and into a national media outcry in which he was called a "weasel," a "loser" and "Nick Satan" for leaving Miami after publicly denying interest in the Alabama job.

But in Tuscaloosa, which was desperate to return to national football prominence, Saban, 56, was a savior, welcomed with an open wallet. Saban, with his agent, James E. Sexton II, negotiated an eight-year, $32 million contract that was, at the time, the highest salary ever paid to a college coach. It remains among the highest and is bigger than all but a handful of NFL coaching salaries. His deal includes, among other perks, 25 hours of private use of a university airplane, two cars and a country club membership, extras that make his annual compensation closer to $5 million a year, estimates Smith College economics professor Andrew Zimbalist. He can leave the school at any time without financial penalty, a rarity in big-time college coaching contracts.

What's more, he was given total control of the football program: recruiting, coaching, business administration and public relations. There are coaches at other universities who have similar salaries, like Charlie Weis at Notre Dame and Pete Carroll at the University of Southern California. But no coach, including those in the professional leagues, can match Saban's combination of money, control and influence. Saban, now entering his second year as the coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide, is the most powerful coach in sports.

Handing Saban the keys was a business decision. Bigger TV contracts and bowl game payouts helped push revenues for the Division 1-a colleges to $2 billion, up 25% in four years. Saban has already had an impact. At his first spring practice game 92,000 fans showed up. The waiting list for season tickets tripled after his arrival to 10,000. A stalled 10,000-seat stadium expansion now seems inevitable.

Alabama's football program had $54 million in revenue this past year and an estimated $32 million profit. The profit is used to pay off the athletic department's $130 million debt for capital improvements. Football finances 77% of the athletic department, bankrolling nonrevenue sports like swimming and softball. It also has kicked back millions of dollars to university academic programs.

But the economics of hiring Saban go well beyond athletics. The decidedly pro-football University of Alabama's president, Robert Witt, points to the school's recent $500 million capital campaign as an example. "We have had 100,000 donors in that campaign, and a major reason they support us is football," he says. It's no different at any other college with a football team. Why do Ivy League schools even bother to field teams that are never going to win a bowl game? It keeps the alumni money flowing. That's how you pay for the English department.

Witt says Saban's presence helps the school's academics by attracting strong applicants. In the 2007--08 year 57% of the students enrolled were in the top quarter of their high school class, up from 54% the year before. "Having a coach of his caliber makes it easier to recruit better students and raise more money," says Witt.

All of which may overcome resentment from professors (average salary at Alabama: $116,000) of Saban's contract. Witt can also argue that not a penny of Saban's salary comes from either students or taxpayers. It comes from athletic department revenue, which consists of broadcasting fees, ad sponsorships, donations from "boosters" (alums who give to football, not the university's general fund), ticket sales and shoe and apparel endorsements.

Saban ended his first year with a 7--6 record. But it takes a while for a coach to put his stamp on a team. Recruiting is where it all starts. In three of his five years at lsu, Saban had top-rated recruiting classes, meaning the 25 high school seniors drawn to a college by a football scholarship. His 2008 recruiting class at Alabama was the consensus number one in the country and included a prized high school receiver named Julio Jones from Foley, Ala.

When he visits a recruit, he says, "I tell them this is a 40-year decision, not a 4-year one." He stresses the importance of his players' being successful as people, as students and as athletes. Queen Marvin, the mother of Julio Jones, says: "He came in here and talked about education. That's what I want for my son. Football won't always be there." "He came in here with a fistful of dollars and a new Tahoe." is more like it....

Saban's actions even spurred a new NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) recruiting rule. The sneeringly nicknamed "Saban Rule" was enacted to prohibit coaches from visiting high schools in the spring, something Saban had traditionally done. So he came up with a way around it. He used videoconferencing equipment to talk to recruits and coaches face-to-face via computer, a tactic within the NCAA rules. Saban views the NCAA in the way that a tax attorney sees the IRS. "You have to maximize your benefits," he says.

Once he gets a player in the program, Saban becomes a Big Brother. He instituted a summer weight-training program. There are penalty points for missed classes and practices. All players have to attend personal growth seminars taught by Seattle's Pacific Institute. Saban also brings in speakers, including police officers and a former member of a mob family to talk about gambling. "We're trying to create thoughts, habits and priorities," he says. The program hasn't been wholly successful on that front yet. Ten players have been arrested since he took over. (All but one of the players arrested were recruited by the former regime.) Funny, they all werent arrested under the former regime...

Saban preaches about "control" to his players and staff. He's closed all but a few minutes of most Alabama practices, something no other coach there has done. He forbids his players to use the word "hot" during summer practices. While with the Dolphins, he turned down an invitation to dine with President Bush so as not to miss practice.

Saban has also set about to boost donations and spread the word about his team. One way is to bring together the traditionally balkanized Alabama football booster groups, the alums who raise money and act as ambassadors for the program. He's subjected two dozen or so of them to one-hour interviews to determine their worthiness. "I don't call him, he calls me," says Elliot Maisel, an Alabama booster and the chief executive of Gulf Distributing Holdings, a beer wholesaler in Mobile.

With Saban's wide territory comes the job of managing public relations. That hasn't gone so well. The bad press Saban received after leaving Miami continued in his first year at Alabama. He snapped at reporters after losses. He rudely compared the Louisiana-Monroe and Mississippi State losses during the season to Sept. 11 and Pearl Harbor. "I've had my share of issues since I left Miami," he says. "I feel responsible for being able to manage the public relations better." He personally authorizes all interviews with his players and assistant coaches. "You'd like to have one message with multiple voices," he says. "But it sure is easier to control with only one voice."

Saban grew up in the mining town of Monongah, W.Va., pumping gas and fixing flat tires at his father's gas station. He went to Kent State University, playing defensive back on the football team. "I figured I would run a car dealership, that it was better to sell cars than fix them up," he says.

When Saban graduated, Terry, his wife of now 36 years, still had a year to go. So Saban decided to stick around and took a job as a graduate assistant on the football team in 1973. Over the next 17 years he had a succession of assistant coaching jobs, most notably with Syracuse, West Virginia and Ohio State, and with the NFL's Houston Oilers. He left Houston in 1991 to become the defensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns under head coach Bill Belichick, now of the New England Patriots. "Bill and I were a lot alike," says Saban. "We spent hours just talking about defensive strategies."

In 1995 he was hired as the head coach at Michigan State, where he turned around a team that had not had a winning season in the five years prior to his arrival. In 1999 he was hired by Louisiana State, where in five years he won two Southeastern Conference Championships and a national championship in 2003.

Wayne Huizenga, the owner of the Dolphins, came calling in 2005, and Saban took the head coaching job. But he became quickly disillusioned with pro ball. "You were almost penalized for success," he says. A good year meant lower draft picks and a more difficult schedule. "In the NFL you get one first-round draft pick if you're lucky," says Saban. "You couldn't really outwork anybody else. In college I could recruit ten players with first-round talent every year." Like Saban knows a damn thing about "success" in the NFL.

But the main difference had to do with control. In the NFL a coach has to contend with the owner, who is not likely to be a shy or unassuming person, and with a general manager, who makes player personnel decisions and holds the purse strings. In his second year with the Dolphins the team brought in two free-agent quarterbacks, Drew Brees and Dante Culpepper, both of whom were coming off injuries. Saban wanted Brees. The Dolphins medical staff cleared only Culpepper. Brees went on to win 11 games that year with the New Orleans Saints. Culpepper played only 4 games before succumbing to an injury. Saban compiled a two-year record of 15--17 with the Dolphins.

Enter Alabama, a football program that was steeped in a glorious past--under Paul (Bear) Bryant, who won six national championships--and a mediocre present, but with a fan base still as rabid as any in the country. "In the late 1950s and early 1960s, when Alabama was last in everything--education, highway funding, progress in civil rights--the one thing people could take pride in was the success of the Alabama football team," says Paul Finebaum, a radio host and newspaper columnist in Birmingham.

After Bryant retired in 1982, the team went mostly downhill. There were NCAA sanctions for recruiting violations (including three years of bans from lucrative bowl games), a coach accused of sexual harassment followed by one fired before even coaching a game, after an alleged trip to a strip club. Mike Shula, a former Alabama player and the son of a famous NFL coach, Don Shula, was canned after having only one winning season in four years. CNS has only had one winning season in the last three....

Can Saban deliver? With his power comes the burden of immediate gratification. "We expect him to be successful," says Witt. Saban says he can't control the lofty expectations, but "I wouldn't want to coach anyplace where they didn't expect to win." Hey Nick, want to list the teams that dont expect to win? That would be a short list...Wait, you could put miami on that list these days. They really dont expect to win anymore after the screwed up team you assembled.

In the NFL quote above, Saban seems to almost admit that he is not a player coach, just a recruiter. He left Miami because he could not acquire enough talent to win because he cant coach what he already has up. And all those rules about a tougher schedule if you won the previous year, like he would have an idea about that! I guess no one told him about that rule while he was calling every team in the NFL looking for a job while at

I have said since CNS was hired that his success at was a product of Muschamp and Fisher being there. Of course neither one is willing to work for him now either so his asst coaches are nowhere near the level where they once were. And Bama expectations???? Remember, Joe Scarborough said all they wanted was 3 BCS Tites in 5 years before they hired CNS. I guess that gives him just 4 years to pull that one off. I just wonder if all this pressure is leading him to be so testy with the press too. Who knows...

[auownsua 4]

:thumbsup:one of The Best Post I've Ever Read About Saban & UAT!!!.Nicely Done DKW!

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0901/092.html

The Most Powerful Coach in Sports

Monte Burke 08.07.08, 6:00 PM ET

Forbes issue date 09.01.08

Coach Nick Saban

College football has long been a big business. But the money and control Alabama gave Nick Saban raised the stakes to an unprecedented level. Is he worth it?

On New Year's Day in 2007 Mal Moore, the athletic director at the University of Alabama, boarded a private plane bound for Miami. A little over a month earlier the university had fired Mike Shula, its fourth football coach in eight mediocre years. The pursuit of a new coach to that point had been bungled badly--the once proud program was reportedly turned down by Steve Spurrier, from South Carolina, and Rich Rodriguez, at the time the coach at West Virginia. Moore was on his way to Miami to try to woo Nick Saban, then the coach of the NFL's Dolphins. It was all-or-nothing, with no real backup plan. "I told the pilots when they dropped me off in Miami that if I didn't come back to this plane with Nick Saban, they should just go on and take me to Cuba," Moore says.

Saban, a onetime head coach at Louisiana State, fretted over the decision to leave Miami for two restless days, then took the job and flew with Moore back to Tuscaloosa--and into a national media outcry in which he was called a "weasel," a "loser" and "Nick Satan" for leaving Miami after publicly denying interest in the Alabama job.

But in Tuscaloosa, which was desperate to return to national football prominence, Saban, 56, was a savior, welcomed with an open wallet. Saban, with his agent, James E. Sexton II, negotiated an eight-year, $32 million contract that was, at the time, the highest salary ever paid to a college coach. It remains among the highest and is bigger than all but a handful of NFL coaching salaries. His deal includes, among other perks, 25 hours of private use of a university airplane, two cars and a country club membership, extras that make his annual compensation closer to $5 million a year, estimates Smith College economics professor Andrew Zimbalist. He can leave the school at any time without financial penalty, a rarity in big-time college coaching contracts.

What's more, he was given total control of the football program: recruiting, coaching, business administration and public relations. There are coaches at other universities who have similar salaries, like Charlie Weis at Notre Dame and Pete Carroll at the University of Southern California. But no coach, including those in the professional leagues, can match Saban's combination of money, control and influence. Saban, now entering his second year as the coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide, is the most powerful coach in sports.

Handing Saban the keys was a business decision. Bigger TV contracts and bowl game payouts helped push revenues for the Division 1-a colleges to $2 billion, up 25% in four years. Saban has already had an impact. At his first spring practice game 92,000 fans showed up. The waiting list for season tickets tripled after his arrival to 10,000. A stalled 10,000-seat stadium expansion now seems inevitable.

Alabama's football program had $54 million in revenue this past year and an estimated $32 million profit. The profit is used to pay off the athletic department's $130 million debt for capital improvements. Football finances 77% of the athletic department, bankrolling nonrevenue sports like swimming and softball. It also has kicked back millions of dollars to university academic programs.

But the economics of hiring Saban go well beyond athletics. The decidedly pro-football University of Alabama's president, Robert Witt, points to the school's recent $500 million capital campaign as an example. "We have had 100,000 donors in that campaign, and a major reason they support us is football," he says. It's no different at any other college with a football team. Why do Ivy League schools even bother to field teams that are never going to win a bowl game? It keeps the alumni money flowing. That's how you pay for the English department.

Witt says Saban's presence helps the school's academics by attracting strong applicants. In the 2007--08 year 57% of the students enrolled were in the top quarter of their high school class, up from 54% the year before. "Having a coach of his caliber makes it easier to recruit better students and raise more money," says Witt.

All of which may overcome resentment from professors (average salary at Alabama: $116,000) of Saban's contract. Witt can also argue that not a penny of Saban's salary comes from either students or taxpayers. It comes from athletic department revenue, which consists of broadcasting fees, ad sponsorships, donations from "boosters" (alums who give to football, not the university's general fund), ticket sales and shoe and apparel endorsements.

Saban ended his first year with a 7--6 record. But it takes a while for a coach to put his stamp on a team. Recruiting is where it all starts. In three of his five years at lsu, Saban had top-rated recruiting classes, meaning the 25 high school seniors drawn to a college by a football scholarship. His 2008 recruiting class at Alabama was the consensus number one in the country and included a prized high school receiver named Julio Jones from Foley, Ala.

When he visits a recruit, he says, "I tell them this is a 40-year decision, not a 4-year one." He stresses the importance of his players' being successful as people, as students and as athletes. Queen Marvin, the mother of Julio Jones, says: "He came in here and talked about education. That's what I want for my son. Football won't always be there." "He came in here with a fistful of dollars and a new Tahoe." is more like it....

Saban's actions even spurred a new NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) recruiting rule. The sneeringly nicknamed "Saban Rule" was enacted to prohibit coaches from visiting high schools in the spring, something Saban had traditionally done. So he came up with a way around it. He used videoconferencing equipment to talk to recruits and coaches face-to-face via computer, a tactic within the NCAA rules. Saban views the NCAA in the way that a tax attorney sees the IRS. "You have to maximize your benefits," he says.

Once he gets a player in the program, Saban becomes a Big Brother. He instituted a summer weight-training program. There are penalty points for missed classes and practices. All players have to attend personal growth seminars taught by Seattle's Pacific Institute. Saban also brings in speakers, including police officers and a former member of a mob family to talk about gambling. "We're trying to create thoughts, habits and priorities," he says. The program hasn't been wholly successful on that front yet. Ten players have been arrested since he took over. (All but one of the players arrested were recruited by the former regime.) Funny, they all werent arrested under the former regime...

Saban preaches about "control" to his players and staff. He's closed all but a few minutes of most Alabama practices, something no other coach there has done. He forbids his players to use the word "hot" during summer practices. While with the Dolphins, he turned down an invitation to dine with President Bush so as not to miss practice.

Saban has also set about to boost donations and spread the word about his team. One way is to bring together the traditionally balkanized Alabama football booster groups, the alums who raise money and act as ambassadors for the program. He's subjected two dozen or so of them to one-hour interviews to determine their worthiness. "I don't call him, he calls me," says Elliot Maisel, an Alabama booster and the chief executive of Gulf Distributing Holdings, a beer wholesaler in Mobile.

With Saban's wide territory comes the job of managing public relations. That hasn't gone so well. The bad press Saban received after leaving Miami continued in his first year at Alabama. He snapped at reporters after losses. He rudely compared the Louisiana-Monroe and Mississippi State losses during the season to Sept. 11 and Pearl Harbor. "I've had my share of issues since I left Miami," he says. "I feel responsible for being able to manage the public relations better." He personally authorizes all interviews with his players and assistant coaches. "You'd like to have one message with multiple voices," he says. "But it sure is easier to control with only one voice."

Saban grew up in the mining town of Monongah, W.Va., pumping gas and fixing flat tires at his father's gas station. He went to Kent State University, playing defensive back on the football team. "I figured I would run a car dealership, that it was better to sell cars than fix them up," he says.

When Saban graduated, Terry, his wife of now 36 years, still had a year to go. So Saban decided to stick around and took a job as a graduate assistant on the football team in 1973. Over the next 17 years he had a succession of assistant coaching jobs, most notably with Syracuse, West Virginia and Ohio State, and with the NFL's Houston Oilers. He left Houston in 1991 to become the defensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns under head coach Bill Belichick, now of the New England Patriots. "Bill and I were a lot alike," says Saban. "We spent hours just talking about defensive strategies."

In 1995 he was hired as the head coach at Michigan State, where he turned around a team that had not had a winning season in the five years prior to his arrival. In 1999 he was hired by Louisiana State, where in five years he won two Southeastern Conference Championships and a national championship in 2003.

Wayne Huizenga, the owner of the Dolphins, came calling in 2005, and Saban took the head coaching job. But he became quickly disillusioned with pro ball. "You were almost penalized for success," he says. A good year meant lower draft picks and a more difficult schedule. "In the NFL you get one first-round draft pick if you're lucky," says Saban. "You couldn't really outwork anybody else. In college I could recruit ten players with first-round talent every year." Like Saban knows a damn thing about "success" in the NFL.

But the main difference had to do with control. In the NFL a coach has to contend with the owner, who is not likely to be a shy or unassuming person, and with a general manager, who makes player personnel decisions and holds the purse strings. In his second year with the Dolphins the team brought in two free-agent quarterbacks, Drew Brees and Dante Culpepper, both of whom were coming off injuries. Saban wanted Brees. The Dolphins medical staff cleared only Culpepper. Brees went on to win 11 games that year with the New Orleans Saints. Culpepper played only 4 games before succumbing to an injury. Saban compiled a two-year record of 15--17 with the Dolphins.

Enter Alabama, a football program that was steeped in a glorious past--under Paul (Bear) Bryant, who won six national championships--and a mediocre present, but with a fan base still as rabid as any in the country. "In the late 1950s and early 1960s, when Alabama was last in everything--education, highway funding, progress in civil rights--the one thing people could take pride in was the success of the Alabama football team," says Paul Finebaum, a radio host and newspaper columnist in Birmingham.

After Bryant retired in 1982, the team went mostly downhill. There were NCAA sanctions for recruiting violations (including three years of bans from lucrative bowl games), a coach accused of sexual harassment followed by one fired before even coaching a game, after an alleged trip to a strip club. Mike Shula, a former Alabama player and the son of a famous NFL coach, Don Shula, was canned after having only one winning season in four years. CNS has only had one winning season in the last three....

Can Saban deliver? With his power comes the burden of immediate gratification. "We expect him to be successful," says Witt. Saban says he can't control the lofty expectations, but "I wouldn't want to coach anyplace where they didn't expect to win." Hey Nick, want to list the teams that dont expect to win? That would be a short list...Wait, you could put miami on that list these days. They really dont expect to win anymore after the screwed up team you assembled.

In the NFL quote above, Saban seems to almost admit that he is not a player coach, just a recruiter. He left Miami because he could not acquire enough talent to win because he cant coach what he already has up. And all those rules about a tougher schedule if you won the previous year, like he would have an idea about that! I guess no one told him about that rule while he was calling every team in the NFL looking for a job while at

I have said since CNS was hired that his success at was a product of Muschamp and Fisher being there. Of course neither one is willing to work for him now either so his asst coaches are nowhere near the level where they once were. And Bama expectations???? Remember, Joe Scarborough said all they wanted was 3 BCS Tites in 5 years before they hired CNS. I guess that gives him just 4 years to pull that one off. I just wonder if all this pressure is leading him to be so testy with the press too. Who knows...

[WarTim 3,457]

It just amazes me that the west vancesters are too stupid to see that this article puts them in a very bad light.

Amazing,yet typical.

[Ranger12 46]

This could not have come at a better time. You know the other SEC coaches are really "admiring" him now don't ya?

Might as well paint a big ole' target on himself now. Not because the other coaches are jealous, but because they now would love to take him down another notch again this year just so they could laugh even harder. Like WarTim said, only the bammers do no realize how bad that article makes Saban, Moore and and the other PTBs are UAT look.

[mattd 3]

That's a joke..I'd like to think that Tony Dungy, Bellicheck(sp?), Mike Holmgren, Bobby Bowden, etc...would have more power than Saban...which they all do.

[80Tiger 899]

"Most powerful" coach is just another word for "lack of institutiniol control".

[Bama My Heart 5]

It just amazes me that the west vancesters are too stupid to see that this article puts them in a very bad light.

Amazing,yet typical.

We didn't ask for the article to be written, and in my opinion other fans even mentioning this article puts them in a very bad light. If you're not jealous and petty, you certainly come off looking that way. You can not stand anything to be written about any other coach, and it looks silly to pick apart an article such as this.

Call or write the magazine and complain if you feel like some of the facts are wrong, or say " please come do an article on our coach". Coach Saban can't have more of a target on his back than he already had, so if this makes it worse, then so be it. Get over it, don't buy the magazines with his picture on the cover.

[AUesquire 1]

Kudos for posting the article. Otherwise, Bama fans would never have found it. You know, they don't put Forbes Magazine in the same sections as Field & Stream and Hot Biker Chick Monthly.

[AUisAll 2]

Forbes is a business magazine and putting $aban on the cover is good business. The Forbes people know that 92,000 showed up for a practice and I'm sure this issue will be one of their best sellers. I'm sure they are confident that many bammers will cut an extra lawn or two, keep their Kool Aid stand open longer or put in for overtime operating the fryer at McDonalds to get their hands on a copy or two.

Brilliant business decision.

[DKW 86 7,438]

Kudos for posting the article. Otherwise, Bama fans would never have found it. You know, they don't put Forbes Magazine in the same sections as Field & Stream and Hot Biker Chick Monthly.

Well you know it is all I do here is just post crap from other sites....

BMH, it is complete now. Saban is THE MESSIAH. We have heard it from the Tide faithful since the mere mention of his name. Now the national media, NATIONAL MEDIA has acknowledged it too. Saban is THE MOST POWERFUL COACH in the NATION!

Wow, cant wait to see how this plays in Miami, Gainesville, Athens, Knoxville, Austin, Los Angeles, Auburn, etc.

[TigerOne 1,152]

A very negative article. A person who can't delegate and looks for ways to break the rules.

Power will destroy him, the setup has been set, now watch the fall.

[AUBURNJAC 53]

The funny thing is, that he WILL fall. First, when people like lil' Nicky are given this much attention, then imagine how cocky/arrogant he will be now.....................HE WILL FALL..........................Second, this skyrockets the Bammers perception of him to an even higher level............................HE WILL FALL......................Third, when he does destroy turdtown, and trust me you ignorant bammies, NO ONE and I mean NO ONE will want to coach there again for a LONG LONG LONG time.........................YALL WILL FALL WITH HIM!

[DaddyBoyAU 119]

I remember another time when Bama made the cover of a magazine.

We saw how that worked out...

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

I remember another time when Bama made the cover of a magazine.

We saw how that worked out...

That was my thought exactly. Bama is back again!!!

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

The word is out and bammers have already set a new record as they read it online. There have been more orgasms in the last 24 hours among the UAT fans than at any similar period in history. Just wait until you hear all the moans when the magazine hits the newsstands.

How do you like the smirk on the Ego Empereor's face? But wait....I shouldn't be posting anything. I'm supposed to be jealous.

[Bama My Heart 5]

Forbes is a business magazine and putting $aban on the cover is good business. The Forbes people know that 92,000 showed up for a practice and I'm sure this issue will be one of their best sellers. I'm sure they are confident that many bammers will cut an extra lawn or two, keep their Kool Aid stand open longer or put in for overtime operating the fryer at McDonalds to get their hands on a copy or two.

Brilliant business decision.

By saying this, are you saying that Auburn fans would not buy a magazine with your coaches' picture on the cover? Is writing about Auburn's coach not a brilliant business decision? Thanks to the Auburn poster, I don't have to go out and buy the magazine, because I have now read the article(I just ignored the negative things that were edited). The only time that I ever went out and bought magazines with Bama on the cover was in 92, and I'll admit that year I did go a little crazy with the collectibles. I'm glad that I did, because I got the SI mag. signed by Coach Stallings, Derreck Lassic, David Palmer and George Teague. I loved the Sugar bowl that year and it was a great experience for me. This was the first bowl that I had ever been to, and it seems like I picked a good one, but I'm glad that I didn't know then what layed ahead for us. Maybe it would have been good if I had, because I could have celebrated more.

Be glad when somebody hi-lites your school, and don't tear apart anything that is written about another school. It only makes you appear small and jealous, and you say you aren't, and I don't believe that you are, but it looks that way to others.

[AUisAll 2]

LOL. I don't blame you for "living it up" in 1992. You should have and deserved to and I would have too.

You may not buy the magazine and not all bammers will but I think you missed my point. I was complimenting Forbes for a good business decision. Because if 92,000 show up for a practice and as desperate as bammers are for something "good", I'll bet large $$$$$ and I'm sure the Forbes people will to, that this issue will be one of the best selling issues they have ever done.

Almost every trailor park will have several issues I assure you. If they have to cut the 18 pack of natties back to a 12 pack for a few days, that's ok. Some things are worth it.

That is good business.

[Bama My Heart 5]

LOL. I don't blame you for "living it up" in 1992. You should have and deserved to and I would have too.

You may not buy the magazine and not all bammers will but I think you missed my point. I was complimenting Forbes for a good business decision. Because if 92,000 show up for a practice and as desperate as bammers are for something "good", I'll bet large $$$$$ and I'm sure the Forbes people will to, that this issue will be one of the best selling issues they have ever done.

Almost every trailor park will have several issues I assure you. If they have to cut the 18 pack of natties back to a 12 pack for a few days, that's ok. Some things are worth it.

That is good business.

Ok, I'm dumb, what is natties?

[stoic-one 1,549]

Ok, I'm dumb, what is natties?

Natural light

[WarTiger 3,915]

Forbes is a business magazine and putting $aban on the cover is good business. The Forbes people know that 92,000 showed up for a practice and I'm sure this issue will be one of their best sellers. I'm sure they are confident that many bammers will cut an extra lawn or two, keep their Kool Aid stand open longer or put in for overtime operating the fryer at McDonalds to get their hands on a copy or two.

Brilliant business decision.

By saying this, are you saying that Auburn fans would not buy a magazine with your coaches' picture on the cover? Is writing about Auburn's coach not a brilliant business decision? Thanks to the Auburn poster, I don't have to go out and buy the magazine, because I have now read the article(I just ignored the negative things that were edited). The only time that I ever went out and bought magazines with Bama on the cover was in 92, and I'll admit that year I did go a little crazy with the collectibles. I'm glad that I did, because I got the SI mag. signed by Coach Stallings, Derreck Lassic, David Palmer and George Teague. I loved the Sugar bowl that year and it was a great experience for me. This was the first bowl that I had ever been to, and it seems like I picked a good one, but I'm glad that I didn't know then what layed ahead for us. Maybe it would have been good if I had, because I could have celebrated more.

Be glad when somebody hi-lites your school, and don't tear apart anything that is written about another school. It only makes you appear small and jealous, and you say you aren't, and I don't believe that you are, but it looks that way to others.

We will continue to tear apart every aspect of your program, when you set the table so beautifully for us over and over again. I mean come on....a paltry 7 wins (not much below sabans average as a HC) and 10 arrests, now this. We all know saban sold you a bag of goods, and its only a matter of time until you find out that the bag is really empty. Why is it that the entire country can see what saban is, except uat fans? I know you are starved for success and that winning is the only thing that matters, but geez. The only thing uat got out of this deal is a top recruiting class (thank you REC) and negative publicity. Jealous? of what? thats hilarious.

[AUChizad 0]

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/index

Check the poll results by state. Hmm, only one state seems to feel that way.

Please, do your part to change that.

[stoic-one 1,549]

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/index

Check the poll results by state. Hmm, only one state seems to feel that way.

Please, do your part to change that.

What's up with Vermont, Maine, and Hawaii???

I understand the AL thing, but WTF??

[AWK 0]

Every state minus Alabama says no.

[JohnDeere 0]

The only time that I ever went out and bought magazines with Bama on the cover was in 92, and I'll admit that year I did go a little crazy with the collectibles. I'm glad that I did, because I got the SI mag. signed by Coach Stallings, Derreck Lassic, David Palmer and George Teague.

And I bet you kiss that SI issue every night before you go to bed? .....no wait, you have it in a safe deposit box at the bank?

[CircleDrill 178]

I am not lying when I say that I just read on an Alabama message board someone posted where do you buy books? And can you get this magazine at Wal-Mart?

I swear it to be true...