This is a good read from a Detroit paper I came across on the net, a little older but worth reading. http://www.detnews.com/2003/msu/0307/07/f01-211052.htm Nick Saban, speaking to LSU fans, has seemed to fit in well in his new surroundings. Football Saban embraces life as LSU's coach By Lynn Henning / The Detroit News [font=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][size=-2]Associated Press[/size][/font] [font=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][size=-1]Nick Saban left MSU to coach Louisiana State after the 1998 regular season.[/size][/font] [font=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][size=-2]Associated Press[/size][/font] [font=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][size=-1]Nick Saban, who has led LSU to 26 victories in three seasons, talked with quarterback Marcus Randall during the spring game.[/size][/font] Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery BATON ROUGE, La. -- Nick Saban remembers that day in downtown Baton Rouge, at a luncheon attended by 600-700 women known as the Bengal Belles. A grandmotherly person raised her hand and shot a question at Louisiana State's football coach: "Are we gonna get up in their faces and play bump-and-run," she demanded to know, "or are we just gonna lay back and play more of that soft zone?" Saban has learned volumes in the four years since he left Michigan State to begin reshaping an underachieving college football heavyweight begging for a whip-cracker. But what he might find most fascinating at LSU is the French-oriented culture that is a realm removed from what he knew during 25 years coaching primarily in the North. Saban has found friends, fans and football players to be in as much surplus in Louisiana as the state's sprawling magnolia trees. LSU, in turn, has snared what it had been aching for for so many years: A coach who could win football games steadily and craft a premier program as feared as Florida, Alabama, Auburn or any other Southeastern Conference power. Building Saban has a chance this season to become the first LSU coach since Charlie McClendon during the 1960s and '70s to have four consecutive winning seasons. LSU was in miserable shape (3-8 in 1999) when he arrived. Saban has since taken the Tigers to three consecutive bowl games and records of 8-4, 10-3, and 8-5. Last winter, Saban had what various analysts ranked as the nation's No. 1 recruiting class. This fall, LSU could find itself favored in all 12 regular-season games. Factor in the 25-acre spread and garden-flanked French provincial home in which he and his family live three miles from LSU, and it figures why natives have a pet phrase for the Saban-Louisiana matchup: "C'est si bon." Or, as billboards cheering Saban state, playfully: "C'est Sa-ban." "People kind of celebrate life here," Saban was saying last week, sitting in his nicely furnished office. "You've got all these interesting factions as part of this unique culture: Creole Louisianans in the south. Lots of French-speaking folks around New Orleans. Acadians in Lafayette. Up around Lake Charles, it's a lot like Texas. "The people here are really good people. Hardworking. Down to earth." Another skill, Saban has discovered, prevails. "People cook here," he said. "Everybody can cook. The food may be a little fattening, but it's just one of the ways they love life." If Saban has been chowing down on jambalaya and bread pudding, he doesn't show it. He is lean as ever and there's nary a gray hair on the head of the man who will turn 52 on Oct. 31. His allies, it seems, are everywhere. University executives, students, players, fans, media. LSU wanted a football coach who could win with style and command. That would appear to be what LSU is savoring in Saban. "Fans love him," said Scott Rabalais, a writer and columnist who covers LSU football for the Baton Rouge Advocate. "In Louisiana, the top people are the governor, LSU's football coach and the (New Orleans) Saints football coach -- maybe. Nick's sort of taken the bully pulpit with this job and it's worked well." Football frenzy On a sultry late afternoon in June, Rabalais was standing outside the LSU athletic administration building where, joined by 15 other media members, he had just finished quizzing Saban during a 45-minute news conference. Consider it one example of how football life differs in the Deep South. At Michigan or Michigan State, football news conferences in June don't happen. But college football reigns year-round at a school such as LSU, where last week Saban's every word was devoured as he discussed the Tigers' need for a hard-hitting safety and more depth at linebacker. He also casually jabbed the media for not doing more to promote LSU's need -- and early promise to him -- for a new football office and training complex that so far hasn't been built but is somewhere in the works. Carl Dubois, another writer who covers LSU for the Advocate, said Saban has status and clout all because LSU likes success -- and likes the way this coach, in particular, has engineered it. "Primarily, what he did early here was win big games against marquee teams that convinced people he was heading in the right direction," Dubois said. "People see a systematic approach, grounded in the NFL and at colleges where he was a head coach before. "He has a no-nonsense, businesslike style that people haven't seen here before." LSU's chancellor, Mark Emmert, is perhaps Saban's most important booster, a development that differs markedly from the prickly relationship Saban maintained with Michigan State President M. Peter McPherson. "He has fit in remarkably well here," Emmert said during a telephone interview. "I was enormously confident when I hired Nick that he would be a good fit for the community. And I'm pleased that while he is recognized as a first-rate football coach and football mind, more importantly, he has also been someone who has resonated with the citizens of Louisiana, and with the Tigers faithful all over the United States." Better fit The harmony between Emmert and his football coach stands as the biggest difference in Saban's life since he came to Baton Rouge from Michigan State. Tension between McPherson and Saban, which had been building for years, convinced Saban in November 1999 to abandon a Michigan State job that he had always said, and maintains today, he never wanted to leave. "I love that school like I love my own alma mater (Kent State)," Saban said. "I root for Michigan State every week. I always will." Saban's chore at LSU was similar to what he inherited at Michigan State. A 4-7 season ended the coaching career of George Perles. Gerry DiNardo, now the head coach at Indiana, had just been booted by LSU in the autumn of 1999 following back-to-back bleak seasons, the sort that had been cropping up far too frequently since the Tigers' glory days. Whether Michigan State's camp agreed with it or not, Saban had a reputation as one of football's best and brightest coaches. He was buttoned-down and intense. He had a clean slate. He had taken over a Michigan State program in 1994 that was tattered and that a year later would be hit with NCAA probation (misdeeds during Perles' era, although Perles was exonerated). He had taken the Spartans to four six-victory seasons ahead of 1998's breakthrough, a 9-2 record and a destined victory over Florida in the Citrus Bowl. NFL teams were always sticking Saban's name somewhere on their short lists. Now it was a college program with Top 25 potential that zeroed in on a 48-year-old coach whose relationship with his boss was going nowhere. LSU offered Saban $1.2 million compared with a Michigan State salary closer to $750,000. McPherson resisted any serious boosts, hardly concealing his ire toward Saban. Saban left for Baton Rouge before the bowl game, and for a job many thought was likely to be trouble for a northern-oriented man now working against coaches steeped in success and knowing their way around the South. "When I went to Michigan State, I knew how the components worked, mostly because George had given me responsibilities that helped prepare me to be a head coach," said Saban, who, during his first stint at Michigan State, had been Perles' defensive coordinator on the 1987 Rose Bowl team. "Then when I came here, I tried to implement the same program. "I was just so unfamiliar with the landscape. Fortunately, there were some good football players here who simply had been psychologically beaten down. They responded, and we had some success." Saban also began doing what LSU hadn't been doing for years: cleaning up on Louisiana's high school talent. No longer would Florida and Texas and Alabama and others pirate the state's best. Saban and LSU have been locking up the locals, and Louisiana annually has an overflow batch of blue-chippers. Days ahead There are no hints this summer that anything is amiss, no suggestions that Saban and LSU are enjoying anything less than a thriving romance. The NFL probably will call on him again at some point. But for now, Saban is content. Entirely so. "I feel appreciated relative to what we've been able to bring to this program," he said. He had opposite feelings during his waning days at Michigan State. And it was so ironic. Michigan State was the job Saban had always wanted, the school and the town he had always thought best for him and for his family. Now he belongs to LSU. And with about as much ease as shrimp find their way into something succulent on the Tigers' fans dinner tables, Saban seems likewise to have found a fit.
this is a very nice article, but I'm not much in the mood to be sentimental about sabans tenure at LSU i just want to win the bowl game, get a proven head coach and move on
