'I Go to Church,' Alabama's Nick Saban Says When Asked What He Does Sunday Mornings
- Michael Foust Crosswalk Headlines Contributor
- Updated Dec 21, 2020
Alabama's Nick Saban is known as a ferocious, tough-nosed head coach who rarely smiles on game day and demands excellence from his players and assistants.
But Sunday mornings are for church, he told an SEC Network panel this weekend.
Saban’s top-ranked team had just beaten Florida 52-46 in the SEC Championship Saturday to secure a slot in the four-team College Football Playoff. With the playoff selection show set to air on television at 11 o’clock Central Sunday morning, Laura Rutledge of the SEC Network asked Saban if he had any plans to watch it.
Saban replied with an answer that surprised Rutledge – and perhaps many others in the audience.
“I go to church from 11 to 12, so they're going to have to either schedule it at a different time, or I'm going to find out when I get out of church,” Saban told Rutledge.
Saban, who has won five national championships at Alabama, is Catholic.
He discussed his faith during a 2016 interview with EWTN, a Catholic television network.
Asked by EWTN in 2016 if his Catholic faith plays into his success as coach, Saban answered, “I don't think there's any question about the fact that character [and] moral development are all a part of leadership. ... I look at it as, we always say, ‘God have mercy,’ but that mercy is not a well. It's not a cistern. It's a channel that should run through us to other people. That's part of what we try to do for our players, so they have a chance to be more successful in life.”
In 2016, a Catholic student center named after Saban opened in Tuscaloosa, Ala., the university’s home. The Saban Catholic Student Center is part of the St. Francis of Assisi University Parish in Tuscaloosa.
“We've tried to raise money for it as well as making a significant contribution,” Saban said. “My wife, Terry, is very involved in it. We have a lot of Catholic participation by our students here. We felt it would be great for them to have a place where they can go socialize and develop the kind of relationships that might be helpful to them and their faith development.”
No. 1 Alabama will play No. 4 Notre Dame Jan. 1 in the College Football Playoff semifinals.
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Wesley Hitt/Stringer
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
