Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban might go down as the best college football coach of all time, and this week we got a little look into how he coaches his players.
During a recent press conference, Nick Saban opened up about how he pushes his players to push through adversity during practice so that they can become better in the long run.
“This is a great opportunity, in these circumstances, for us to be able to persevere through some difficult things. To overcome adversity,” Saban said according to On3. “I don’t think you’d be a great competitor if you can’t overcome adversity. Adversity is coming some kind of way. You should enhance the challenge of what’s coming. This is another challenge, working every day.”
Saban made it clear that while he wants his players to push themselves in practice, he doesn’t want this to be something that players simply have to endure – he wants them to actually learn to enjoy the process.
“I think it’s always important for players to self-assess and say, ‘Okay, I played this many plays today. I would play this many if we had a game. I’m not in good enough condition to sustain the level of effort, toughness, ability to stay focused to do my job for this many plays. And yet I know I’m going to play more later on,’” Saban explained. “Every practice, every opportunity you get is not something you want to endure in practice. But you want to push yourselves so that you can get to the next level of where you need to be to stay focused for longer and play with more consistency for longer in every game that you play.”
It’s clear why he’s been such a successful coach.
