Monday, June 3, 2013

NICK SABAN'S CORE VALUES

Many of you are aware of my fascination with Alabama Head Football Coach Nick Saban. It began when he was the coach at LSU and I would watch his press conferences and read all of his interviews and talk to football coaches at the high school where I was coaching who knew him well and I was so much in awe about his ability to focus on the single task at hand and not get distracted with "the clutter" as he calls it. Every program has Core Values that represent everything that the program is about. I don't know if there is a better example of a program built on Core Values than the Alabama football program under Nick Saban. This is an article from a newspaper in Alabama describing how those Core Values helped Alabama win the 2009 National Championship at the Rose Bowl by beating Texas 37-21.     -SG


 The University of Alabama football team was ahead by a field goal with just over two minutes to go, facing third-and-goal at the 1-yard line at the Rose Bowl, when Texas called timeout. As Crimson Tide players looked to the sideline, Alabama strength and conditioning coach Scott Cochran bounded onto the field, hopping up and down with both hands extended over his head, four fingers pointing toward the sky and his thumb crossing his palm. Cochran was sending a signal that harkened back to nearly a year before when preseason conditioning drills began with grueling daily workouts. The message wasn't the traditional “fourth quarter is ours” commonly signified by the four-finger salute late in games, but something far more specific. On the cover of the workout manual issued to UA players nearly 12 months before the BCS National Championship Game was played is the image of a gloved hand, with each digit marked with one of five values. Those five values were designated by head coach Nick Saban as the building blocks of the program from the moment he was hired in January of 2007 with the mission of taking the Crimson Tide back to the national title game. “Discipline, commitment and effort and toughness — that's the four fingers,” Cochran said. “The thumb is pride. “So when you put the four fingers up, that's what it's all about. It means fourth quarter, but there's a lot more to it.” A lot indeed. When Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram bulldozed his way into the end zone with a second-effort touchdown on the play after the timeout to extend Alabama's lead to 10 points and put the national title game on ice, it marked the culmination of a year's worth of work designed to prepare UA players for just such a moment. And behind the Crimson Tide's national championship season were the concepts of commitment, discipline, effort, toughness and pride. “I think that intangibles are probably really important to being a good competitor,” Saban said the day after the victory over Texas, “and I think that most people who have passion for something as important to them is what gets them to commit to something, and your mind kind of does whatever you tell it to do. “So once you have the passion and the commitment, at least you're going to be moving in the right direction when it comes to work ethic, discipline, trying to make good choices about what you do and what you don't do. “The effort, the toughness and the discipline to execute are probably the key ingredients to any sport. ... I think those are part of your character and who you are, and I think the same ingredients would be necessary to be successful in anything.” Constant theme Alabama players were conditioned to embrace the five values not just as words, but as guidelines. The values were constantly underscored during the team's offseason workouts and in meetings. They were on the cover of the spring workout book distributed to every player and reinforced several times throughout its pages. Motivational speakers were brought in to further bolster the message. “One hundred percent reinforcement,” Cochran said. “You're going to see me teaching it in the classroom to them ... then the next thing you have is we're on the field and you hear it again. “So you're hearing it four or five times. You're hearing all about that commitment, that effort, that discipline, that toughness, that pride.” Saban didn't settle on the five values when he got to Alabama. They were also key to his 2003 national title run at LSU. “These core values, when applied to offseason conditioning, allow our players to be at their best in the fourth quarter of games, when the game is on the line,” Saban wrote in his 2004 book, “How Good Do You Want to Be?” “When we take the lead into the fourth quarter, we are virtually unbeatable because of our program. Players and coaches raise four fingers at the start of the fourth quarter and it means something to all of us. Beyond the field, these five intangible values are what we expect our young men to exhibit in the classroom and in life.” Commitment “Commitment is being committed to the program,” Cochran said. “That's the players committed to the program, having the coaches committed.” Receiver Marquis Maze, who just completed his sophomore season, learned about commitment before he ever set foot on the field for Alabama. He arrived in 2007 as a highly-touted prospect who had produced more than 3,000 yards and 30 touchdowns in his final two seasons in high school, but sat out his first season as a redshirt. “At times when I was sitting out I wanted to leave,” Maze said. “I wanted to go somewhere else, but I stuck around and it paid dividends for me because I was committed to the program. I talked to my mom and she was committed. She told me, ‘You just need to wait your turn.'” That commitment goes beyond football. “In order to be a successful student-athlete, you've got to be committed to time management,” said punter P.J. Fitzgerald. “It's not just on-the-field stuff, it's everywhere. “You've got to be committed to get good grades. You've got to be committed on the field to learn your assignments and execute them. Just be committed to the program and yourself and you'll be successful.” Discipline The value of discipline is about making the right choices and following them with action. “Discipline is to do what you're supposed to do the way it's supposed to be done,” Cochran said. A page in Alabama's 2009 spring workout manual addresses the concept: “Everything you do, everything you have, everything you become is ultimately the result of the choices you have made,” it reads. “You have the power to direct your life. How will you use it? What's your choice?” If there is one value Saban stresses above all others when he addresses his players, it may well be discipline. “Coach Saban always talks about discipline,” said offensive lineman John Michael Boswell, who just completed his sophomore season. “You have to have discipline in everything you do in life. Discipline is one of the most important aspects you can have, doing the right thing and having the discipline to do it all the time. That's what is going to make you successful. “You have to have discipline to do things on your own. There's not always going to be someone to make you do it. You have to have discipline to do it yourself. That's a big part of it, right there.” Effort “You can't coach effort,” Cochran said. “That's something everybody has to bring, every player.” Even those who don't get to play have to demonstrate effort. “Everybody's got a role going down from the starting quarterback even to the water boys,” said Travis Sikes, a wide receiver who just completed his junior season and has been on the field for only a handful of plays in his career. “If you have to do scout-team work, you have to have effort to do your work and give the (starters) a good look so they can do their job during the game. It doesn't matter who you are.” Of the five values, effort is the one players are most expected to cultivate on their own. “Nobody is born with it,” said receiver Mike McCoy, who just completed his senior season. “You've just got to give it.” Effort is what separates players in the weight room, in conditioning drills and on the practice field. Effort turns good players into better ones. “If you don't give effort,” said Maze, “talent alone won't get it on this level. You have to give effort to do anything in this world, really.” Toughness Alabama's toughness was forged by the rigorous offseason conditioning program that began last January. “There's physical toughness, obviously, but there's mental toughness,” said defensive lineman Lorenzo Washington, a senior on the national title team. “Just pushing yourself through that last rep and that last sprint during winter conditioning or summer conditioning, battling that heat, or being able to balance all your school stuff with practice and being able to block outside distractions during the year, or not going out and partying and all that kind of stuff, that's toughness.” Linebacker Cory Reamer, another 2009 senior, was toughened by the same process. “When you're out there running and it gets hard and you're questioning yourself on whether you can do this or not, you've got to have the toughness to push through,” he said. Cochran, the coach who administers Alabama's conditioning regimen, said the program was designed with toughness in mind. “We're going to make it difficult so it's going to be tough,” he said. “We're going to develop all that.” When Alabama was holding on in the final minutes of its 12-10 victory over Tennessee, toughness came into play. Terrence Cody blocked a last-play field-goal attempt to preserve the Tide's perfect record. “We just had to finish the game,” Washington said. “On the last play of the game, people were tired, everybody was fatigued. We just had to put everything on the line. Just pushing through whatever adversity you have, that's what toughness means.” Pride Alabama's football history, with the school now claiming 13 national championships, is steeped in pride. “Pride is something you have as soon as you come to this program,” said All-American offensive lineman Mike Johnson, who just completed his senior season. “It's something when you sign on the dotted line to come play with a program like Alabama, you automatically have a sense of pride.” Even the school's fight song, “Yea Alabama,” promotes this value: “You're Dixie's football pride, Crimson Tide,” it proclaims. In the game where Alabama came closest to defeat, the Crimson Tide trailed Auburn from the opening moments until scoring the game-winning touchdown with 1:24 to go. The 15-play, 79-yard drive to that score was fueled by pride, Johnson said. “When you're down in the fourth quarter against Auburn and they're threatening to ruin your season, you've got to point to pride,” he said. “It's just putting it all on the line to come up with a win, and that gives you a tremendous sense of pride and sense of accomplishment.” The glue Alabama’s national championship run was a product of successful scheming by coaches and athletic play by players, but the constant reinforcement of the values of commitment, discipline, effort, toughness and pride served as a foundation. “It glues you in on what you want and tells you to never give up because there is a bigger goal and bigger prize at the end,” said running back Roy Upchurch, a 2009 senior. When Saban talks about players buying into the program, he is talking in large part about embracing those values. “There’s a lot of stuff you have to buy into and I think those five things are what you talk about the most,” said Reamer. “You always hear those words coming out of Coach Saban’s mouth. He emphasizes it a pretty good bit. They all go hand-in-hand with everything we do in this program.”

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