Tide coach thankful for gifts, relationships

November 26, 2008

By Ken Rogers

Nick Saban has been in this business too long not to be thankful for the position he’s in.
After his unbeaten and top-ranked Crimson Tide finished a two-hour, full-pad practice Wednesday, Saban showed that he understood the holiday was not just an “external factor.“
“This is a good time of the year and as coaches you don’t always get to enjoy it and as players they don’t get to enjoy as much as we would like for them to,“ the coach said. “It is a time to give thanks and be thankful and appreciative of all that we have and all the gifts that we have and all the relationships that we have. I’d certainly like to wish all of our supporters and fans and the media that covers our team, who invests a lot of time in giving them the exposure they certainly deserve, to have a great Thanksgiving.”
Saban said his team has practiced well all week. Some of them will head home for Thanksgiving after an early practice. The rest will be well fed, too.
“It was a little bit different today not having school and not having school tomorrow,“ Saban said. “But the only change in the schedule for us is to move things up a little bit tomorrow and let the guys go after practice; so they can leave out of here, if they live within an hour or two, and have dinner at home. The rest of the guys will have dinner with our family.“
Alabama faces Auburn, which has never lost in Bryant-Denny Stadium, on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. The game is on CBS.