Does the public care?

Yep!

I hate the fact, however, that Finebaum fails to mention that Moon does not cover Alabama, and for the brief stint when he did (almost a whole football season) he had the worst attendance record of any writer on that beat.

 

Finebaum brings up the point I was going to make -- you think in the era of blogs, message boards, fan boy sites, talk radio, etc., etc.--- fans don't have access to info if the Nick Sabans of this world don't let us talk to them? Give me a break.

Further, I'm quite sure the whatever podunk paper Josh Moon writes for needs Alabama and Nick Saban a helluva lot more than they other way around. It doesn't seem to be very bright to rip a guy who can make it nearly impossible for you to get info on what I am sure is the most important beat -which is why Moon is being hypocritical for saying Saban needs the media -- yet fails to mention how much that paper likely relies on ALabama coverage to carry the sports section and keeping circulation and advertisers.

Don't believe me? Ask yourself this-- what if that paper put a story in tomorrow's paper saying basically "Because Nick Saban is a prick, we will not have any Alabama football coverage for the upcoming season."

What do you think would happen to circulation?

 

Well I guess we know who'll be carrying the water for Saban in Tuscaloosa.

 

Banana cream pudding.

 

Saban is the face of paranoid fuckface coaches (succeeding Bill Snyder), but good God he's not the only one.

Johnny Dangerously's post made me weep because it hit so close to home.

College football is the greatest sport to cover. Except it's the worst.

 

I don't think I'd call the Montgomery Advertiser a podunk paper.

 

Neither is SI... Stewart Mandel rails on the prick for blowing off a prearranged interview.. He adds that he is the perfect person to leads Bammer...

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- New Alabama coach Nick Saban doesn't have time for you. Or me. Or anyone that's not one of the 85 or so football players he's trying to turn into champions (or the prospective recruits he'd like to add to those 85). Thus, he treats the rest of his world -- assistants, support staff, the media -- accordingly.

During a two-day visit to Alabama last week, I watched college football's first $4 million man patronize his team's beat writers throughout a 10-minute press conference, dress down a school official ("I don't have time for this s---," he barked) and blow off our pre-arranged interview.

I left town certain of two things: That Nick Saban is every bit the jerk he's made out to be -- and that he's exactly what the doctor ordered for the Alabama football program.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/stewart_mandel/04/09/alabama/index.html

 

I know that Mandel is trying to take the high road here - don't let Saban's treatment of the media influence his coverage, yada, yada, yada - but does he have to turn it into a love letter? Sheesh.

 

He doesn't have time for most of his players, either. Basically, once you've signed the LOI and you're on campus, unless you're a starter (preferably a star), players are under a "don't-speak-unless-you're-spoken-to" policy with Saban.

You could fill a book (if anybody really cared about it) with players telling stories about how Saban walked right past them in the football building hallway. Right past them.

I guess in the terms of this discussion, that's actually a point in favor of Saban -- he isn't going completely out of his way to be a prick specifically to the media. He's a prick to everybody.

 

I just can't see how this is any way to go through life treating people.

 

And yet, when they pay him $4million a year to be the biggest bully on the block, how he steps on peopledoesnt matter if they win...

 

But I mean ... doesn't Saban ever stop and say, "You know, I'm a millionaire many times over. I'm in charge of perhaps the most storied program in the country. Life's been good. Maybe I shouldn't be treating people like this."

I understand why people accept it.

I just don't understand why he does it. How he can live with himself day after day.