If there is one person in the world of sports who knows what it’s like to win so much that he got tired of winning, it’s Nick Saban.
And while he’s more than a year removed from retiring as the head coach of Alabama, the ESPN College GameDay star is still a pretty big deal in Tuscaloosa.
So much so that the 7-time national champion head coach played a key role in the university’s commencement ceremony on Thursday. Only Saban wasn’t the headliner, with the 73-year-old delivering a seven-minute speech before introducing President Donald Trump.
“It’s certainly an honor for me to be here and participate in this historic event to be able to introduce President Trump to address the graduates here today,” Saban said. “So it’s a special moment for me. But I gotta be honest with you, I feel like I’m the warmup band for The Rollings Stones. And the first song they’re going to play is ‘Start Me Up.'”
After offering some words of wisdom to the graduating class, the former Miami Dolphins head coach proceeded to tell a story about the Crimson Tide’s visit to the White House in 2018 after winning the previous season’s national championship.
“Very gracious host and he’s the first president that invited us to come into the Oval Office,” Saban said of Trump. “So I take the three captains in the Oval Office and the President’s really nice to everybody. And he’s got this very big, good looking, auspicious box on his desk that has a red button on top. And one of the players said, ‘Is that what you launch the missiles with?’ And he said, ‘well, push it and find out.’ The player said, ‘nah, I don’t want to do that.’ He said, ‘oh, go ahead. Go ahead, go ahead. Push it. See what happens. Find out.’
“So Rashaan Evans finally got the guts up, went over, pushed the red button. Some lady came in with a Coke on a tray.”
As for Trump’s speech, The New York Times described it as “vacillating between campaign rally material and a commencement speech as he used his past political grievances to encourage students to fight for their futures.” The nearly hour-long speech included criticisms of former President Joe Biden’s economy, defenses of his own policies and commentary regarding transgender athletes.
Considering his significant standing in Alabama, Nick Saban has long been linked to a potential political career of his own; something he hasn’t shown much public interest in participating in. But while his own political leanings remain unclear, college football writer Alex Kirshner noted in 2023 that the West Virginia native is “at least a little bit—emphasis on ‘a little bit’ —of a Democrat,” citing his public support of now-former West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin.