Latest Stories

Almost every day is scheduled to the minute. It's all about focus and reducing distractions, a repetitive daily process involving the same familiar faces.

So when a stranger suddenly invades the team perimeter for a couple of days, even invited into sacred coaching-staff meetings, which is what happened the first week of this past season at eventual national champion Alabama, the players get curious.

Who's that tall black dude? An NFL scout? One of coach Nick Saban's guest motivational speakers?

"I knew who Lionel Hollins was, but I had to tell our players who he was," Saban said.

Lionel Hollins? You mean, Memphis Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins, who could have rested on last season's laurels of advancing the Griz to the seventh game of the NBA's Western Conference semifinals?

"You're always learning how to be a better coach, how to organize better, how to delegate responsibilities, how to motivate," said Hollins. "You want to learn from the most successful guys.

"I know a lot of basketball coaches, and they may show you a few drills. But they aren't telling you what they talk about in the locker room or at practice or when they talk to their players."

So Hollins, who characterizes himself as someone who's "into other sports as much as I'm into basketball," chose to visit Saban, the only head coach in major-college-football history to win national championships at two different schools (LSU and Alabama).

He phoned the Crimson Tide's fifth-year coach and asked if he could visit him to observe. Saban was more than happy to invite Hollins to Tuscaloosa the week of 'Bama's Sept. 3 season opener against Kent State.

On the surface, a pro-basketball coach making such a request to a college-football coach seemed unusual. But when Saban was at Michigan State from 1995-99, he and basketball coach Tom Izzo often exchanged philosophies and ideas. Earlier when Saban was on Ohio State's staff in 1980-81, he recalled then-Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight visiting retired legendary Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes.

"All of us as coaches, no matter the sport, are responsible for searching for better ways to manage the attitudes and the personalities of the athletes we coach," Saban said. "We're trying to get them to define success as being the best they can be.

"That's what Lionel was doing on his visit. He was also looking at how we organize things and how we define things, so everybody has an expectation of what they are supposed to do, what they can be responsible and accountable to."

Hollins had carte blanche access. He was allowed to be a fly on the wall at just about every coaching-staff meeting -- offensive, defensive, special teams -- as well as overall team meetings.

"Football is the ultimate team sport, because you have to have 11 guys on your side of the ball doing the same thing for each play to be successful," Hollins said. "It's intriguing how you get it done coaching that many players, but Nick is very good.

"... The one thing I took away from my visit is good coaches are all the same. They are detail-oriented, and they preach the same message every day."

Saban's mantra is, focus on the daily process of improving, not the end result of the improving. It must work, since he's won 48 of 54 games in his last four seasons at Alabama (28-4 in the SEC) with national titles two of the last three seasons, the latest on Jan. 9 in New Orleans. That's when 'Bama got revenge for its only loss in a 12-1 season by blanking LSU, 21-0, in the BCS championship game.

Saban also has a reputation as being a driven perfectionist, who has his finger on everyone around him -- assistants, players and support personnel.

"Go talk to all successful coaches and they are all the same," Hollins said. "They are all hard-nosed guys. They seem to be control freaks, because you have to be the leader of the team in order for the team to have success.

"If a leader is wishy-washy and the team is doing one thing one day and another thing the next day, it doesn't work. It's just like raising kids. If you don't have any consistency in raising your kids, it's going to be the same way with them."

Hollins and Saban agreed they both enjoy talking coaching philosophies and strategy with coaches of any sport.

"I learn from everybody," Saban said, "and it's just not the technical part of X's and O's, which are different in all sports.

"I like to learn what it takes to create a winning environment, a champion's attitude in the players you have. For any coach, after you install your offensive and defensive systems, the most challenging thing is getting your players to consistently play on a high level."

(Contact Ron Higgins of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., at higginsr(at)commercialappeal.com.)