Chasing the Bear

How Bear Bryant and Nick Saban Made Alabama the Greatest College Football Program of All Time

By Lars Anderson

Even though Miami’s 2006 season had been a failure, Saban had enjoyed a measure of success with the team. In 2005, his first year as an NFL head coach, Miami limped to a 3-7 start. He treated players like they were in college, not allowing them to wear hats in meetings and timing them in the 40-yard dash in training camp to determine who was and wasn’t in shape. At first the players didn’t respond to his heavy-handedness, but the Dolphins won their final seven games to finish 9-7. They missed the playoffs, yet Miami appeared to be a team on the rise.

In the off-season Saban believed he’d found the player who could guide the ‘Fins to the Super Bowl. Free agent quarterback Drew Brees was brought in for a tryout and Saban wanted to sign him, but the Dolphins medical staff intervened. Brees, coming off major shoulder surgery to his throwing arm, flunked the physical administered by the team’s doctors. Miami then traded a second-round pick for quarterback Daunte Culpepper, who began the 2006 season as the team’s starter but was benched after four games, Palling to land Brees, who went on to become the MVP of Super Bowl XLIV in 2010, would turn out to be the defining hour of Saban’s tenure in Miami. He had been promised full control of personnel when owner Wayne Huizenga hired him away from LSU, but at this fork-in-the-road moment in franchise history, Saban was overruled.

When Moore landed in South Florida early on the morning of Monday, January 1, 2007, he had to keep his trip a secret because of Saban’s public statements about not leaving the Dolphins, Moore had wanted to sit down with Saban during the NFL season, but Saban told his agent, Sexton, that he wouldn’t contemplate another position until after the season was over. So now Moore, who didn’t have a scheduled appointment with Saban, waited. For several hours, as late morning bled into late afternoon, Moore called Saban multiple times, but he didn’t answer. Frustrated, Moore thought his chances were doomed, that the savior he sought would not become Alabama’s head coach. He checked into a Fort Lauderdale hotel and continued to wait. Then, late at night, Saban returned his call. Moore spoke with Saban and wife, Terry, for an hour, selling the couple on the University of Alabama and life in Tuscaloosa.Near the end of their conversation, Saban finally lowered his usual protective demeanor, hesitantly admitting to Moore that he was frustrated with the Dolphins and tired of coaching professional players.

Moore, who had spent four years in the NFL as an assistant coach, sympathized. “Nobody comes to see you,” Moore said. “No one calls you. No one talks about the team. And the wife doesn’t do anything. If you want a quarterback, you trade for one or you buy one. Same with a defensive end. You don’t recruit.”

At the end of their conversation, Saban said he’d call Moore the next day and they could meet for lunch. That night Saban phoned Gene Stallings, whom he’d known for several years. Stallings taught at Saban’s coaching clinic when Saban was at Michigan State in the late 1990s and the two had kept in contact. Saban wanted to know the intimate details of the Alabama program and Tuscaloosa. After speaking with the former Tide coach, both Saban and his wife grew more intrigued with the idea of moving to Alabama.

By noon the following day, however, Moore had yet to hear from Saban. Certain his mission had failed, Moore packed his bag and asked the driver of the hired Mercedes sedan to take him to the airport. But on his way to the hangar where the private jet was parked, Moore’s phone rang. It was Sexton, who told Moore that the Saban’s needed a few more hours to think about coaching at Alabama and that Moore should wait another day in South Florida. Moore followed Sexton’s instructions and checked into another hotel, one closer to Saban’s home in Fort Lauderdale. Throughout the day University of Alabama president Robert Witt repeatedly called Moore for updates; Moore, who still hadn’t personally met with Saban, merely said negotiations were stuck in a holding pattern. Even though a dozen other coaches had expressed interest in the Alabama job, Moore was willing to wait for Saban—at least another day.

Saban met with Huizenga about the time Moore was speaking with Witt. The Dolphins owner wanted Saban to stay in Miami, but Huizenga ultimately said that Saban needed to do what was best for himself and his family. By this time Moore was patience. He drove to Saban’s house. When Moore approached the sprawling mansion, he saw TV crews set up nearby and a helicopter hovering overhead. Undaunted, as one within a few feet of his prey, he knocked on the door. For over an hour he met not with Nick but Terry Saban—it was a stroke of luck for Moore that Nick was still at the Dolphins’ headquarters.

Moore knew that Terry was the key to hiring Saban. She was his confidant and most trusted advisor and had played a vital role in her husband’s success. Moore turned on his extensive Southern charm, sweet-talking her in his honey-dripping drawl. Moore explained that unlike in the NFL, where coaches’ wives play little or no role in the community, Terry could be a prominent figure in Tuscaloosa if she desired and would have a platform to help others. Moore also emphasized that the Sabans—including daughter Kristen and son Nicholas-would enjoy Tuscaloosa, a kind of football Mayberry. The vision Moore laid out made the move, and the coaching job, even more tantalizing for Terry.

Moore, a member of Bear Bryant’s first recruiting class in 1958, continued his sales pitch, waxing poetic about the high quality of life on the banks of the Black Warrior River in Tuscaloosa, its friendly community, its legendary football program, and its fans, so desperate for a winner. As Moore went on and on about why her husband would be perfect for the job, the phone rang. It was Saban. “I don’t think I’m even going to talk to (Moore) tonight,” Saban told Terry. But then his wife said, “Oh, Mal’s already here.We’ve been talking for over an hour.”

Saban soon arrived. He told Moore, “Mal, when I go to work I feel like I’m working at a damn factory. I never see a soul.” After about an hour Moore rose to leave—still without an answer from Saban—and he said he would be flying back to Tuscaloosa the next day. As she walked him to the door, Terry Saban grabbed Moore’s arm. She had made her decision-she wanted her husband to take the Alabama job. “We’ve got to get him on that plane tomorrow,” she told Moore.

(Anderson 2019, 31-35)

References

Anderson, Lars. 2019. Chasing the Bear: How Bear Bryant and Nick Saban Made Alabama the Greatest College Football Program of All Time. N.p.: Grand Central Publishing.

ISBN 978-1-5387-1648-9