Saban Brutally Honest on Biggest Career Lesson Learned at MSU
Nick Saban's time at Michigan State was brief but very significant for the program. He didn't win national championships, or even his own conference for that matter. But his mark on the school still lasts to this day.
Saban's relationship and impact on Hall-of-Fame Spartans basketball coach Tom Izzo is well documented. His time as a defensive coordinator helped the Spartans to their 1988 Rose Bowl championship and Big Ten title.
Saban coached Spartans legends such as Julian Peterson, Plaxico Burress, TJ Duckett, Sedrick Irving and Tony Banks.
While he will be remembered for his national championships and dominance at LSU and Alabama, Saban's career would not be what it was without the Spartans and his time in East Lansing.
On a recent ESPN College GameDay, Saban discussed a valuable learning moment with the Spartans that he said marked a turning point in his career.
"I think you have a greater chance of losing a team when you're transactional as a leader," Saban said. "Which is the way I was until 1998. In other words, everything was about winning, or losing. And when we won I patted people on the back. But when we didn't win, I was probably too harsh, didn't use it as a teaching moment and negative experiences without teaching kills moral.
"In 1998, we had gone to play Ohio State. They were No. 1 in the country, we were 4-5 at Michigan State. They were getting ready to fire me at Michigan State. I don't think we can win the game, so I said what kind of coach am I going to be? So I had to change into being a transformational leader. Somebody who players could emulate, somebody who cares about the players for their benefit, not my benefit. Have a vision for what we were going to accomplish and how we were going to do it, have value-based principles that were gonna help [the players] be successful in life. And play one play at a time -- everything is about process nothing is about outcomes. We became a different kind of team, we actually won that game. It turned our season around. And my coaching career actually changed 360 around that time as well."
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