The Tide Has Turned: Chapter One

Yesterday, the idea of writing a fiction non-fiction story about Nick Saban and his hatred for agents was sparked on Twitter. Well, I thought this might be the ideal moment to take a break from what has become typical sanction chatter.

This is chapter 1 of the Tide Has Turned – a Nick Saban novel.

Chapter 1

Nick Saban pulled up in his bright red Range Rover and entered the Crimson facility like any other day. The weather was warm, the sun was out and camp was only a few weeks away. For a second he thought about smiling – but that didn’t last long. Instead, he threw his now lukewarm coffee at a nearby bird. He barely missed, yelled at it and walked inside.

His secretary greeted him with smiles but she was nervous as usual. After all, Nick Saban is a tough man to please. She gave him a handful of messages and laid down the agenda. Her words were clear and she tried to approach the coach with the confidence he deserved.

“You have a meeting with the board of the directors at ten-thirty, you’re scheduled to be at your fundraiser at two-thirty, and you should probably prepare for the SEC Meetings, which as you know beg-“ before she could finish Saban interjected with a comment about her weight. This wasn’t the first time.

She tried to explain herself along with her recent “lifestyle” changes, but it didn’t matter. Nick was already down the hallway and unlocking his office door. He opened it and quickly closed it behind him.

On the door was a sign that read “Under No Circumstances Should You Disturb Me, Unless You Want a 15-Minute Lecture on How Awful of a Human You Are. Regardless, You are all Awful.”

Saban threw his coat on the chair and dropped the briefcase near his desk. He thought about the board meeting that he would have to deal with later on that day and he couldn’t help but punch a hole in a nearby wall. He then made a note for his secretary that they would need the drywaller in again.

He flipped open his laptop on his desk and looked at the Tide’s schedule on his desktop wallpaper. He thought about punching another hole in the wall when he looked at all the teams they would be playing coming off bye weeks. He gathered himself, though, and instead pulled out his replica Gator stress figurine and squeezed it until it exploded.

Before Saban could get through a full email – he saw an “URGENT” subject line coming from one of the board of directors. While he prayed this was to announce the meeting was canceled, somehow he knew it was something more.

He cracked open the email, skimmed through it, and his face became more red than usual. This, of course, is so red that it would likely be called a new shade of red. For the sake of moving the story along, we will say his face was “Saban Red.”

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, Marcel Dareus, BLAH, BLAH, Party with Agents, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, NCAA investigation.

Saban immediately picked up the phone and yelled into the dial tone. He then made his public statements while his hatred for sports agents built up even greater. Phase one of “Operation: The Tide Have Turned” was complete.

Phase two, however, was a complex process. He called up his secretary and told her to cancel all of his meetings and alert the SEC he might miss the media day. He then suggested that she work overtime to make up for the time she would be gone. Before she could respond, he hung up abruptly.

After thinking about his current situation for a second, he thought about every sports agent he had ever known and centered his anger. Someone had to stop them.

Saban reached under his desk and found the button he hadn’t touched in at least 6 weeks. He pushed it, and suddenly the wooden wall behind him slid up into the ceiling and exposed an entire arsenal of weaponry. Think Terminator 2, but better.

After changing clothes, Saban put as much of it as he could on his person and got himself ready to go. He finished off this routine by putting eye black on and head butted the mirror directly afterwards. He then jumped through this window.

“ENOUGH IS ENOUGH,” he yelled! He cocked his shotgun and sprinted down the street.

END CHAPTER ONE