I return, admittedly with some fear and trepidation over offending the Tahd Nation, to a subject that continues to puzzle me – Nick Saban’s need to explain his appearance in the film version of Michael Lewis’ The Blind Side.
In response to a few questions at SEC Media Days, Saban again spoke of his personal hope that the ‘Bama fan base would be able to grasp the concept of history.
“I’m hopeful that all of our fans will understand that the movie was a historical event,” Saban said. “And when it happened and occurred, that was a time in history when it occurred.”
I still can’t figure out why that’s a worry, but what the heck.
Here’s the really strange quote from the man:
“Our team has already voted not to go see the movie. They don’t want to endorse something like that I was involved with.”
A vote. The team had a vote. The team had a vote not to endorse what exactly, the movie or LSU?
I’m curious to see what happens when the film gets released in Alabama. Protests? Riots in the streets? Book burnings? Mass hysteria?
Get The Picture 
Gee, sounds like someone (and the football team he coaches) is a little edgy/insecure about the whole gun-f0r-hire reputation his job hopping has created.
LikeLike
Also, check out this photo of Saban being greeted by a fan as he arrives for media day.
Kind of reminds me of the “GE Handshake” from when David Letterman was doing Late Night.
LikeLike
To me it sounds like the Alabama fans don’t want to talk about the teams (yea that’s right Alabama fans he’s been with more than one) Saban coached before theirs. Kinda like we don’t want to talk about the guys our wives or girlfriends were with before us.
We must both be missing something on this one Senator. I wouldn’t have any problem with CMR being in a movie as himself at FSU. Heck I’d probably go see it because he’s in it. I just don’t understand the issue here.
LikeLike
As your posts about Saban usually are, this is much ado about nothing.
Saban answered a question about what is in the minds of others in an equivocating way because he doesn’t know what’s in the minds of others. He hasn’t surveyed the fanbase although he did note that he hasn’t received any negative comments, but I’m sure you didn’t leave that out on purpose, right?
Second, teams often vote on social activities to do as a group. They have probably voted on LOTS of things, that they voted on whether or not to see the movie as a team is a pretty inconsequential piece of information. As for the “endorse” comment, my guess is that Saban could have chosen a better word and that there wasn’t some sort of vote as to whether or not to “endorse” the movie.
Persistence is key. If you keep after it, I’m sure you’ll find something to skewer him for. Good luck.
LikeLike
Pete, I’m curious. Do you have a sense of humor? Do you not see anything comical about those comments?
LikeLike
The way I see it, any person pathetic enough to compare the loss of a football game to the loss of thousands of Americans deserves every bit of his “skewering”.
Is that justified enough for you, Petey ?
LikeLike
“What To Do About Nick?”
The Nick Saban ‘The Blind Side’ dilemma raises public safety concerns in Tuscaloosa almost to the level they were when George C. Wallace pulled off his “Segreation Today, Segregation Tomorrow and Segregation Forever” doorway-stand skit, and Sherman burning down the Alabama campus right around the time he torched Atlanta at the end of the War of Northern Aggression.
The Alabama State Militia has been put on stand-by and is presently guarding the Governor’s Mansion in Montgomery but additional guardsmen have been called in from their cropdusters and combines because of the serious state of emergency that exists.
Those very serious public safety concerns bring to mind that unless everyone in Tuscaloosa is very, very careful and all votes on the dispute are carefully monitored, even though no one has any idea what they are voting on, but when they vote they do get a purple finger like the Iraqis, Nick paying purple and gold homage to LSU could raise the threat level amongst the Bamanians to the feud level shown in:
‘As I Lay Kvetching’
The winning entry in the 15th annual Faux Faulkner parody contest, “As I Lay Kvetching,” David Sheffield’s answer to the literary question: What if William Faulkner had written a script for the Three Stooges?
“As I Lay Kvetching, by William Faulkner — Stooges Episode .1632; Revisions by Mort Freberg, Abe Shineman, Paul DeMarco, Curtis Ney; Eighth Draft, August 12, 1941.”
By David Sheffield
FADE IN:
INTERIOR: THE COMPSON HOUSE — DAY
She (the old woman, Mrs. Compson) had spent the better part of the morning waiting for them (the workmen) to arrive, yet they had not come; and when at length they drew the wagon into the yard and tied the mules beneath the scattershot shade of the water oak and climbed down amid the dust and moiling dogs to survey the house, she perceived to her dismay that they were stooges: two of whom were brothers (Moe and Curly Howard) and a third (Larry Fine) who claimed no part of their lineage but who was nonetheless of their ilk; come to wait, slack-jawed and splayfooted, before the great stair which led to the room where she (the old woman, Mrs. Compson) had retired; come with paints and pots of glue and damask wallpaper to cover them (the walls) afresh, while she (the old woman, Mrs. Compson) could only pray that they (the stooges) could refurbish and thereby sanctify it (the foyer) which now suspired with the age-old effluvia of honor and sacrifice and obduracy, still redolent with the wretched sweet scent of inviolability which they (her father and her father’s brothers, whose boots these stooges were unworthy to suck even so much as the laces of) had impressed into the very grain of the cypress balustrade upon which he, Moe, the eldest, now knocks — not obeisantly, not malevolently either, but indolently. Hearing no response, they break into something resembling song:
MOE: Helloooo…
LARRY: Helloooo ….
CURLY: Hellooooo …
ALL THREE: Hello!
CURLY: Nobody’s home. Let’s break for lunch. Nyuh, nuyk, nyuk.
MOE: Ix-nay! Put that away, numbskull!
Then Moe, aiming his extended fore and middle fingers, thrusting them into Curly’s eye sockets, heedless of the pain or even the surcease of sight this might inflict.
LARRY: Hey! He didn’t do nothin’!
MOE: Oh, yeah? Sez who? (This is not for you to judge or even acknowledge, this grievance between Curly and me, but is an old blood enmity which only we Howards can comprehend, while you, being a Fine, cant begin to plumb the depths of it. That is it. We are Howards and you are only a Fine, and being a Fine, you are not fit to regard us with anything more than sullen trepidation.) Now get going, lame brain. We got work to do.
CURLY: La dee, la dah …
At last it is Curly who picks up the plank, rough hewn and smelling of sweet gum, and — feeling the weight and heft and fiber of it — swings it innocently (bending to retrieve the tool, the ball-peen hammer dropped casually on Larry’s toe) and feeling the awful force of the blow as it (the plank) catches Moe upside his head and hearing the dreadful thunk of wood against bone and sinew, a sound the like of which he has not heard since his uncle (Irving) took them (Curly and Moe) to the park where he (the uncle, Irving) slapped with the blade of an oar the rotting rind of an overripe musk melon.
MOE: Spread out!
With his pliers Moe grasps his brother’s nose, twisting his nostrils inside out.
CURLY: Woob, woob, woob, woob, woob.
FADE OUT
Protests? No, that’s too much of a Yankee Freedom Rider Selma to Montgomery March thing.
Riots in the streets? Very good possibility.
Book burnings? Doubt it because Spurrier said the Auburn library had already burned down.
Mass hysteria? Of course, but that’s business as usual in the Heart of Dixie anyway.
LikeLike
“Let’s burn ‘im in effigy!”
“Ah, to hell with that! Let’s burn ‘im right here in Tuscaloosa!”
LikeLike
What if his dialogue in the movie is anti-Alabama? Could that be what he’s worried about? Saban bad-mouthing the program in a feature film could be pretty hard to take.
LikeLike