One of the best things that Nick Saban did while coaching the University of Alabama football team was promote an unbelievable amount of team over individual. While they certainly had a ton of amazing individual athletes on his teams that have gone on to great success in the NFL, Saban made sure the focus was always team first.
As part of that focus, Saban never gave out a “game ball” to the best player on his team after each game. The book “Big Potential” explains more:
Similarly, Nick Saban, the venerated head coach of the University of Alabama’s perennially championship-winning football team, doesn’t buy into the tradition of handing out game balls to MVPs, because he believes that singling out players for individual achievements goes against his winning objective; for him, success is all about the team’s win, not one superstar’s stats.
While it doesn’t surprise me in retrospect, I never knew that was a thing that any team did; I assumed they all gave out game balls. It’s somewhat like the idea of “We think that’s stupid” that I shared yesterday; don’t just do what others do for no reason. Nick clearly knew that most teams gave out a game ball every week, but he thought that was a stupid way to put individuals above the team as a whole, so he simply didn’t do it.
His results speak for themselves.
