In rather interesting news for a Friday during the fall, Nick Saban admitted on his weekly radio show to helping players cut corners on the NFL's famed Wonderlic test.
When promising players high on the organization's draft board performed poorly, Saban would request that the player be allowed a re-take of the test, and he would then administer the re-take with the player himself.
“I hate to admit it now, but if I really liked a player, I would actually take the test out, look at it, tutor the guy a little bit, alright, before he took it. Maybe lose a few minutes on the timing part of it, so he had a little extra time… and they would do better," Saban said on the air, as SEC Country pointed out.
"We were trying to create opportunities then, just like we’re trying to create opportunities for people now.”
Saban didn't detail which of his NFL coaching stops this occured at (he spent time as an assistant with the Houston Oilers and Cleveland Browns before becoming the head coach of the Miami Dolphins), but it's a wildly interesting story line nonetheless.
Could you imagine the media circus that would ensue if Bill Belichick came out tomorrow and said that he's done the same thing?
Also of note from that same weekly radio show, a caller who is training to be a truck driver called in and asked career advice from Saban on not burning out the clutch on his rig. Saban, who had a summer job during college driving a Coca-Cola delivery truck and burned three clutches in three summers, offered the following advice, per AL.com:
"I think you should do what your instructor is telling you, he's your coach. But I'll tell you the hardest part is the hills, you know? When the truck wanted to roll back. I mean, when you have a big heavy truck and it rolls back and you have a car behind you and you have one foot on the brake, one foot on the clutch, how are you going to get the gas without taking one of those some other kind of way. So you have to do it quick and if you don't lean on the clutch, you're going to roll backwards."