Terry Saban Reiterates How Much She Miss Alabama Tells Nick Hope We Go Back Someday.
Legendary Alabama Crimson Tide football coach Nick Saban was among a roundtable discussion in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, led by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, to talk about the future of college athletics, specifically finding a balance in the new world with the transfer portal and name, image and likeness (NIL) deals.
Saban surprisingly called it quits for his historic career after the 2023-24 collegiate season, which ended in a Rose Bowl loss to the eventual national-champion Michigan Wolverines, and the pay-for-play landscape that college sports has become seems to have played some role in his decision even if he has denied that was the case in past interviews. 
In front of the panel with Cruz, who is involved in drafting NIL legislation, and others like Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne, Saban provided an anecdote with his wife, Terry, who shed some light on his future.
“All the things I’ve believed in for all these years — 50 years of coaching — no longer exist in college athletics,” Saban said when asked by Cruz if the “current chaos” in college sports led to his retirement. “It’s always was about developing players, always been about helping people be more successful in life.
“My wife even said to me — we have all the recruits over on Sunday with their parents for breakfast. She would always meet with the mothers and talk about how she was going to help impact their sons and how they would be well taken care of.
She came to me right before I retired and said, ‘Why are we doing this?’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘All they care about is how much you’re going to pay them. They don’t care about how you’re going to develop them, which is what we’ve always done. So why are you doing this.
“To me, that was sort of a red alert that we really are creating a circumstance here that is not beneficial to the young people, which is why I always did what I did. My dad did it, I did it. So that’s the reason I always like college athletics more than the NFL because you had the opportunity to develop young people.”
There was no official word on whether Nick Saban will return as Alabama’s football coach after his team lost to Michigan, 27-20, in overtime Monday in the Rose Bowl.
But Terry Saban, wife of the 72-year-old coach, revealed her husband’s more immediate plans: watch a movie on Netflix rather than watching Texas play Washington in the second College Football Playoff semifinal game later that night.
Terry Saban greeted her husband with a hug and a few pats on the back after he finished his postgame press conference. They spoke too quietly to be heard, but Terry Saban told USA TODAY Sports this is how their conversation went: