Capstone Report on Alabama Football

Recruiting: Alabama lands commitment from #6 pro style QB Cooper Bateman

2012-05-16T14:58:32Z

Alabama needed a quarterback in the next recruiting class, and it landed a commitment from one of the top pro-style quarterbacks available. Wednesday morning Cooper Bateman committed to Alabama. In a statement emailed to the Daily Bama Blog Bateman said, “I have chosen to attend the University of Alabama. I am honored that I will get to learn from Coach Saban and Coach Nussmeier and will get to represent Alabama, the state and the University. I want to thank my coaches at Cottonwood for all they have done for me and mostly to my parents who have made this all possible.”

Bateman videos on YouTube include these impressive highlights:

Rivals.com lists Bateman 6’3″, 190 lbs with 4.7 speed and a 3.6 GPA.

Leadership the Nick Saban Way: How to rally after a loss—four lessons from Alabama’s BCS National Championship

2012-05-11T18:44:41Z

Leadership lessons from Alabama football coach Nick Saban: Turning a loss into an opportunity for growth

The Alabama football team won its 14th national championship after overcoming an overtime loss to LSU during the regular season. The loss on Alabama’s home field looked to be the end of the Crimson Tide’s championship push. However, Alabama football coach Nick Saban turned the loss into an opportunity to teach and improve his team. The refocused Alabama team routed LSU in a rematch.

Saban focused his team members on doing their jobs and ignoring what was beyond their control. Ultimately, this was Saban’s message all season, and it is his typical message about striving for individual excellence. However, the LSU loss presented a few unique opportunities to tailor this message to the uniqueness of the moment.

Four Quick Leadership Lessons:
Saban used the LSU loss to exhort his players to do better. Following Alabama’s loss to LSU, Saban took the opportunity to refocus his team on its core mission—pay attention to detail and be relentless in your pursuit of perfection.

Saban told the Alabama football team in the locker room after the LSU loss, “We need to learn from this. We need to make a commitment to the rest of the season, in terms of what kind of a football team we want to be and the way we want to respond to what happened here today. You guys have too much in it, you put too much into it, you have too much character, too much class, too much leadership here not to finish this season the right way.”

It was a message he repeated to the press on Monday following the LSU loss, “The whole idea is paying attention to detail, doing the little things right, all the things we tried to get everyone to focus on all last week, is exactly what we need to do to improve as a team. I hope that we learn and correct those things, so that we can move forward in a positive way. We can’t do anything about what happened in that game other than what happens in the future, and what we can learn from it. That’s exactly what we’re going to try to focus on.”

This focus on what you can control ties in nicely with the next point.

Saban’s championship involved a little luck down the stretch, but it also required Alabama to do the right things to put itself back into position to challenge LSU. Alabama would not have been in the BCS title game without critical losses by other potential national championship contenders coming during the stretch run like Oklahoma State’s loss to Iowa State. In what is one of the best parts of Machiavelli’s The Prince, the great author observed, “I compare fortune to one of those floods that fill the plains, uproot trees, ruin buildings, and slide mud from one corner to the other. Everyone runs before her and cannot block her. But, although this is so, men in quiet times can prepare, repair, and build dams so that fortune, when it comes may channel here or there…”

In other words, some things are outside of our control, but we must do everything in our power if we want a good outcome. This is the kind of message that Saban used about where his team stood in the BCS debate.

When asked about the BCS standings during the week leading up to the Georgia Southern game, Saban said, “I don’t really care about that. I mean, I’ve been sitting in that room for two days watching film, trying to get enough guys on a pitch guy. You figure it out and come tell me what it is because I don’t know, and don’t really care. All I know is that we just need to take care of what we control, and what we control is how we play. My contribution to that is how we get the team ready to play. So I couldn’t care less about that because I don’t understand it to start with.”

Use stories that you tell or that others create as a vivid illustration of your point. One challenge for many leaders in the business world is getting the message to resonate with the audience. Saban used a movie to illustrate his theme about doing your job. Saban was open following the BCS Championship Game about how the Red Tails movie was used to motivate his football team.

“We went to see the movie Red Tails last night, which I would recommend to anybody, but those guys’ motto was the last plane, the last bullet, the last man, the last minute, we fight,” Alabama football coach Nick Saban said during his opening remarks of the BCS post-game press conference. “And we always stay with the mission. And I think that kind of described the spirit of that group extremely well, but it also describes the spirit of the group of players that we have on our team this year and takes a tremendous amount of resiliency to come back.”

Saban said this illustrated a key teaching point for the team: the importance of finishing. Saban said this was his message prior to the game.

“In fact, it was a question: How bad do you want to finish? What’s your effort going to be, your enthusiasm, your excitement to play in the game, the toughness that you’re willing to play with, all the intangibles, and you do it one play at a time?”

Cultivation of talent can overcome challenges like lack of experience. Alabama won the championship with a sophomore quarterback starting his first college games in the 2011 season. Dealing with a young player created some interesting challenges in molding quarterback A.J. McCarron. McCarron went from getting yelled at and a slap on the butt because of a throwing the ball to the wrong receiver in the 2010 Mississippi State game during mop-up duty to a mature quarterback able to bounce back from defeat.

The core of Saban’s message centered on getting the quarterback comfortable doing his job—not trying to do too much, but paying attention to the overall plan.

“Well, AJ has been in the program for three years. And even though this is his first year starting, I think he’s taken advantage of maturing as a player, because he does prepare well, he has really good football instincts about what he’s doing, he’s a talented guy, and he’s learned, I think, how to take what the defense gives and play with patience and not try to force plays. And he’s played well for us all year-long,” Alabama football coach Nick Saban said after the BCS Championship Game. “And I told him when we were riding on the bus the other day, you know, that first LSU game was not one of your best games, but you really don’t have to win this game; you just gotta play your game. And that’s really what we want all of our players to do. And I thought he did a fantastic job of that tonight.”

McCarron talked about the ups and downs of the season and how the coaches attempted to modify the way he showed emotion during games.

Well, you know, I always laugh about it,” McCarron said. “After or during that Florida game, I’m sure pretty much most of the country saw Coach rip me for showing too much emotion. And after the LSU game the first time, he told me to play like myself, show emotion… So Coach told me to, you know, show some emotion. Play like myself. And I’m just thankful Coach gave me the opportunity to come out and put the ball in my hands and let me make some plays.”

Each of these four points flowed out of Saban’s overall message about being the best person, player, worker and student. It is the attention to detail and doing the right things that are hallmarks of Saban’s personality. These are also hallmarks of the 2011 BCS National Champion Alabama Crimson Tide.

Conference expansion paid off for the ACC; What looms for the SEC?

2012-05-09T18:28:54Z

The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) raided the Big East in an attempt to improve its position during the conference realignment process. Today, the ACC reaped the benefits of its Machiavellian policy—a new rights deal with ESPN.

Details of the new media deal with ESPN were released by ESPN and the ACC today. Of course, the ESPN press release left off the most important point—the cash. According to a Tweet from John Ourand, “ESPN’s new ACC deal comes out to 15 years for $3.6 billion. That comes out to a whopping $17M per school.”

The ESPN deal includes football, basketball and other sports including Olympic and women’s events. Of course, football and basketball are the most important revenue elements. Clearly, the expansion of basketball games available for television and football games helped sweeten the pot.

“The conference’s planned increase to an 18-game conference men’s basketball schedule and the additions of Pittsburgh and Syracuse will bring an increase of 30 conference men’s basketball games per year and two more conference tournament games,” according to the ESPN release. “In football, 14 more conference-controlled games will be televised each year. Per the extension, ESPN has the right to televise three Friday ACC football contests annually which will include a standing commitment from Boston College and Syracuse to each host one game as well as an afternoon or evening game on Thanksgiving Friday.”

The deal runs through 2026-2027.

What does this mean for the SEC?
This comes on the heels of a Broadcasting & Cable report that CBS was “getting substantial price increases for its Southeastern Conference schedule” for the upcoming football season.

What is driving the demand? Sipmly put, the SEC’s brand dominance.

According to the report, “CBS’ SEC package has a limited number of high-rated games with top-ranked teams and the threat of a potential sellout is pushing agencies to do business now and pay CBS’ price.”

This type of demand following conference expansion and the SEC’s talks with ESPN and CBS should serve as another boost to the SEC’s negotiations. Couple this with the bounty just given to the ACC, the SEC stands to gain substantially thanks to Mike Slive’s expansion with Missouri and Texas A&M

ALABAMA FOOTBALL: The leadership keys to Nick Saban’s success

2012-05-09T15:09:09Z

I love studying leadership. I confess that my favorite book on leadership is Machiavelli’s The Prince, but there are many other great resources on leadership from a moral perspective. One of the best ways to learn about leadership is the many fine blogs that study the topic—some are secular and some are religious. One particular blog post that caught my attention was one from the President and CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources. Thom Rainier outlined “Four Keys to Long-Haul Leadership” based on research into this type of leader. These keys are intended to build successful organizations instead of short-term or “flash-in-the-pan” organizations.

The four keys are like reading a checklist of attributes of many successful executives, generals, presidents, preachers or football coaches.

Rainer’s four keys are Passion, Work Ethic, Persistence and Humility. This provides an excellent framework to evaluate leadership.

These are four characteristics of Alabama football coach Nick Saban. I’m not sure these are all of the roots of Saban’s success, but this is a good place to start because these are important themes to building an organization that can flourish—and Nick Saban knows how to build the organizational structure to flourish. To this list I’d add the ability to enforce accountability, and would likely rename humility since Saban doesn’t seem all that meek—but rather the element of humility that is most descriptive of Saban is the ability to see that he doesn’t have all the answers and utilize the skills of others to get the best answer to a football problem.

Nick Saban’s passion
Saban is passionate about winning. Paul Finebaum described Saban this way: “He is about success and he is about becoming successful anyway under the sun that is legal.”

The genesis of this passion is somewhat more difficult to discover. Saban attributes his primary motivational factor to his family, according to his book, How Good Do You Want To Be? More specifically, Saban says “Terry, Nicholas and Kristen and my mother, Mary” have sacrificed for him and this inspires him “to run a great football program that gives young people a chance to succeed” (p. 34).

However, there would seem to be more at work here. Saban writes about a desire to make a life outside of the coalmines of West Virginia. This combined with the role of Saban’s father in showing the divide between the rewards of success and the price of failure no doubt created a person with an intense passion to succeed. He saw a narrow space between success and failure. With this construct, Saban is able to dedicate himself to winning.

Nick Saban’s work ethic
This dedication to his mission leads to an intense focus on the important tasks. In the foreword to Nick Saban’s book How Good Do You Want To Be?, a man who knows something about running a successful organization, New England Coach Bill Belichick explains this element of Saban’s personality.

“Nick is all about focus –on one thing,” Belichick writes of Saban. “Whether it is the next opponent, the next practice, or the next recruit, he has the ability—at any given time—to devote his absolute attention and energy to solving the problem or challenge at hand before moving to the next one.”

Saban covered much of this work ethic within the pages of his book. One particular area where he discusses work ethic, Saban credits his father for building within him an appreciation for working to a standard of excellence.

“What I learned from my days at the gas station was to do a job right and not settle for anything less than the best. And that it takes hard work to do it the right way,” (Saban, p. 37).

Nick Saban’s persistence
Another Belichick quote about Saban highlights this portion of Saban’s personality.

“Nick uses the word relentless when stressing to his team the necessary approach to the game,” Belichick writes of Saban. “In this profession, nobody demonstrates the meaning of that word as much as Nick.”

But, it goes a step further with the Alabama football coach. Saban does all this and still shows a positive energy for the operation.

“One of the most amazing things about Nick is, as relentless as he is, as detailed as he is, and as much as he controls the pulse of every last aspect of his football program, he never looks or acts tired,” Belichick writes of the Alabama football coach.

Nick Saban’s humility
Saban models this key to leadership in two ways. First, he is able to spot his own personal failings and, second, he finds value in what others have to say about football.

The first sign of humility is how honest Saban can be about his own failings as a leader, husband or parent. In his book, Saban admits to doing a “poor job as a father” following the 2001 SEC Championship season (p. 204). After describing how this could happen, Saban offers this advice, “Recognizing your shortcomings as a husband, wife, son, daughter, father or mother is critical to becoming a better one” (p. 204).

This actually applies beyond the family setting too and is an important element to Saban’s ability to marshal others to deal with football problems. The meetings between Saban and Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops could be seen as proof that Saban listens to other defensive coaches about methods to slow down today’s offenses and in that particular situation to slow down Florida’s Tim Tebow.

Saban’s ability to listen to others and modify his way of doing things is a key to success.

Saban holds people accountable
Not mentioned in the four keys to success, but something that it important to any organization, is the willingness of a leader to hold people accountable.

Saban speaks about accountability often, but this quote from 2010 is illustrative of his philosophy: “Everybody has to be accountable to a standard and the question is ‘What is everyone doing to impact the success, to impact the standard, individually and collectively?’”

If you fail to meet Saban’s standards there are consequences. With Saban, the consequences come sooner rather than later.

“When you see a problem on the horizon, or an already established problem comes to your attention, it is your responsibility to deal with it immediately. Problems only get worse with time; hence the phrase ‘Nip it in the bud’” (Saban, p. 154).

This was something he learned from his childhood. As a child, Saban earned a D grade in school, and his father made him quit sports until his grades improved. To illustrate this lesson, Saban’s dad took him into a West Virginia coalmine to show where Saban could end up if he failed to work harder.

There is little doubt that Alabama football coach Nick Saban is one of the most interesting leaders in college football. He stands atop college football today, and is worth further study to fully appreciate Saban’s leadership philosophy. His book provides important clues, but there is much more to be done to fully understand Saban.

So, what do you think? What are some important traits of Saban’s leadership style that makes him a winner?

SEC FOOTBALL: Alabama coach Nick Saban, LSU coach Les Miles and South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier are top three coaches in the conference

2012-05-08T17:12:21Z

Shae Peppler of TCS talks with Sporting News College Football Writer Steve Greenberg about the best football coaches in the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Watch the video and below are a few quotes from the presentation.

Alabama football coach Nick Saban tops the list of best football coaches in the SEC. “You know it Shae. We know it, the whole world knows it—Nick Saban is number one. He is not just number one in the SEC, he is number one in the country,” Greenberg said. “We are scared of him and that is because he is one bad dude. He runs the best program in the country. He is the most likely to put together one of the truly all-time, greatest careers in college football coaching. He is already most of the way there.”

In second place on Greenberg’s list is LSU football coach Les Miles. Greenberg places Miles on the list and will rank high on the list of all college football coaches. “Nobody is like Miles in the rest of the SEC,” he said.

Third best coach in the SEC is Steve Spurrier, according to the Sporting News’ Greenberg. “Third place is tougher,” Greenberg said. He added a few reasons why Spurrier ranked in this position. “He doesn’t work as hard as Nick Saban, and he doesn’t pretend to either,” Greenberg said. “He may not have what is the most modern approach to building a program, and yet he has recruited very well at South Carolina. Now the Gamecocks are as good on the field as they have ever been…He is a strong number three on our list.”

For another take on the best football coach in the SEC, check out our interview with Paul Finebaum, where Finebaum says Saban has Alabama atop college football.

Hey NFL, I’ll risk a concussion if you’ll give me a shot

2012-05-08T15:14:28Z

Would someone reading this please help me? I’ve got a real problem on my hands and I’m out of answers.

I’ve lost count of the number of days and nights NFL reps have pounded on my door trying to force me to play professional football.

All I simply want to do is follow my dream of living in middle class America, living paycheck to paycheck. I really just want to be locked in to a dead-end job somewhere, hopefully working in a cubicle where I can’t see daylight until I clock out. Or if I’m lucky, I’ll get to spend my days down in a mineshaft.

I just want to do something with my hands for 40 hours a week in hopes that I’m awarded two measly weeks of vacation where it’s all I can do to muster up enough cash to take my family to Panama City, Florida. Or if I get fancy, Gatlinburg.

But no. NFL team owners, coaches and representatives have other ideas. They’re trying to force me to play in the NFL, where my signing bonus alone could retire my current mortgage with one stroke of the pen. They want to put me in the top 1% in world’s economy, where one year’s salary, if managed correctly, with a little discipline, could set my entire family for life.

Sound familiar?

It doesn’t to me either.

But if I hear one more former professional athlete whining about concussions I’m tempted to assemble an army of coal miners and kindergarten teachers to kick his butt.

Last week’s death of Junior Seau has once again opened discussion on the long-term effects of playing professional sports, when the discussion should center on the fact that no one made him enter the arena to begin with.

Don’t get me wrong; Seau’s death is a sad one. Just ask his mother. Suicide is one of the saddest tragedies in this world because it’s one of the most selfish acts a person can perform. You think all your problems go away with one shot, but instead you only transfer all your despair to the innocent feet of the ones who love you…the ones left to pick up the pieces of what you’ve done.

But Seau certainly wasn’t alone. Jim McMahon has made a living crying about the long-term effects of his injuries. The former Chicago Bears quarterback has sought sympathy…and more…over concussions he suffered during his career.

And of course, McMahon isn’t alone. This month more than 100 former NFL players filed a federal lawsuit in Atlanta claiming that pro football didn’t properly protect its players from concussions.

According to the AP, these players are among over 1,000 former players suing the league that greased their palms earlier in life: The same league that made these players’ fortunes possible. Fortunes, mind you, that these gentlemen would’ve never enjoyed coaching high school football. Or selling cars. Or running a lawn service.

If only they weren’t forced to play that evil game.

The fact is, every one of them somewhere in their football journey were faced with this realization:

“Hey, you know what, football is a violent game. I’m using my dome as a missle, and that could be bad. I might want to consider another way of making a living.”

Exactly zero of them were awakened from their beds by the NFL gustapo, forced at gunpoint to don the colors of an NFL franchise. No, exactly all of them did so willingly, cashing every last fat paycheck the league threw their way. And now that their careers are over, they want more.

Every football player from seventh grade on understands that injury is part of the game, having either experienced it themselves or witnessing a teammate go down. It’s why college juniors forego their senior seasons to avoid injury and cash in on their talents while they can.

Now don’t get me wrong, concussions are obviously a real issue. But there’s a reason we no longer have real jousting in this world. It’s because somewhere in history someone said “You know, I really don’t want to risk taking a wooden steak through the chest whilst riding on horseback. I think I’ll do something else.”

And until the game of football reaches a similar fate as jousting, due to the same self-preserving realization among its players, I simply don’t want to hear it.

(Follow me on Twitter for capstonereport.com news, commentary and smack.)

College football erases racial, political divides and thrives despite poor management in some places

2012-05-06T21:27:33Z

Ban football? Sure, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) should end its moneypit of a football program. However, it doesn’t follow that every school’s athletic program is a waste of time, resources or fails to deliver important benefits to the college campus and atmosphere.

However, that is the precise argument used by Buzz Bissinger in a piece for the May 5 edition of The Wall Street Journal. Bissinger writes, “In more than 20 years I’ve spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics. That’s because college football has no academic purpose. Which is why it needs to be banned.”

No academic purpose? Well, colleges have many activities for students with little to do with academics. Colleges small and large hold pizza parties, support special interest clubs, and allow religious or political organizations to function on campus. Oh, and don’t forget the ubiquitous presence of fraternities and sororities on every major university campus in the United States. These extracurricular activities build on the underlying academic function of the college environment.

These could all be distractions. But, so what?

Life is about more than work, and so too is college. Leisure has an important place. Why shouldn’t students and alumni enjoy a leisure activity that unites everyone—regardless of race, class or politics—behind the university? How often do you see people of different political parties cheer together? How often do you see race truly ignored in this country? Yet, at football games, we see all of this. Why get rid of something with such a salutary effect?

Bissinger’s answer is the demands of the global marketplace spurred by the pressures of globalization. He writes, “Football only provides the thickest layer of distraction in an atmosphere in which colleges and universities these days are all about distraction, nursing an obsession with the social well-being of students as opposed to the obsession that they are there for the vital and single purpose of learning as much as they can to compete in the brutal realities of the global economy.”

Last time I checked, American universities are the best in the world. Even Fareed Zakaria in The Post-American World noted that U.S. universities remain the best in the globalized marketplace for turning out Ph.D.s. The world’s brightest students want to study here, and many end up living here because our universities reflect the values of American society.

Zakaria described why American universities are so different from the rest of the world, “While the American system is too lax on rigor and memorization—whether in math or poetry—it is much better at developing the critical faculties of the mind, which is what you need to succeed in life. Other educational systems teach you to take tests; the American system teaches you to think. It is surely this quality that goes some way to explaining why America produces so many entrepreneurs, inventors, and risk takers…It is America, not Japan, that produces the most Noble Prize winners.” (p. 193).

Bissinger’s also advances two additional arguments against college football, which center on the facts that too many programs lose money and that some people cheat.

These same arguments could be made against starting a new business—too many fail—or making students write research papers—it is too easy to buy one off the Internet. However, these reasons are not sufficient to end entrepreneurship or to eliminate research papers since both these efforts produce colossal gains in wealth and learning.

Just because idiots run some football programs, it does not follow that all football programs should be shuttered. Instead, focus on fixing the programs beset with poor planning and faulty funding schemes. Football thrives in the Southeastern Conference because of how proper management and passionate fans.

Bissinger takes issue with donations to athletic programs as a sign of misplaced American priorities. Bizzinger attacks Nike founder Phil Knight for giving money to build a $41.7 million academic center for the Oregon Ducks while the state deals with tuition hikes and budget cuts.

Memo to Bissinger, you give your money where you want and let the rest of America do what it wants with its own money. Phil Knight worked hard to build a business and I’m sure he knows better how to spend it than you or anyone else.

Bissinger’s arguments against football are unpersuasive. His arguments ignore the dynamic American system of higher education—that is the greatest in the world—and assumes that bad management in some places should be punished in every place. What a horrible leap to take.

For another take on Bissinger’s comments check out this post at Bama Hammer.

Q&A: Finebaum on getting fired from radio by an Alabama football coach & getting his ass kicked by Tommy Charles

2012-05-05T22:07:37Z

This is part of our series of interviews with important voices in the college football media. Paul Finebaum is the preeminent media voice in Alabama with a career that has spanned newspapers to talk radio. You can read earlier installments of this series including Finebaum’s thoughts on how reporters misuse Twitter.

In this installment of our Q&A with Finebaum, we find out about his early career, how Alabama football coach Ray Perkins had Finebaum fired from WERC and a memorable feud with radio personality Tommy Charles.

Q: What year did you arrive in Birmingham to work with the Post-Herald?
Finebaum: 1980

Q: What beat was your first?
Finebaum: “Interestingly, I covered Auburn, briefly. I covered Auburn right as Pat Dye was arriving. We had a very strange structure down there. This was before the beat system. What ended up happening was that the two people who mainly covered college football, Bill Lumpkin and myself, ended up covering both beats together. We would rotate. It was really to my benefit. I ended up covering both beats for a couple of years. Then the beat system arrived and I ended up becoming a columnist.”

Q: What year did you begin writing a column?
“I started in August 1983, right after Coach Bryant retired and died.”

Q: When did you start work on sports talk radio?
“I dabbled with it for a couple years doing various things with Mark & Brian. The actual show didn’t start until 1989.”

Q: What radio station? Was it WAPI?
“I started at API. I was there a couple of years. Then in 1993, went to WERC.”

Q: Wasn’t there a conflict with then Alabama football coach Ray Perkins?
“I was just getting going. I had a once a week show. Eli Gold at the time was doing NASCAR every Tuesday night and he needed someone to fill in for him when he was getting ready for the NASCAR show. I did that show for a year, once a week. Then Perkins got me fired.

“That was at ERC believe it or not. I forgot to mention that because it was just a once a week show.

“It was in 1984. The show was on 5-7 (p.m.) in 1984. It preceded his (Perkins’) call-in show. The callers, it just blended into his show. That was the year they had the first losing season in 25 years. He finally told the station, ‘You either dump him or we are moving Alabama football.’

“I don’t think that was a difficult choice.”

“I went from there to API and that is where I started doing Mark & Brian. That eventually led to a show I did on Saturday morning with John Forney, which eventually led to the nighttime show with (Bob) Lochamy”

Q: About that “fight” with Tommy Charles, how did you guys come up with that “hoax” and were you surprised that it made the papers?
Finebaum: “It was a feud that was all imaginary. I actually liked him a lot. I walked in there one day, the general manager was in there and Tommy was in there. It was in the mid-90s. I really don’t know who suggested it first. I think somebody said, ‘Hey, why don’t we let Tommy start the show off and act like we got into it.’

“So, the general manager and I went into the conference room and put it on (the radio). And Tommy, we didn’t really tell him what to say, but you didn’t really need to tell Tommy what to say.

“Tommy said, ‘I have to tell you that Paul won’t be here today. Paul won’t be here for awhile. It is pretty embarrassing. He kind of mouthed off at me in the parking lot, and I shouldn’t have done it and it wasn’t even hardly a punch. I kind of pulled my punch. He went down and wouldn’t get up. Had to call his wife and take him to the hospital.’

“Then about two minutes later, a guy called in and said, ‘I’m at the emergency room.’ And we are sitting there listening to this thinking it is unbelievable. It was War of the Worlds. After about an hour, I said, ‘There is no reason to go in there now.’ So, I went home.

“I’ll never forget this. At 7 o’clock, I got a call from Mike Royer, who said, ‘Paul, I’m really sorry about you getting punched out.’ I said, ‘Well Mike, I really didn’t.’ He said, ‘I’m sorry about that, but I need to get a comment.’ I said, ‘I can’t.’

“The the paper picked it up, and the newspaper editor in there gave a statement that basically said, ‘If you read something in the newspaper it is legitimate.’

“It became one of those deals that I could never outlive. At Tommy’s funeral, the minister said, ‘In visiting with Tommy’s kids, he would have to say that one of Tommy’s proudest moments was kicking Paul Finebaum’s ass.’ I had people who would come up to me for months and say they were really sorry about that.”

This is the final installment in our Q&A with Finebaum. In previous installments we covered the state of Alabama football among other topics.

Q&A: Finebaum says Alabama stands alone in college football, Auburn better off today than under Tuberville

2012-05-05T22:03:20Z

Paul Finebaum answered a few questions about the state of football programs at the University of Alabama, Auburn University, the Louisiana State University, the University of Florida and the University of Tennessee. Finebaum believes Alabama stands alone in college football, that Auburn is better off under Coach Gene Chizik than it was during the final days of Tommy Tuberville, that LSU remains an important program under Les Miles, that Florida is “going nowhere” under Will Muschamp and that Tennessee football is a “train wreck.”

Here is the Q&A with Finebaum about the state of these SEC football programs relative to where they were four years ago.

Q: Is Alabama football better off today than four years ago?
Finebaum: “Yes, and maybe better off than it has ever been. That is a sacrilegious statement to make, and I only covered Coach Bryant’s last two years, but I really don’t know if Alabama has ever been more important in football.

“I may read this in a couple of days or weeks and wonder why I said what I just got through saying. Even Alabama in the mid-60s had other peers. I think Notre Dame was on the same level, Penn State, Texas and depending on the year, maybe Oklahoma. Alabama always had major competitors.

“I think, right now, Alabama is really standing alone in college football. If you say what is the most important program it is Alabama. If you say who is the most important coach it is Nick Saban. It is not like there is a debate. Even back then, as great as Coach Bryant was and I make no bones he was the greatest coach in college football history, but there were other people in the conversation, Ara Parseghian in the 60s, Bob Devaney, at other points Joe Paterno. Is there anyone else in the conversation right now? The answer is no.”

Q: Is Auburn football better off today than four years ago?
Finebaum: “I’d say Auburn is in better shape. Auburn four years ago was hemorrhaging. It had a paper tiger as a leader; it had someone who had checked out three or four years earlier. I think (Gene) Chizik is respected by a lot of people. There is reason to debate whether he will be overly successful, but I don’t think there is any debating the program is in better shape today than it was under Tuberville.”

Q: What about the some other SEC teams is LSU football better off today than four years ago?
Finebaum: “I think so, but I don’t think that is an easy answer to make. I think four years ago, they were in a transitional stage coming off a national championship and you really didn’t know where they were going. I think LSU is still a very prominent program under Les Miles as hard as it may be to believe. I think they are better off, yes.”

Q: Is Florida football better off today than four years ago?
Finebaum: “No, Florida is woefully worse off. Four years ago, Urban Meyer pretty much had the most important program in the country going, and now I don’t think Florida is going anywhere under Will Muschamp.”

Q: What about Tennessee?
Finebaum: “Tennessee is a train wreck. I hear from various people at Tennessee all the time, and I don’t think anyone believes Derek Dooley has a clue and I don’t think anyone believes Derek Dooley will be there in a year.”

This is part of our Q&A series with Paul Finebaum. You can read other installments including Finebaum’s thoughts on the decline of reporting and how many reporters get their leads from message boards like Tider Insider.

Over 70 University of Alabama Student-Athletes Set to Graduate

2012-05-04T00:32:34Z

(courtesy UA Media Relations) The Crimson Tide is slated to graduate seven student-athletes that have been a part of two national championships during their careers and more than 70 overall

When the University of Alabama holds its spring commencement ceremonies in Coleman Coliseum over the weekend, more than 70 Crimson Tide student-athletes are slated to earn their degrees.

At least one member from 19 of Alabama’s varsity sports will be among those eligible to take part in the spring commencement.

The Tide will graduate seven athletes that have been a part of two national championships during their UA careers. All-American Courtney Upshaw, Carson Tinker, Damion Square, DeMarcus DuBose, William Ming and Michael Williams were part of two BCS national football championships during their time at Alabama. All-American gymnast Rachel Terry, a two-time recipient of the NCAA Elite 89 Award, was a member of the back-to-back national championship teams during her UA tenure.

The softball team graduates All-Americans Whitney Larsen and Kelsi Dunne and All-Region honoree Cassie Reilly-Boccia, while All-SEC selection Justine Bernier is among the soccer team’s graduates.

All-American golfer and NCAA Elite 88 Award winner Brooke Pancake will receive her degree this weekend along with fellow All-Americans Taylor Dugas (baseball), Adam Booher (swimming and diving), and Krystle Schade (track and field).

NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship winner and two-year president of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee Kyle Weeks (swimming and diving) is also among the graduation participants. The cross country duo of Leigh Gilmore and Nathan Corder, who also earned NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships, is set to graduate this weekend. Corder also earned the NCAA Elite 88 Award during his Tide career.

All-SEC basketball stars Ericka Russell and JaMychal Green are scheduled to graduate this weekend as are rowing co-captains Tabitha Coleman and Kristen Iverson and volleyball captain Stephanie Riley.

Two-time SEC Women’s Tennis Scholar-Athlete of the Year Courtney McLane, who earned her undergraduate degree in management in just three years, earned a Master’s degree in marketing in her final year of eligibility.

Three commencement ceremonies will be held in Coleman Coliseum over the weekend. The first will be Friday evening at 6:00 p.m., the second on Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. and the third Saturday afternoon at 1:30 p.m.

Q&A: Paul Finebaum on the decline of reporting & today’s media environment

2012-05-03T18:03:50Z

Alabama’s most influential media voice is Paul Finebaum. His radio show dominates the sports conversation in this state, and Finebaum is uniquely positioned to talk about today’s media. Finebaum worked in newspapers as a beat reporter, investigative reporter and columnist; last year he penned a column for Sports Illustrated on college football. This gives Finebaum an important perspective on journalism.

In this Q&A, Finebaum talks about the decline of the newspaper, the rise of talk radio, the decline of quality reporting and the factors shaping today’s media environment. This is part of our series of interviews with important voices in college football. You can read earlier posts from our Finebaum interview including Finebaum’s Daily Must Reads and Finebaum’s thoughts on race and football in Alabama.

Q: Has the closure of the Post-Herald lowered the quality of journalism in Birmingham?
Finebaum: “I’ll give you a cliché that you’ll get from any journalism school in the country—competition does help. I don’t think competition is the issue any longer in Birmingham. The Post-Herald’s influence was gone five or six years before the newspaper folded. I don’t think it affected the (Birmingham) News very much.

“I think the Birmingham News is more fighting itself than it is the industry. I think they have moved very slow and are later to the party like so many other mainstay media institutions. Now they are trying to smother people with what they can do digitally. Unfortunately, they are just another fish in that big blue sea.”

Q: How are newspapers different today compared to when you first arrived in Birmingham?
Finebaum: “If you go back 30 years, newspapers set the agenda. In every newsroom in the state, whether radio or television, they got the morning newspaper which was the Post-Herald and it influenced coverage, but that changed over the years.

“I spoke to a group a year ago of about 70 or 80 young, under 35…and I asked these 70 or 80 people, ‘How many of you read the Birmingham News every morning?’ and I think one person raised their hand. What has happened is not only do a miniscule amount of people read the morning paper, but very few people want to admit to reading it.

“I don’t know how to explain that, but every time I talk about it I get letters from publishers talking about how relevant the newspaper is. It is just easier to say the newspaper business has become tired and insignificant, and it has become that. I don’t know if you can blame the Birmingham News or the industry in general. I really think it is more indicative of the industry. I think the News did a phenomenal job during the tornado. I really do. I know the Tuscaloosa News won the Pulitzer, but I think the Birmingham News was exceptional.

Q: Do you notice a difference in the quality of reporting on the sports page versus the news and political sections?
Finebaum: “I don’t know. I don’t read the paper that closely and I’m not longer really in the industry. I do find the overall reporting in the sports world to be very poor. I still think newspapers do good things. There is good enterprise.

“I used to be an investigative reporter. To be an investigative reporter, you have to have time. You cannot be on a deadline. You don’t have time to blog. You don’t have time to tweet. You don’t have time to show up at meetings. It is like being a homicide detective; you just go and don’t come back until you get the story. I had an editor tell me that once. He literally looked at me and he was a gruff old guy and said in much harsher language, ‘Don’t come back until you get it.’

“I don’t know if you can do that anymore because number one, you are understaffed and secondly there is the pressure to put stuff out. I spend a lot of time reading Twitter, I read tweets from various people in the industry, and it looks like they have a quota to put out ten tweets an hour about nonsense. You can’t do that if you are out there reporting and now as you well know, people are getting the information and tweeting it immediately and saying I’ll have a story in an hour.

“I’m dating myself, but I didn’t even tell people at the newspaper what I was working on back then because it was too important and too sensitive let alone tweet it.”

Q: Do you think talk radio helped or hurt reporting?
Finebaum: “It clearly affected it. I don’t think it helped it very much. What happened in talk radio is that everyone became a reporter. This was the precursor to where we are today. In the late 80s and early 90s you could get people who became fairly well known who would call up and say they know something and say they have a friend of a friend. They went from calling in to a radio show to gravitating to blogs. Then you would get a guy on say Tider Insider that has a reputation that would say, ‘I understand Alabama or Auburn is going to be investigated.’”

“That affected reporting because reporters would read the same thing. Don’t let them tell you they didn’t. They do. It is to the point now that I think reporters get most of their information from blogs and twitter. They get their leads. I’m not sure they get their stories, but they are constantly following whatever people are telling them.

“There came a point when the newspaper business went into freefall, jobs started getting cut, the one thing a reporter couldn’t afford is to get in trouble with their bosses. When I was a reporter, early in my career, I had the full support of my bosses. There were lawsuits filed. We had a trial. You have to have the full and undivided support. I had coaches try to get me fired. I had coaches call trying to get me off beats.

“Now days, theoretically, if you are the Auburn beat reporter or Alabama beat reporter at any newspaper in the state, and you tick someone off and your editor or publisher gets a call, your job could be on the line. Where 25 or 30 years ago, the editor or publisher might support you, now they can’t afford to.

“I’m getting to the trickledown effect of all this and I think this is why reporting is so bad. When I was a newspaper reporter, my goal was to win the Pulitzer. Now your goal is to keep your job or get a better job. How are you going to get a better job if you either tick off the people who matter or you tick off the fan base that supports you? The next thing you know on various sites whether it is yours or someone else’s, they are saying, ‘This guy hates Alabama. He is out to get Alabama.’ That is going to affect your job. All this stuff circles back. You are not going to see very good reporting, you are not going to see anyone challenged and you are going to get what we have had in this state, which is pretty average reporting.”

Q: How can fans know whom to trust?
Finebaum: “It is difficult. It is a very difficult thing because if they don’t think you like their team, then you are going to get in trouble. I think fans are pretty savvy. I think fans pick up on it, and programs pick up on it. You have guys who cover both beats who are credible, and then you have guys who cover both beats who are complete jokes.

Q: Today we have the NFL Network, the Big Ten Network, and talk the SEC could launch its own network—the SEC already has its own digital network with a website that employees several professional journalists to write for it. How do you think this has changed journalism? Is it a good or bad thing to have journalists working for the entities they supposedly cover?

Finebaum: “It is a bad thing because what you are getting now is pretty much bought and paid for news media. It is a bad thing, but it is also the way it is. I’m in shock every time I see someone who I respect as a journalist end up writing for one of these entities. It is the times. You had a to guy at Sports Illustrated leave recently who went to work for MLB or something. There is more money to be made and that is where the action is.

“Here is the deal. Fans don’t care. I can’t say I’m an expert on MLB.com, NBA.com or NFL.com, because I know what it is, so I stay away from it. But what fans are looking for is information. What made Fox News so dominant? People felt comfortable watching it. What makes various radio programs comfortable?

Q: does this make ESPN, NY TIMES, CBS SPORTS more important?
Finebaum: “Yes. There is no more influential medium in sports in this country. It is the biggest brand name. It carries the biggest weight. It carries the most clout. If something is on ESPN, whether the dot com or any of the platforms, it is going to be seen and heard by so many different people. When was the last time you walked into a restaurant and ESPN wasn’t on one of the televisions at the bar?

“I know Yahoo has done well, but I dare say that ESPN.com is the most powerful medium right now.”

Tomorrow, we’ll post more of our interview with Finebaum with a focus on the state of Alabama and Auburn football and along with a few thoughts on a few other SEC powers.

Finebaum believes race lingers as issue in Alabama, but Alabama and Auburn football have made progress; Cam Newton a symbol of progress

2012-05-02T18:19:20Z

Paul Finebaum answered several questions about his radio show, football and today’s media during an interview with the Capstone Report. This is part of our series on the important voices in college football. We’ve already posted the first segment of our interview with Finebaum on the state of today’s media, and we’ll have more on that topic tomorrow. Here is what Finebaum had to say about race.

Q: One regular feature of your show is that callers have a forum to express their views. You make an effort to allow every opinion on the air. Race comes up very often within the context of Alabama politics and sports. Two questions arise from this. First, Why do you think it comes up so often. Second, What do you think your show contributes to the dialogue on race in Alabama?

Paul Finebaum: “I think race is the deep, dark secret that nobody wants to act like it is still going on, but it is still there and when it comes up it comes up with vengeance. It came up the other day talking about (former Alabama quarterback) Phillip Sims, and it came up a couple of weeks ago.

“I do respect when an athlete calls in and says, ‘I played twenty-five years ago and I was told I couldn’t be a quarterback at this school or that school.’ I have to respect that and believe he knows what he is talking about.

“And then you get the predictable, well, ‘Why don’t we have a Miss White Alabama?’ It is always predictable, and you know where it is going. You rarely get a surprise in it, but it lets you know it is still there,” Finebaum said.

“I love people who say, ‘It is all in the past and we all need to come together and we are friends and we have a black president ,’ but I just kind of laugh because it still exists and it still exists in Birmingham and it still exists everywhere else.”

“One of the most hostile environments I’ve ever had was four years ago this weekend believe it or not at Columbia University. Our show won an award involving race, and I was invited to give a presentation at the bastion of journalism in this country. In that room were leaders from the New York Times and the Washington Post, The Boston Globe and the people you would think would be the most understanding and liberal and forgiving people in America, and when they introduced me from Birmingham, Alabama, the hostility went up.

“I anticipated it. I started off telling a story about having racist thoughts during a phone call in the post-Don Imus-Rutgers controversy. I could see that room. They were gritting their teeth. They were holding their palms, and they were hating me. My story was about enduring all this and engaging all this and how I think even in Alabama we have honest dialogues. The room finally turned, but I don’t even know how to describe what I felt other than there was a bias against me because of where I was from. The immediate thought was, ‘Who is this rube, hillbilly, redneck, racist from Alabama?’ If it happens at Columbia, it can happen at a lot of other places.

“Not to sound like many other southerners, but I think it is better here than it is other places.”

Q: Do you think racism is better at Alabama and Auburn, or does it remain a systemic problem?

Finebaum: “I think you will always have some systemic problems. But, yes, things are significantly better than they have ever been. Sometimes I think that depends on who is in charge and the events that happen around a program. People believe what they want to believe and they see what they want to see.

“The one thing I will say in terms of Alabama with Nick Saban, whatever happened before him, no one believes he looks at it the same way because we know what he is about. He is about success and he is about becoming successful anyway under the sun that is legal.

“I think Auburn has had the same number of issues as Alabama, but Cam Newton, like him or not, was a symbol that helped bring some of those walls down as Jason Campbell was , as Reggie Slack and others.

“Your history does indicate who you are to a point, but also your leaders indicate it more.”

Tomorrow we’ll post more of our interview with Finebaum. You’ll see what Finebaum has to say about the state of journalism in America. Finebaum has an important view of journalism since he worked as a reporter covering a beat in a newspaper, was an investigative journalist, columnist and radio talk show host of the Paul Finebaum Radio Network. This is part of our series of interviews with important journalists who cover college football. Our first interview was with the TCS College Football Insider and Chicago Tribune journalist Teddy Greenstein.

Who are Paul Finebaum’s daily must-reads and what does this say about the state of the media?

2012-05-02T17:21:50Z

Paul Finebaum of the Paul Finebaum Radio Network shared his thoughts on today’s media, race in the state of Alabama and within Alabama and Auburn’s football programs, and the state of some of the SEC’s major football programs in a wide-ranging interview with the Capstone Report. This is part of our series on the major voices in college football. Check out our earlier interview with the TCS College Football Insider and Chicago Tribune journalist Teddy Greenstein.

Here is what Finebaum had to say about his daily must-reads. This like so many other things Alabama’s most important media voice said could surprise you:

Q: Who are some of your daily must-reads?
Finebaum: “What is amazing is how few there are. It is such an evolution. When I started, there were people I had to read every day or every week—they were columnists, there were newspapers—and today there are so few people that I pay attention to.

“I look to see what a Dan Wetzel or Bruce Feldman write partly because I respect them and partly because they are friends of mine,” Finebaum said. “I’ll pay attention to what Tim Brando says or Pete Thamel of the New York Times or Cecil Hurt covering Alabama football or people like that.

“Amazingly, I pay very little attention to people like I used to because the medium is so different and the landscape has changed so dramatically. I think I pay more attention today to what callers to the show say than I do to influence makers in the industry.”

Check back later today for what Finebaum has to say about his show as a forum for racial dialogue in Alabama, how race lingers in the state, and the state of race in regards to Alabama football and Auburn football.

Tomorrow (Thursday) we’ll post what Finebaum said about the state of today’s media, the affect of conference-owned networks on journalism, and the role of talk radio and the Internet on the shifting media landscape.

On Friday, we’ll post what Finebaum had to say about the state of some of the major SEC football programs.

On Saturday, we’ll post some of Finebaum’s recollections of his early career in talk radio including how Alabama football coach Ray Perkins got Finebaum fired and a famous “fight” that wasn’t a fight with Birmingham talk show host Tommy Charles, better known as “T.C.” of the T.C. and John Ed Show.

Mal Moore comments on death of Billy Neighbors

2012-05-01T04:05:52Z

STATEMENT FROM ALABAMA DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS MAL MOORE ON THE PASSING OF BILLY NEIGHBORS

“Hearing the news of the passing of Billy Neighbors is very difficult,” Alabama athletic director Mal Moore said. “Billy meant so much to Alabama football over the decades. He was one of our first great players under Coach Bryant, and he had become a tremendous friend to me and everyone in the Alabama family. Billy was easy to like. It was always easy to talk with Billy. We spoke three or four times a week for as far back as I can remember. I have lost a great friend and Alabama certainly lost a legend. It’s just a tremendous loss.”

Bama lands eight in the NFL draft, and Saban’s process keeps moving along

2012-04-30T16:15:27Z

Nick Saban has made a statement.

And no, I’m not talking about winning championships: Unlike some flash-in-the-pan schools, it’s become a given that the University of Alabama will be in the championship conversation year after year.

The statement Nick Saban is making loud and clear is this:

“Elite prospect…come to Alabama and with a little tutilege, you’re going to the NFL. Or, go elsewhere and wither away.”

You listening Bobby Massie? The big lineman from Ole Miss had an offer to play for Saban, but instead took the easy street to Oxford. So instead of the highly touted lineman sporting two natty rings and working to become a top pick, Massie spent his college years being a punching bag for the big boys and settling in somewhere in the middle of the 4th round.

Good choice, Bobby.

Nick Saban looks prospects in the eye, with complete integrity, and promises them that if they do what they’re supposed to do, not only can they go to the NFL in the first round…setting themselves for life…they can do so with their degree in-hand.

This year Nick Saban sent an Alabama school record eight players in the NFL draft. Now before you pass over that thought, think about that for a moment:

This is Alabama we’re talking about. Fourteen national championships, and complete dominance over the landscape of college football (sorry Auburn fans, though this will come as a shock to you, football existed before 1982). In the history of one of the most storied programs, if not THE most storied program, in all of college football, the most Alabama had ever sent to the draft at one time was seven (in 1987).

Remember too, it was just five drafts ago when Bama sent no one. None. Zilch. Nattah. It was the 2008 draft, the one following the 2007 season. Remember that year? It was the defining moment of football under Nick Saban at the Capstone. Many think that if the team hadn’t turned and bought in to what he was selling in 2008, Coach Nick Saban would be wearing a different logo on his shirt today.

Instead, they did buy in, and in the four years that have followed, Bama has planted eleven players in the first round. To put that in perspective, Auburn has only managed eight in the last thirteen years (going back to 2000), and that includes four in 2005.

Long story short, Nick Saban has turned Bama into a football machine…a football machine that’s second only to Stanford in the graduation rate of its football athletes.

Any wonder now why top talent like T.J. Yeldon gives Auburn the finger to come to ‘Bama? Any question why Landon Collins stepped over his mother’s LSU Tigers to step up to the call in T-Town?

Here’s the biggest selling point any recruit needs to think about when it comes to their choice of where to spend their college football eligibility:

Just don’t miss this…these aren’t normal days at the Capstone. What’s taking place before our eyes is the kind of thing my father used to tell me about. Stories of Bama lore in the 1960s and 70s have a new cousin. Bama football in the Saban years.

And for those who hate the Tide, I’ve got bad news for you: It ain’t changing ANY time soon.

Nick Saban is happy in Tuscaloosa, will end his career there, and his process is a 40 ton Mack Truck barrelling downhill with no intentions of touching the breaks.

Oh, and teams like Tennessee, Auburn, Georgia, LSU, Florida and the teams people talk about from other conferences are in that process’ path.

There’s a reason Bama sent more players to the NFL this year than any other SEC school. And there’s a reason Auburn matched UNA and Samford’s total number (1). It’s because Auburn is on their level, in a completely different stratosphere from the likes of Nick Saban. And no pseudo commitment to becoming “NFL-like” changes the fact that Auburn is nothing more than a division II school playing dress up,

And the University of Alabama, led by one Nick Saban, is once again the Crimson Tide.

(Follow me on Twitter for capstonereport.com news, commentary and smack.)