More from Saban

HOOVER, Ala. — Just gave up my Nick Saban vigil in the lobby of the Wynfrey Hotel.
The few dozen people who were there early this morning swelled to a couple hundred.
I met a nice fellow from Phenix City who was playing hooky from work today in an effort to get Saban's autograph on an Alabama mini-helmet. I'll withhold his name to keep his boss from dropping the hammer on him, but my conversation with him and another with former Alabama star Jeremiah Castille helped explain why so many fans are so ga-ga over Saban.
Simply put, Saban arrives more credibility than did Mike DuBose, Dennis Franchione, Mike Price and Mike Shula. He won the Bowl Championship Series title at LSU and, despite being in over his head in the NFL (hey, so was Steve Spurrier), his approach seems to be in harmony with the challenges of the college game.
After Saban's press conference this morning, my impression of the guy changed somewhat. Sure, he's an autocrat and can be unnecessarily brusque at times. But he also revealed more about himself than he probably wanted to on Thursday. He's an interesting guy (Did you know he pumped gas for $1 an hour as a youth in West Virginia?) and he allows a sense of humor to surface every so often.
Perhaps the most surprising answer of the day came in response to the following question:
What do you think the biggest misconception is about Nick Saban?
We've all heard stories about how he's yelled at secretaries and various athletic department underlings. The players heard all sorts of horror stories before he arrived, some of them so sensational that you'd have thought Saban was a modern day Vlad the Impaler.
‘‘I don’t know,’’ Saban said. ‘‘That's one you should ask my wife. She says I have a huge blind spot. What you think you are compared to how you're perceived to be. She said mine's as wide as the Grand Canyon.
‘‘I think probably the biggest misconception about me is I've never adapted very well to the position I'm in. I'm a country boy who grew up in West Virginia and pumped gas from the time he was 10 years old until he graduated from high school. Made a dollar an hour providing service to other people, cleaning windows, checking oil and changing tires.
‘‘To me I'm still that way, but maybe sometimes I don't realize that sometimes the things I say mean a lot more than what I would intend them to be. Sometimes, because I’m a little bit shy, maybe that's misinterpreted as not being very outgoing. But I try my best and I'm getting better and I'm trying to improve every day.’’
Hopefully he will continue to let his guard down every so often in the future.