Perfect fit to be with Tide? Saban can slog through the insanity

Dodd from SEC media days

HOOVER, Ala. -- Cedric Burns knows Alabama coaches. Bear Bryant hired him 27 years ago as athletic relations coordinator. From Perkins to Shula, the humble Guy Friday has quietly observed the ebb and flow of the Tide over the years.

Until now. Today's the day he is about to blow the lid off of college football with an incredible revelation.

Nick Saban is called a 'very passionate and compassionate person.' You heard it right, Dolphins fans. (AP)

Sitting over a modest biscuit and hash brown breakfast Thursday morning at the Alabama football complex, Burns gushed.

"He is one of the most well-mannered people," Burns said. "You can tell he was raised well by his father and mother. He just fits this place."

The subject of Cedric's praise pulls up shortly before 7 a.m., an untied tie draped around his neck. He enters the building. No one cringes. Paint doesn't peel. After a quick stop at his office, Nick Saban turns to Burns, his driver today, and a notebook-toting passenger and says, "You ready?"

Whoa, whoa, whoa. This can't be right. Well mannered? The man who "lied" about taking the job at Alabama, has a soul? The bully who made a player cry on the practice field at Miami is just "a country boy who grew up in West Virginia and pumped gas" from the time he was 10 years old?

Nick Saban fits this place?

Let's go slow and admit Nick Saban can at least compartmentalize this place. It doesn't run his life, which is a good place to start in Tuscaloosa.

He runs it, to the minute and on his terms.

"I have two gray suits and two gray sport coats," Saban said, leaning into the backseat of his Mercedes on the way to the SEC media days 75 minutes away in the Birmingham suburbs. "That's about all I have that goes with the Alabama colors. I try to wear Alabama colors to satisfy the fans. I get an e-mail the other day from a guy who's a big Auburn fan: 'They're laughing at you because you wear the same suit all the time.'

"How can I please everyone?"

He can't, the realization of which is half the battle for any Alabama coach. The cloying adoration of the program that sh-- on Shula, freaked out Fran and Bible-thumped Mike Price out of town has found a man of steel it can't crack.