There’s only one thing to say on the day that Alabama football coach Nick Saban announces his retirement, and that’s thank you.

To the greatest college football coach of all time, thank you for the years and for the historic run. Saban is walking away at 72 years old and after 51 seasons on the sidelines as either a graduate assistant, assistant coach or head coach. His seven national championships as a head coach at the collegiate level stand as the all-time record, and his six national titles at Alabama tie him with legendary Alabama coach Paul Bryant.

Bryant built the kingdom and Saban the empire. Above all, their greatest legacies are how they shaped the lives of the young men they coached. No one ever did it better than the two who transformed Alabama football into a national treasure.

To Miss Terry Saban for always keeping Coach at his best, thank you.

To all the hard-working people at the University of Alabama who helped the Sabans resurrect the majesty and mystic of Alabama football and then kept the Crimson Tide atop the crest of college football for the majority of a generation, thank you.

Never forget that it was the late Alabama athletics director Mal Moore who brought Saban to Alabama. Always know that it was a life-long passion for Alabama football by fans and boosters who made it happen. Remember forever all of the amazing players who put in the work day after day.

Born in a small mining town in West Virginia, the 72-year-old Saban willed himself to greatness with a rugged blue-collar mentality and by the grace of a strong family. He will go down as America’s coach, and it was the privilege of a lifetime as a writer to chronicle his success at Alabama. A devout Catholic, Saban’s faith centered his life as a celebrity. The Saban family’s many charitable works will long outlast a coach’s influence on a game.

That doesn’t diminish Saban’s impact on the sport that defined his life, though. It only goes to show what the Sabans valued most of all.

In the modern era of college football, no one ever changed the game of college football on a national level quite like Saban. Historically, Knute Rockne, who built Notre Dame into a national power, would be a fair comparison. Hall of Fame coach Paul Bryant turned Alabama football into a national symbol of excellence, and then Saban transformed it into a colossal industry that propelled the University of Alabama to an economic engine for the state.

When Saban was hired in 2007, Alabama’s enrollment was 25,580. In 2022, it was 38,645.

Saban was the highest paid coach in college football, but he was always worth at least twice his salary for the University of Alabama. It was more than money for Saban, though. He took a pay cut to leave the Miami Dolphins and return to the college ranks. Saban could have toiled away in the pros, but his true calling was molding boys into men. Few did it as good and perhaps no one did it better.

Saban was a player’s coach, and his greatest gift was his skill as a communicator. Like all great coaches, Saban preached excellence. To achieve that lofty goal, no one explained how to get there with a clearer message tailor made for this modern age. Come to Alabama and create value for yourself. The proof was in the picks.

Saban’s Alabama had 44 players selected in the first round of the NFL Draft between 2009 and 2023. The 2024 NFL Draft will add a few more to the list. It’s a record that may never be broken.

Saban’s “process” was the marketing tool created by the university to sell his success, and Saban’s exacting organizational techniques and innovations allowed his staffers to maximize their time improving the players, but Saban’s superhero-like talent that set him apart from the competition was his ability as a recruiter. The game never saw a better salesman, and in the Southeastern Conference recruiting is what pays the bills, keeps people employed and allows for the possibility of championships.

The man had COVID-19 at 70 years old during the week of the Iron Bowl in 2020, but spent that time calling recruits around the clock. What a legend. What an absolute savage. Five-star generals want to grow up to be like Nick Saban and then pay for their kids to be walk-ons on his team.

Saban stood for integrity, class and toughness. He didn’t just win games, the game of college football morphed and mutated again and again to account for Saban’s overwhelming, ungovernable, masterful (and sometimes sneaky) dominance. Nothing could stop him. Not changing the rules. Not conference expansion. Not paying players. Not expanding the playoff. Nothing. When Saban came into the SEC, Florida coach Urban Meyer faked an illness and retired. Saban was peerless in the game until his top lieutenant, Kirby Smart, came of age and created the Saban way at Georgia.

Smart might have won back-to-back national titles, but he never got the best of Saban’s Alabama in an SEC championship game. People will surely disagree, but the 2018 SEC championship game was the single greatest demonstration of Saban’s collective ability as a coach and leader. Future first-round NFL quarterback Tua Tagovailoa went out with an ankle injury, but backup quarterback Jalen Hurts, a future second-round pick in the NFL Draft, was there to save the day. It wasn’t just that Alabama had two of the NFL’s current top quarterbacks on the same roster, it’s that Saban somehow kept Hurts at Alabama that season after benching him in the second half of the previous national championship game.

Saban’s preparation for games bordered on maniacal. He thought of everything. How specific were his pregame reports? As I chronicled in my book “We Want Bama,” Saban had Alabama’s famed weatherman, James Spann, deliver minute-to-minute weather predictions directly to the staff if the chance of bad weather was in the forecast.

Spann once told me that Saban screamed at him because he didn’t specify the amount of possible rain for a practice down to the fraction of an inch. No doubt Spann’s famous sleeves were hiked up that day.

Saban’s game prep informed his in-game decisions. I’m sure Saban would love to have a couple calls back throughout his career, but he was usually spot on and at his best when the lights were brightest. Replacing Hurts with Tagovailoa against Georgia in the 2017 season’s national title game will go down as Saban’s greatest call, but the onside kick against Clemson in the 2015 season’s final game was a close second. Saban finished his career with an all-time record seven national championships, including six at Alabama, but those numbers don’t really explain Saban’s reign.

Since 2008, Saban only coached six regular-season games where national title or playoff implications weren’t on the table. Three were at the end of the 2010 season and three were at the end of the 2022 season. Not counting 2007, those scratches on the Ferrari represent the “down years.” From 2008 to 2023, Alabama was either in the SEC championship game, BCS championship game or the College Football Playoff in 12 of the 16 seasons.

A fanbase never had more to cheer about, and, really, isn’t that the whole point of the exercise?

Alongside Saban through it all was Miss Terry, who was the secret ingredient of Saban’s winning formula. Terry Saban deserves just as much credit for Saban’s career as Coach himself, and maybe even more. Behind the scenes, Miss Terry was a powerful, magnetic force that kept Alabama moving forward in the direction of stately brilliance. She was every bit as detail oriented as Saban, and some would say more demanding.

The Sabans’ partnership delivered pride for the fans of Alabama, and respect from everyone else. Their love for each other showed in everything they did.

There will always be great coaches, and Alabama football will endure thanks to its dedicated fans. There will never be another combination like the pursuit of national championships at the University of Alabama, and the power of Coach Saban to match those outsized expectations.

In the name of history, and in the simple words of appreciation, thank you.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of the most controversial sports book ever written, “We Want Bama”. It’s a love story about wild times, togetherness and rum.