Nick Saban gave a passionate speech, which will probably win him even more recruits than he already gets every year. A reporter asked Saban how he felt about DJ Petteway’s second chance that Bama gave and how it panned on for the team. It became more than just about Petteway’s contribution on the field, however. Saban became very passionate as he explained what the second chance has meant for DJ Petteway and why giving second chances are important to these kids’ lives.
“It’s really, really good for me and I think for some of our administrators around here who, our President, who shakes hands with all of our players when they walk across the stage and graduate, when we give somebody a second chance and they do well and graduate from school.”
“There’s always a lot of criticism out there when somebody does something wrong, everybody wants to know how you’re going to punish the guy. There’s not enough for 19 and 20-year-old kids, people out there saying, ‘Why don’t you give them another chance?'”
“So I’m going to give a speech right now about this,” he said.
“Where do you want them to be? Guy makes a mistake. Where do you want them to be? You want him to be in the street or do you want them to be here graduating?”
Saban makes a reference to Muhsin Muhammad, who played for him at Michigan State.
“Everybody in the school, every newspaper guy, everybody was killing a guy because he got in trouble and they said there’s no way he should be on our team,” Saban said. “I didn’t kick him off the team. I suspended him. I made him do some stuff.”
Saban pointed out that Muhammad went on to graduate from Michigan State and play in the NFL for 15 years. He added that Muhammad is now the president of a company, and one of his seven children attend Princeton University.
“So who was right? I feel strong about this now, really strong, about all the criticism out there of every guy that’s 19 years old that makes a mistake and you all kill them,” Saban said.
“Some people won’t stand up for him. My question to you is, ‘Where do you want him to be?’ You want to condemn him to a life sentence? Or do you want the guy to have his children going to Princeton?”
Saban’s speech seemed to be more than just about college athletes getting second chances. You just got the feeling that he was talking about kids in general just being put through the system the minute they made a mistake, as opposed to getting that second chance to make better decisions.
[h/t AL.com]