Where success is concerned, Alabama does it

by the book

Anthony Bratina / Tuscaloosa News

By Tommy Deas Executive Sports Editor
Published: Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 12:03 a.m.

TUSCALOOSA | Shortly after he settled in as head football coach at the University of Alabama
in the early days of 2007, Nick Saban issued a 148-page book to every player.

Blueprint of a Championship
Click the links below for the other two parts in series.

Related Links:
 Winning is not just physical
 Five values create cornerstone of Tide's success

The cover stated Saban's vision for the kind of program he wanted to build:

“To hunt,

“To stalk,

“To intimidate,

“To have a killer instinct,

“To create a nightmare,

“For this is the way of the Crimson Tide.”

Linebacker Cory Reamer, who had just finished his second season as a redshirt freshman under
Saban's predecessor, Mike Shula, thumbed through those pages and was overwhelmed.

“Just wow,” he said, recalling his first impression. “You're pretty wowed by it when you first see
it and you flip through it.”

There was a lot to digest.

“The amount of detail they put into their program and the amount of detail that's in each little
thing — it goes down to sleeping habits, it goes down to eating right, not just working out and
doing your playbook,” Reamer said. “It's got everything you could ever dream of that you could
go through. It tells you every little detail you need to know.”

Since that time, every Alabama player has received a new book at the start of each year detailing
the next phase of Saban's program to remake Alabama football in his image. By last January, the
start of the offseason program leading into the 2009 season, the book had grown to nearly 200
pages. Those pages contained the blueprint used to build the Crimson Tide's national
championship team.

Required reading

The overview of the first manual issued to Saban's players made clear just how critical the
information contained would be to the program's foundation:

“The most important thing for you to do is read it from cover to cover before beginning ...” the
introduction states. “You will be held responsible for knowing the contents of this entire manual.
Take the manual wherever you go, it will do you no good if it is lost or left in the trunk of your
car. This is the key to your success ...”

The book spells out daily workout requirements in painstaking detail, from warm-up to cool-
down and recovery. Illustrations show proper techniques for lifting and stretching. Charts are
supplied to aid players in calculating how much weight to lift, and each week's workout is
accompanied by a day-by-day log to record progress.

Exercises are illustrated for each position grouping, with tight ends assigned drills specific to
their skill requirements and defensive backs given completely different drills. Exercises and
drills designed to improve strength, speed and flexibility are illustrated in minute detail. Even
proper running technique is described in step-by-step fashion.

Providing such detail in book form is part of Saban's master plan for indoctrinating players into
his way of doing things.
“When they get in their dorm or their apartment, we want them talking about it,” said Scott
Cochran, Alabama's strength and conditioning coach. “We want them talking about seeing and
believing it.”

The books serve as constant reminders.

“We do it so much that you don't even have to look at the book,” said receiver Mike McCoy,
who just completed his senior season. “You just do what you're required to do and what's asked
of you.”

The books also provide structure.

“Everything is a schedule. After a while it's pretty much common sense and second nature to
you. You've done it so many times you know what to do,” said defensive back Dre Kirkpatrick,
who just completed his freshman season.

Even when players are away on spring break or during the summer, the manual keeps them tied
to the program's routine.

“Everywhere you go you see it,” said cornerback Javier Arenas, also a senior on the national
championship team. “Sitting at home, for me, all the way in Tampa, you open this book and it's
saying the same thing that's stressed up in the locker room.

“So it's like we live this. This is what we've got to do every day. It begins to sink in and affect
you. It's something you pick up and it becomes a characteristic.”

Three phases

The book issued each year breaks down Saban's offseason physical and mental conditioning
program, a two-step approach leading up to the season that he developed on the way to winning
the national title at LSU in 2003.

The first phase, which begins each January, is known as the Fourth-Quarter Program.

“That's when we find out what we're all about,” Cochran said. “We put them through a little
wringer and all the hard work. That includes lifting and running, and that goes into spring ball.

“It gets them ready for spring ball and will take them through the mental toughness part.”

Phase one carries through the end of spring practice in April.

“In the first phase you're really working on building up your strength, getting your body ready so
that you can start preparing for the football aspect of it,” Reamer said. “The first phase is more
getting your strength and your speed and your conditioning.”
The second phase is Alabama's summer workout, which leads up to the beginning of fall practice
in August.

“Phase two is more getting ready for an entire season,” Cochran said. “That's an eight-week
program, a ton of running and a lot of lifting.”

The summer workout plan is geared more specifically to the sport.

“It's more football conditioning,” Reamer said. “It's more of the drills to get your agility back
and your speed and your quickness, train your mind to react to stuff you see on the field.”

The final phase begins with kickoff of the first game of the season. The only book for that phase
is the playbook, but the workout shifts with the weekly rigor of playing games.

“If you would call it phase three — it's not labeled that — that would be the season,” Cochran
said. “You're constantly pushing and pulling in practice and you're constantly using your legs, so
the best thing you can do is make sure their upper bodies are strong.

“So we're going to get super strong on our bench press, super strong on our power cleans, where
we will maintain our squats.”

Detail work

Alabama's three-phase, year-round workout cycle is not unique, and Saban isn't the only coach to
use workout manuals. What sets Alabama's approach apart is the detail that extends beyond
football workouts.

Take nutrition, for instance: Not only are UA players provided with basic information on diet
and how to gain, lose or maintain weight, they are also given target percentages for body-fat
ratio, grocery shopping guidelines and breakdowns of calories and percentages of carbohydrates,
protein and fat grams in meals at restaurants ranging from McDonald's to Olive Garden.

Players are also given behavioral advice: “Drinking, drugs and late-night partying will do
nothing but destroy you as a person and as an athlete,” one section reads.

Even sleep habits are covered. “Go to bed and fall asleep at the same time each night and you
will find that you feel much better,” the manual states.

Colin Peek, a tight end who transferred from Georgia Tech to Alabama two years ago after his
junior season, puts great faith in the power of the written word.

“Programs talk about what they want to do and how they want to do it, but Coach Saban makes
sure everything is written down,” Peek said. “It's something you can visualize. They didn't have
that at Georgia Tech. They talked about things, but it wasn't reiterated like that.”

The writing isn't just in Alabama's workout books. It is also literally on the walls.
“You see it everywhere around the (football) complex,” Peek said. “It's on the T-shirt you wear.
Everywhere you go there's different types of posters with different types of meanings.

“You are always reminded what the goal is, how you're supposed to act, the way you're supposed
to play.”

Motivators

Along with all the workout information to mold players' bodies, Alabama's manuals are
sprinkled with motivational quotations and declarations designed to shape their minds.

The 2009 book carries the messages of such diverse personalities as Martin Luther King Jr.,
Mike Tyson and Babe Ruth, among others. Each saying underscores a theme stressed by the
Crimson Tide's head coach.

“You just can't beat the person who never gives up,” reads the quotation from Ruth.

“The time is always right to do what is right,” is King's contribution.

“I was hoping he would get up so I could hit him again and keep him down,” is attributed to
Tyson.

Powerful words from well-known personalities drive home points Saban wants his players to
grasp.

“It's almost like you're being brainwashed into, ‘This is how you play the game, how it has to
be,'” Peek said. “Those stories, those messages, and how that relates to us are reiterated by the
coaches. It's a motivational tool to bring it home to us.”

There are also anonymous sayings:

“If it was easy, everyone would do it.”

“We are in charge of our attitudes.”

“Success is determined not by how many times you get knocked down, but by how quickly you
get back up.”

Also mixed in with the workout material are short sections on such subjects as leadership,
attitude, making proper choices and how to be a better teammate.

Total package

No single aspect of the program outlined in Alabama's workout book made the 2009 Crimson
Tide into a national championship team. There were no secret ingredients. The sum of the parts
and the willingness of UA players to embrace the teachings were constantly reinforced by the
58-year-old man who designed it all.

“This is all Coach Saban's,” Cochran said. “It's his deal. This is his baby.”

Alabama offensive coordinator Jim McElwain has seen a lot of different approaches in previous
coaching stops at Fresno State, Michigan State, Louisville, Montana State and Eastern
Washington. The consistency and regimentation are what he finds most striking about Saban's
program.

“It's a year-round process and it breaks up into segments,” McElwain said. “I think everybody
knows what they're reaching for and why they're doing it, that this is the process that's going to
help us be successful.

“I think it all starts at the top with the message that coach sends and the idea of team and not
selfish individuals, and I think he does an outstanding job of getting everybody on the same page
and making sure that they understand, ‘Look, you're going to buy in or you're going to become
irrelevant.' Guys don't want to be irrelevant. Everybody's pulling forward the same way.”

Saban understands the message would be meaningless if players didn't take to it. They began to
buy into the process during Alabama's 2008 season, but reached what Saban calls a “critical
mass” during the 2009 national title run.

“I think that we probably have a guy or two somewhere around that hasn't bought in,” Saban said
after Alabama's victory over Florida in the Southeastern Conference Championship Game.
“Most of those guys don't play a lot.

“You've got to be responsible and accountable and be able to do your job. There's a way you
have to do it in terms of the effort, the toughness and the intangibles and dependability you have
and discipline you have in carrying out your responsibility. And I, quite frankly, think when you
have a critical mass of players on your team that think like that, they don't really want the other
guys that don't think that way to be out there with them.”

To Arenas, the players' acceptance and adoption of the entire program was the last step in the
process of building a national championship team.

“Guys buying in,” he said. “Look what happens when you buy in. We all bought into that and
that's why we're here.”

Reach Tommy Deas at tommy.deas@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0224.