Would you believe it if we said that the CFB GOAT Nick Saban still has regrets? Turns out, even after winning seven national championships, the former Alabama head coach still thinks about doing things differently. But it’s not the coaching he wanted to improve, but something unexpected. Chris Stewart, of the Voice of the Crimson Tide, shared what Saban might still regret from his coaching days.

“I don’t know if it was more than four months after coach [Nick Saban] had retired,” Stewart said on The Dynasty podcast. “We were talking about how different it was. I think it was after a day.

He said, ‘Kristy and I talked for an hour and a half.’ He said, ‘Hey, he just wanted to talk, never happened.’ One of the things he talked about is, ‘I wonder if I could have done it differently. Could I have been as successful and not spent the amount of time that I did?'”

Stewart officially began his tenure as the full-time Voice of Alabama Football during the 2024 A-Day Spring Game on April 13, 2024. This was four months after Nick Saban retired. The game took place at Bryant-Denny and was marked as Stewart’s first game as the permanent successor to Eli Gold. During that game, Saban was present to address the fans at the Walk of Fame ceremony held on the Quad before the game.

So what Stewart is trying to reveal is that just after the ceremony, Saban had a long talk of 1.5 hours with his daughter, Kristen Saban. For 17 years in gridiron, Saban never had so much time to have a family phone call this long. The former Alabama coach felt really good after a long time, which made him think if he had let go of valuable family time while being busy in achieving coaching dominance.

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Saban has previously stated that he worked seven days a week for 44 weeks a year. And then during peak season time, Saban’s days were 14-hour marathons. It began with early staff meetings to dissect the previous day’s practice tape play-by-play. In order to save time, he ate the same meal every day. It consisted of two Oatmeal Creme Pies for breakfast and a specific salad for lunch. The only time he was at home was on Wednesdays, eating dinner.

It was a vital time that Saban stated as a “recharging” period where he could be with his wife, Terry Saban, and occasionally their children.

“Sometimes I felt like I spent so much time being a coach that I didn’t spend enough time being a father to my own children,” Saban said on the CampusInsiders podcast.

The coaching job, as Saban admitted, is a very “time-consuming job.” And he also had to be in constant contact with the students’ parents. So while Wednesday was a family night, Saban often continued working.

“And then you have a couple of hours on Wednesday night after you make recruiting calls,” Saban said. “And then after this tonight, we’ll have a little bit of time. But that’s it. But the rest of the time, we’re with the team, and we’re working.”

To accommodate his personal and professional time together, Saban used his vacation home in Lake Burton, Georgia. He hosted certain freshmen and recruits and took them for boat rides and jumping off his two-story boathouse. It’s been two years since Nick Saban stepped away from the gridiron. And truth be told, his retirement life is all about his family.

How does retirement look like for Nick Saban? 

Since retiring on January 14, 2025, Nick Saban has noted that he now enjoys a level of relaxation and family time that was impossible during his 17 years at Tuscaloosa. Kristen Saban now enjoys doing a few of her favorite things with her 74-year-old father.

“Every chance we get, we’re together,” wrote Kristen on her IG story. “Way more now than before. If there’s a trip or something work-related, he includes us in everything so we can do it together.”

Although Kristen Saban never really got a response from his dad over the phone when he was coaching, she still was a solid supporter of the former Alabama head coach. Now Saban is a suburban dad who goes out to get groceries, which he isn’t that great at. Back when the whole family was at their family home in Boca Grande, Miss Terry and Kristen sent Saban to the store for condiments like ketchup and mustard. However, the gridiron expert messed it all up.

“He was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, I can do it.’ And he’s not even in the store for five minutes when he calls and says, ‘There’s a hundred bottles of ketchup and mustard on the shelf. Which kind am I supposed to get?’” Kristen told ESPN.

But truth be told, Miss Terry actually likes having her husband at home. And even Saban has no plans of returning to coaching.