Who wants to be Not Nick?
Step right up.
That's how Alabama 's next football coach will be known to the Crimson Tide fan base for awhile, and it's understandable.
How could he not be? Newly retired coach Nick Saban's incredible run of success with the Crimson Tide has rightly put him alongside Paul W. "Bear" Bryant as the program's two greatest coaches, if not the two best ever. And if they belong in the same sentence, then so too does Not Bear (Ray Perkins), and whomever Alabama Director of Athletics Greg Byrne chooses to be Not Nick.
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Perkins was a man of nerve and conviction, two of many traits required to follow a legend, whether successful or not. And after setting foot on Bryant's footprint for all to see the difference, Perkins naturally got the Not Bear treatment after taking over for Bryant in 1983. And he needed every bit of that backbone after losing 10 games over his first two seasons. Tenth Street was renamed Paul W. Bryant Drive immediately after Bryant's death, just weeks after Perkins was hired, and reports held that 10 Bryant Drive signs were stolen as souvenirs before Perkins had even coached a game.
"People say it's better not to follow a legend, but not everybody who follows a legend has to fail," Perkins told Sports Illustrated the week of his first game. "The guy who says he'd rather follow the guy who follows the legend is too scared to be there in the first place."
Perkins lasted just four seasons at Alabama, but he was absolutely right about that.
Byrne should know that finding the right man to replace Saban requires a closer inspection, one that goes beyond the normal criteria. Smart coaches with winning track records and all the right answers in an interview setting will line up to take $10 million a year. But no two of them would handle the pressure of replacing the modern game's greatest coach in exactly the same way.
And you can bet some of them wouldn't handle it well at all.
Whoever lands the job, he'll be Not Nick for the foreseeable future; at least as long as it takes him to win a championship of some kind. That's not fair, of course, but neither is college football. The hard truth is that the new coach will be measured against Saban for as long as he's Alabama's coach, if not longer, even if wins enough to stay in the big chair long-term. That's a weighty proposition, but one that top candidates will nevertheless flock to, knowing that despite the void of Saban's absence, his success also leaves behind an incredible amount of forward momentum. Along with deep resources and oodles of administrative support to go along with it.
Not Nick will be set up to win, but he'll also be set up for no excuses.
Byrne, too, has a lot of skin in this game. He's faced with making a hire that, good or bad, Alabama fans will never forget. He'll be inextricably tied to his choice, and for the long-term, in the same way the new coach will be tied to Saban.
After all, nobody knew Ray Perkins as the Alabama football coach who preceded Bill Curry.
He was the coach who followed the legend.
He was Not Bear.
Somebody else is about to do the same. He'll no doubt come with an impressive resume, a plan for the future, and a sterling reputation.
And he'll have to get comfortable being Not Nick for awhile.
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23 and the Talkin' Tide podcast. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama coach Nick Saban retires. You can call the next coach Not Nick
