Alabama football has become a consistent machine in the world of college football, as the Crimson Tide just churn out double-digit win seasons and appearances in the College Football Playoff. This year is expected to be much of the same, as Nick Saban’s group of young men have rather startling odds to make it to the Playoff before the season even kicks off.
Still, Saban always wants his team to have some kind of an edge, and apparently, he must have thought that the Tide needed to learn a little something about leadership. This led to Saban doing what anyone would do in this situation: Calling Kobe Bryant and having the future Hall of Fame shooting guard come in to talk to his team.
Mamba Mentality! Great to have @kobebryant in the building.#OutworkYesterday#Rolltide pic.twitter.com/fODPUR6GHX
— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) August 10, 2018
“To be an effective leader you have to be a really good listener, and not to what’s being said, but to what’s not being said,” Bryant said. “You have to be really observant, that was a big transition for me, I went from being a scorer and a floor general to, now, with Pau [Gasol] and Lamar [Odom] trying to win another championship, to being a leader. That meant putting others first.”
Who knows if this advice will help Alabama in its pursuit of a second straight national title and a third in four years, but at the very least, a bunch of guys between the ages of 18 and like 23 get to say they got to sit through a lecture by Kobe Bryant, which is nice.
