Nick Saban says his mother taught him the mindset that eventually shaped Alabama’s dynasty, it’s not about beating the other guy, the competition is always you “Accountability was really important. If you had a job to do and you didn’t do it exactly right, you were going to do it over again. So you learned how to be accountable. One thing my parents always emphasized was it wasn’t about winning or beating the other guy. It was about, did you do it as well as you were capable of doing it?” “We won 30 games in a row when I was in high school and won a state championship, and that was never good enough. I asked my mom once, ‘Why is it never good enough?’ She said, ‘It’s not about winning the game. It’s not about beating the other guy. It’s about: did you do it as well as you’re capable of doing it?’” “So that makes you kind of a perfectionist, because the competition is always you. It’s always you.” “The other thing that instilled in me was I never had what I call relief syndrome. It’s kind of human nature that if you do something of significance, you think you’re supposed to be able to rest on your laurels.” “Players would win a big game and say, ‘Can we have Monday off practice? We get rewarded for winning this big game.’ Well, I’m thinking about how we’re going to win the next game. Did we play well enough in that game to win the next game, and what do we need to improve on?” “You can never be perfect, but you’re always trying to close the gap on perfect. I think great competitors, whether it’s Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, those guys could always take the next challenge. It didn’t matter how much they won or what they did.” Pasted text