“Well, the process is really what you have to do day in and day out to be successful,” he said. “We try to define the standard that we want everybody to sort of work toward, adhere to, and do it on a consistent basis. And the things that I talked about before, being responsible for your own self-determination, having a positive attitude, having great work ethic, having discipline to be able to execute on a consistent basis, whatever it is you’re trying to do, those are the things that we try to focus on, and we don’t try to focus as much on the outcomes as we do on being all that you can be.
“Eliminate the clutter and all the things that are going on outside and focus on the things that you can control with how you sort of go about and take care of your business. That’s something that’s ongoing, and it can never change.”
Saban added, “So it’s the process of what it takes be successful, very simply.”
The rest of his thoughts on The Process came out in other answers. Saban loves to explain how the greatest athletes, like Michael Jordan and Mariano Rivera, understand that the “last race doesn’t matter.” They focus on the next game, the next quarter, the next pitch or shot.
Saban pushes his Crimson Tide in much the same way. In the first meeting after Alabama won the national championship last season, he told the assembled they were not national champions. They may have played a title team, but this team was not that one.
