Dear Nick Saban: Please Run For President

Dear Nick Saban,

Please run for President. 

Yesterday you visited the White House and stood behind the Presidential podium and I found myself overcome by a stunning realization -- you are our country's best hope at President in 2016. You're exactly what we need -- a no nonsense, apolitical leader who doesn't give a damn about what people think about him or whether his decisions are popular. You aren't ideological, you just see a problem and fix it in a clinical fashion. Our country is broken and you've proven three different times that you can take a broken football program and turn it into a dominant, well-run machine.

Sure, some attack ads will point out that you couldn't win with the Miami Dolphins, but let's be honest, we're talking about the Dolphins here, Dan Marino threw for four billion yards and couldn't win with them. If Jesus coached the Dolphins they'd still lose the AFC East. And you went 2-2 against Belichick, Nick. Most people forget that, I don't. Besides, if the worst thing anyone can say about your professional career is you haven't dominated everywhere you've ever been, that just makes you human. No one votes for physical perfection. If they did Martin O'Malley would be president.   

If you ran as an independent you'd be the perfect candidate to put Donald Trump in his place. You're like Trump with real accomplishments -- and actual hair. The biggest flaw in Trump's outstanding business acumen? It doesn't exist. Trump inherited so much money from his daddy that if he'd just bought S&P 500 index funds he'd actually have more money right now than he does after all his business deals. You know that, Nick, you know he's a blowhard loser who's relying on his daddy's name to bolster his otherwise nonexistent resume. Hell, Nick, you know exactly how to handle Trump, he's Lane Kiffin. You'd make him your vice president and tell him to stand on the sideline and keep his mouth shut.   

And other than being shorter than Hillary Clinton, what advantage does she have on you? You're poised to unite our country behind the presidential process, Nick, Hillary can't even set up her email without getting investigated by the federal government. Plus, and I know you'd hate to go here, but you'd have to -- if Hillary can't satisfy her husband, how is she going to satisfy the nation? Put simply, she can't. You're our only hope, Nick. 

Red state, blue state, to hell with all that. Overnight you'd unite the South behind your leadership. (I'm not even kidding about this, every state in the South would vote for you to be president. Even if they didn't agree with you, they'd do it just so Alabama didn't have the best college football coach in the country any more.) Outside of the 11 SEC states and North Carolina and Virginia -- which both wish they were SEC states -- you'd lock down West Virginia because you're from the state and could talk about how you learned everything you needed to know about life working at a gas station -- seriously, THIS IS GOLD, can't you imagine the TV ads, every blue collar white man in America would have an orgasm watching this commercial.

Ohio and Michigan would vote for you because they want to win national titles and they have a better chance of winning national titles with you out of college football. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana and Pennsylvania would all fall into line because they do whatever Ohio and Michigan do. Sure, some Spartan fans are still mad at the fact that you walked out of their state to go South to a better job, but guess what, THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT ALL THEIR MORE SUCCESSFUL RELATIVES DID TOO. The point's pretty simple, if you want to be rich, you leave the Midwest for better weather and more money. Everyone with talent does that already. 

From there it's a cakewalk, all those flyover Western states would bend to your iron process. The way you stare into the camera during interviews and see directly into everyone's soul and find them wanting, it's genius. Sure, you might lose New York and California to Hillary, but you'd win everywhere else. And if you win the SEC and the Big Ten states you've got the electoral college whipped worse than Tennessee on the third Saturday in October. That's just a fact. 

I realize that I sound like the most idiotic Alabama fan on earth and I know that secretly you hate Alabama fans with every fiber of your being, but that's exactly why you're so perfect. Most politicians kiss our asses and tell us we're great, but you don't do that, you kick us in the ass and tell us we're fat and need to hit the gym. It's not even tough love, you hate us. We need a president who hates his constituents as much as you hate Alabama fans. It's so much more authentic. America gets the president we deserve. What if America got a president who told us we didn't deserve him? That's what we need, Nick, someone to tell us we suck and we're lazy and that the reason China is kicking our ass isn't because of our leaders, it's because of our own pathetic failures. We spend more money on education than any country in the world and fifty countries outperform us. That's like Vandy beating Alabama in football. No way that's happening with Nick Saban in charge.  

We need you to apply the process to our country's ills, to heal the disunion infecting our political life to kick the far right and the far left right in the teeth and tell them what absurd infants they're acting like -- to take control of the country, say to hell with public opinion polls of dumb people and just fix things. That's what the process is all about, finding a flaw, studying it, prescribing a solution, and implementing that solution until it's fixed. Our country needs your process, Nick.   

Plus, you've trained for this your entire life. A head football coach in the SEC is scrutinized every bit as intently as the president. You have to deal with media and expectations and are regularly judged on your results by people who are infinitely dumber than you are. You have to cajole young people to commit to play for you and then convince a bunch of recalcitrant 17-22 year olds to buy into what you're selling once they're on campus. You have to gladhand rich boosters and get them to donate to your program, you have to keep the academic side of a university happy with your contribution to campus life. You are constantly competing with other schools that want to tear you down and prove they are better than you are. You have to mete out discipline when your players run afoul of the law or your rules.

(You secretly wish that weed was legalized too.)

I mean, seriously, is there a better profession to prepare someone for President than a college football coach in the SEC?

Put simply, Nick, you're wasting all your talents dominating college football. I mean, sure, national titles are nice, but do they really matter in the long run? Aside from raising the morale in Alabama trailer parks, don't you feel a bit unsatisfied with dominating college football at this point? What else can you prove? What if instead of leading our nation through the Civil War Abraham Lincoln had become a dominant baseball manager in fledging turn of the century pro baseball? Sure, it would be nice to have a hall of fame plaque in Cooperstown, but don't you think Lincoln might have wondered whether he was destined for better things when he gazed out upon a bunch of old, fat dudes attending his induction ceremony at the tail end of his career?  

There would have been no Gettysburg Address and no freeing of the slaves and no five dollar bill.

Instead Lincoln would have just been a good baseball manager, a stolid old dude with a beard on an ancient plaque that no one stopped to gaze upon in an old mausoleum of baseball has beens.

Nick, don't you want your face on a bill someday? Don't you want to free America from sloth and stupidity and flailing and impotent politics? Your players see it, college football fans see it too, the choice is crystal clear.

Your country needs you, Nick.

It's time for Saban 2016.