Roll Tide Roll-Legendary Coach Nick Saban's Stand for Black Lives Matter Is a Game Changer

Man, myth, legend.

If you follow American college football or sports generally, you know that in the pantheon of legendary coaches, Alabama coach Nick Saban is practically an Olympian deity regarded with divinity-like reverence. Say the name of Nick Saban and waters part.

And if you know anything about American college football teams, then you know that the University of Alabama, the team of legendary coach Bear Bryant and NFL legend Joe Namath, is still one of the most formidable teams ever to play the game. That's not even up for debate. Once Nick Saban makes the waters part, the Crimson Tide rolls in and sweeps its opponent's chances of victory out to sea.

At Alabama, football isn't just king, it's a divine monarchy. Being legendary isn't an exception, it's the birthright of excellence embedded in the DNA of its football legacy. Oh,what pride that legacy inspires both in Tuscaloosa and for Alabama fans across the country.

When that team of Alabama crimson-clad gladiators marches onto the field on Game Day led by Saban, flags, and chants to the roar of its fans, it is a cinematic moment. The pageantry is as thrilling as a coronation with an electricity that is hair-raising.

Roll. Tide. Roll. Yes, indeed.

Yet, we can't forget that Alabama has another legacy, uglier and less heroic. On June 11, 1963, then-Governor George Wallace stood on the steps of the University of Alabama's Foster Auditorium to protest and block the admission of two Black students.

Those students, Vivian Malone Jones and James Hood were granted a federal order to integrate the government-supported university based on the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Even with the Alabama National Guard present to enforce the order, Governor Wallace was unrelenting in his stand-off. It was a tense, headline-making moment that catapulted Wallace into the national spotlight and tested the resolve of civil rights leaders, as well as the presidency of John Kennedy.

Two more years would pass before John Lewis' historic "Bloody Sunday" march across Selma's Pettus Bridge, but Wallace's 1963 inauguration speech set the tone for what happened.

Wallace's infamously defiant declaration-"I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" was Alabama's war cry against integration. It was a speech that Black parents in the South would repeat to their children for generations to come as one of many "Never forget" moments in our American journey.

This year, the "Never Forget" moments are piling up like autumn leaves across a landscape of despair in the Black community. Black lives seems to be equally as disposable and forgettable as leaves. It's an observation supported not only by the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or the thousands that precede them, but by the recent Jacob Blake shooting in Wisconsin and the recently-released video of Daniel Prude's death in Rochester, New York.

Prude was killed in March of this year following a mental health wellness call for help by his family. Seven officers responded to the call. Prude was taken out into the street from his house naked on a chilly March night. He was then forced down onto the pavement. For reasons that defy logic, a hood, referred to as a "spit sock", was placed over his head and pulled tight.

On the gut-wrenching video, you hear Prude begging and crying that he can't breathe, pleading, pleading, crying, begging. Then nothing. He had stopped breathing and later died at the hospital.

It's hard to imagine that if a dog or cat had been killed in the same manner and taped, Rochester would not be thronging with outraged animal rights activists. Frankly, the repercussions for an animal's death would likely have been stronger. We all remember what happened to quarterback Michael Vick.

The resonance of "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" has had a strange, terrible vise-like grip on our national consciousness and history. Noted scholar W.E.B. Dubois wrote about its legacy and the "peculiar indifference" that it had spawned towards the suffering and core humanity of Black people in this country.

That indifference is segregation's most indelible stain and continues to affect Black lives every day and in every city of this country. That indifference fostered within the embrace of segregation as a state right and heritage is also a part of the University of Alabama's history.

Two days ago, Nick Saban looked that history in the eye with hard-eyed resolve and deep faith to lead a team of magnificent student athletes and dedicated coaches on yet another march into battle. However, the march would lead into a different arena this time, the mood would be more sobering than thrilling, the victory less certain.

But there is one thing about this march that is unassailable. History was made when Nick Saban led a Black Lives Matter march on the campus of the University of Alabama, risking everything. 57 years since a governor blocked a school door to prevent Black students from entering its halls, a storied coach was now leading a Black Lives Matter protest on the grounds of the University of Alabama. The very definition of a full circle moment.

We love the mythology of legends in America, especially in sports. We love celebrating fearless champions who stand up to every challenge like winners who are real men and real women of character. But you can't really be a legend without a courage that transcends arena spotlights and cameras and roaring fans. True legends, the ones we tell the next generation about, the ones whose hands we are proud to shake, even when they have left the stage, have to show the courage of personal conviction.

You know, the kind of uncommon courage that makes you stand up when it really counts. It's the courage that compels you to stand, even if you're the only one standing like the great Colin Kaepernick. It's the kind of courage that makes a White man in Alabama stand up for a team of predominantly Black young men whose lives are at stake. Constantly. Yet, they still play their hearts out for a university that once wanted nothing to do with them and would fall on a sword for their coach, if asked.

As a legend, you need to show the kind of uncommon courage that can lead to death threats, social isolation, and derision. It's the kind of courage that we all need to push racism back into the abyss from which it came.

The Milwaukee Bucks boycott for racial justice was an amazing display of unity and courage. But Nick Saban's prominent role in leading a Black Lives Matter march and holding a press conference deriding racial violence and standing up for the sanctity of Black lives is something we haven't seen from prominent White men. And Lord knows, it's time.

Yes, many have made statements of support, elected leaders and an assortment of CEOS. Some have marched like the honorable Senator Mitt Romney. But leading a march for Black Lives Matter as one of the most high-profile leaders in American sports, THAT is a game changer. THAT is making the kind of good trouble that another legend, the late Congressman John Lewis, who hailed from Troy, Alabama, would have lauded and celebrated.

Nick Saban's powerful statement that Black lives matter,too and "we aren't gonna let this die", has shown the world what it means to be an ally at the highest level. Nick Saban, just as Naomi Osaka, Doc Rivers, LeBron James and the Milwaukee Bucks team did last week, has shown a courage that emerges when you rise to the occasion as a leader, and well, a legend.

For the White men at companies, firms, and institutions who are leaders and decision-makers, whose hearts are in the right place, but whose actions lack the boldness of conviction that your teams needs to see and model, you need to know something. And you need to know it right now.

Your voices matter. Join this fight to honor the humanity of Black lives. Those lives matter, too. Join this fight to end racial apartheid in America. There is a place in this battle for you my brother and it's time for you to enter the arena.

There is a place for you to make diversity hiring, equal opportunity, and inclusion attainable on your watch. You can insist, no demand, that the leaders around you get over their bias and commit to diversity and inclusion once and for all. Tell your senior managers and administrators, department chairs, executive directors, unit heads, foremen and forewomen that this is business, company business, and there is no time for bias any longer. It will no longer be accommodated, overlooked, coddled or excused. New day, new rules.

There is a place for you in this battle to draw your own line in the sand for racial justice by saying "No More" to emails of heartless jokes and cartoons from friends or to race-mongering rhetoric that you hear at the country club, family dinners, college reunions, on television, the radio or podcasts that you listen to.

There is a place for you to say "No More" to pay inequity, double standards and looking around in the C-Suite or at the partner's table, or department meetings and seeing not one Black or Brown face. There is a place in this battle for you to say "No More" to systems on your watch that fail to hold people and processes accountable when it comes to diversity and racial fairness.

There is a place for you to go to your local elected officials and law enforcement leadership as a person of influence to demand change and reform. You don't need to join or lead a march, but you can make a phone call or send an email. You can request a meeting.

You can be a hero in this moment, too. You can be a champion. You can be an ally. You can bend the arc of justice that Dr. King spoke about.

Like Nick Saban, you can do your part to help roll back the tide of this ugliness consuming our nation, racism, and while you're at it, you can roll back sexism, homophobia, and every other kind of discrimination that is holding us back as well.

Rise to this occasion like the men of crimson in Alabama and march into the arena. Roll. Tide. Roll. Like waters and righteousness from a mighty stream. Yes, indeed.