Nick Saban said after Alabama's spring game last Saturday that his hip had been bothering him and he could undergo surgery to get it fixed.
As anyone who knows the man knows, when Saban identifies a problem, he doesn't wait around to fix it.
Saban will undergo hip surgery on Monday, according to USA Todayand ESPN. The surgery will take six-to-eight weeks to recover from, though it will not leave him completely immobilized. It will also allow him plenty of time to recover before practice begins for the future Hall of Fame coach's 13th season as the Tide's head coach and his 47th season in coaching.
"I want to get it fixed because I don’t want to coach for one more year, I want to coach for a lot of more years," he said at the time.
Saban said the issue first appeared at the beginning of spring practice and worsened in the coming weeks. Swinging a golf club, Saban said, was not painful, but getting out of the cart was.
“The only thing I hate about it is, I’ll have to not play golf for six weeks or so,” he told USA Today. “… But this is the best time for me to do it. I do a lot of speaking and evaluating and film work and stuff like that, but we’re not practicing. Other than playing golf, I probably wouldn’t be very active. So this is the best time, and then it gives me a lot of summer to get back in shape.”
Saban keeps himself in excellent shape and operates at a level much younger than his 67 years of age might suggest, so fixing his hip should certainly allow him to keep coaching, in his words, for a lot of more years.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.