On Friday, former Alabama football coach Nick Saban applauded President Donald Trump's executive order that is intended to bring order and stability to college sports.
The order, announced by the White House on Thursday, prohibits third-party, pay-for-play payments and directs the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to clarify that athletes are amateurs, rather than employees.
Saban, who was rumored to serve on a presidential commission on college athletics after recently meeting with Trump in Tuscaloosa, told Fox News Channel that the new order was "a huge step" in creating opportunities for college athletes and preserving college sports.
"I think President Trump's executive order takes a huge step in providing the educational model that has always been what we've sort of tried to promote to create opportunities for players, male and female alike, revenue and non-revenue, so that they can have development as people, students and develop careers and develop professionally if that's what they choose to do," Saban told "Fox & Friends."
He continued, "I think we sort of need to make a decision here relative to do we want to have an education-based model, which I think the president made a huge step toward doing that, or do we want to have universities sponsor professional teams, and I think most people would choose the former."
The legendary Alabama football coach left the Crimson Tide head coaching position in January 2024, later citing the landscape of college football with NIL, the transfer portal and other aspects for retiring.
In his retirement, Saban has since fought to preserve college sports by highlighting how the influx of money was damaging college athletics.
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