The University of Alabama opened a new football-training center last February. Any professional team would be happy to have it. The amenities include a $9 million weight room, a hydrotherapy pool with a Club Med–style cascade of hot water and an anti-gravity treadmill that’s more NASA than Nautilus. Coach Nick Saban goes over the finer points of football with his team in a 212-seat theater with a multiplex-sized screen. After practice, players shoot pool or kick back on a leather couch with a video game, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.
Paul “Bear” Bryant, who coached the Crimson Tide to greatness 40 years ago, wouldn’t recognize the posh facilities provided for Saban’s team, which has won three of the past four Bowl Championship Series titles and as of Nov. 23 was undefeated and en route to another trophy. In the 2012 national championship game, Alabama, led by quarterback A.J. McCarron and running back Eddie Lacy — who’s now playing for the National Football League’s Green Bay Packers — beat the University of Notre Dame 42 to 14, as hometown fans screamed, “Roll, Tide, Roll.”
