When late Washington Post sports writer John Feinstein called this Alabama coach ‘one of the worst people in all of sports’

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — In a career spanning nearly 50 years, most of them spent on The Washington Post’s sports desk, John Feinstein covered almost everything.

From football to basketball and tennis and more, Feinstein’s expertise on sports went beyond just writing, going into radio and television. Although much of Feinstein’s work focused on professional sports and ACC college sports, he often took time to cover stories in Alabama.

In 1980, only a handful of years after the Duke grad joined the Post, he wrote an extensive profile of former Alabama coach Paul W. “Bear” Bryant, chronicling how the iconic coach’s age and health

had taken a toll on his once-prodigious work ethic. He even covered the rise, fall and rise of UAB’s football team under coach Bill Clark as well as Troy University’s role as an underdog in college football.

However, there is only one coach that Feinstein once called “one of the worst people in all sports“: Nick Saban.

Feinstein, who died Thursday at the age of 69, first came after the former Alabama coach came during his first season at Alabama in 2007. Following two losses in a row to Mississippi State and Louisiana Monroe, Saban used two of the worst attacks on American soil to process the team’s last two losses.

“Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event,” Saban said in comments reported by ABC News during a post-game press conference on November 19, 2007. “It may be 9/11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, and that was a catastrophic event.”

In a column published days after Saban’s comments, Feinstein didn’t mince words about how he felt about the coach’s comparisons between the team’s loss and 9/11 and Pearl Harbor.

“Okay, let’s just say this: NO ONE should be allowed to mention catastrophes in which thousands of people died when talking about football — or any sport. Not ever. And certainly not someone who is working at what is supposed to be an institution of higher learning,” Feinstein wrote. “What kind of message is he sending to his players? If he makes a comment like this in public, what in the world is he saying to his players behind closed doors?”

Feinstein went on to question why there was not more of an outcry from Alabama’s fanbase of Saban’s comments or calls for him to resign.

“Most people are already saying the media is making too much of this and, if Saban turns Alabama around next year or the year after, there will probably be people who will say his analogy was right on target,” he wrote. “Sure it was. Because football really is life and death, right?”

Saban would go on to clarify his remarks, adding that he meant he meant no disrespect.

Feinstein never publicly addressed his Saban column, but it wouldn’t be the last time he would go after an Alabama sports team. A few months after the Saban column, he was on the MASN network to do commentary for a basketball game between Auburn and George Washington University. In a report published by the Opelika-Auburn News, Feinstein took a shot at Auburn when it was brought up that the team had never played in Washington DC before.

“That’s because most people in Alabama still do not recognize Washington as the nation’s capital,” Feinstein reportedly said. “They still think it’s in Richmond (in reference to the former Confederate capital).”

In a column, former O-A News sports editor Joe McAdory went after Feinstein’s comment.

“Back-handed comments are meant to be funny, but when you finish telling the stupid joke, coming back with ‘just kidding’ doesn’t cut it. The damage is done,” McAdory wrote. “Feinstein commented on what he perceives to be a stereotypical Alabama. Instead, he proved to anyone watching that he is stereotypical. College basketball, a sport enjoyed by our entire nation, does not need announcers who have set agendas against people from regions competing schools represent.”

In addition to his work at the Post, Feinstein wrote 48 books, arguably his most famous one being “A Season on the Brink,” which chronicled Indiana University’s basketball team during the 1985-86 season under Bobby Knight and became a New York Times bestseller.