The Josh Innes Show - In My Warped Mind, I Think I'm Nick Saban

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

The new Nick Saban documentary is out today. I haven't watched it. But, I've read some reviews and comments from people. One of the biggest takeaways is that Saban is joyless and almost seems to dislike winning. I feel like we may be kindred spirits. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I haven't had the chance to watch this Nick Saban documentary that's on ESPN. I don't know how many parts it is or anything, but I'm sure it's going to be lengthy and thorough. And I look forward to it because I like Nick Saban. I think he's full of shit currently because I think a lot of these guys are full of shit, these old school coaches. Well, I guess we talked about this yesterday a little bit, but I think they're full of shit, but they're not totally wrong, right? Like, it's an interesting world, the college athletics world, but really the college football world, because that's what we all really care. about. No one really gives a shit about college basketball or college anything else. College football is a straw that stirs the drink and most of these athletic departments

exist because football makes all the money and thus they spend all the money and all this. You get the point. But I was reading something about this documentary and I think it was a comment or a quote or something from Paul Feinbaum, I think is who said this. And it was something about how Nick Saban seemingly took no joy in winning. And a lot of the coaches, said that too. Like their whole focus was to win the title, win the title. Then the second they'd win the title, Sabin's mindset shifted to, so what? Like, now let's go do it again. And I'm fascinated by that kind of attitude. Let's play a couple commercials and let's get into that. I'm fascinated by the idea that people that are so driven to win, like winning almost doesn't matter.

Now, I think when you win a lot, I think it changes. Like, if you've been a lot, I think it changes. Like, never won anything and you finally win something, I think it feels different. But there are times that you can remember seeing Sabin after they win a big game or even a championship. And it's almost like he's mad. Like winning made him mad in some way. And that was kind of the vibe you got. But you think about people like that. And look, I'm not Nick Saban or anything like that. And I don't know too many people who have that kind of mindset. Like a lot of people are able to enjoy shit. I'm one of those types of people that cannot enjoy success, right? Because you look for the reasons why it can go away or you wait for it to go away. I had a coach once, and I'll never forget

this. This was a coach we had for like a year or two in high school. And he said that I'm the type of person that always expects the worst so I can be pleasantly surprised. I was like, Huh, that might be why our team sucks, but okay. But, like, I thought about that, and I've thought about that in my life, and I think I'm kind of like that, you know? And, like, I just wait for the worst so when something good happens, I can be surprised. But I think you can talk to anybody that I've worked with. Actually, I'll share a story with you.

And I don't know if I've shared this story before, which could be shocking, considering that I share most stories. But I was talking to Jillie a couple weeks ago, and she was kind of angry. at me about something and just about how I'm just a joyless person sometimes and about how we move around a lot and how she's kind of tired of moving and I think we're all kind of tired of moving. You don't move to another job thinking I'm only going to be there for a year, two years, whatever, and move. You know, when we moved to Nashville, I didn't have any intentions of going to another place,

but then I got a call from St. Louis. And I'm like, well, shit, it's a legendary station. Let's go to fucking St. Louis. You know, we got to go. Well, actually, when I moved to Nashville, remember I had done sports, forever. And then this job opened up and they, I don't know why they were interested in me. I have no idea why they thought I could do the rock shit, but they did and cool, fine. And I did it. And I did well. It's the most success I've had doing rock shows was the one in Nashville. It was number

one. I got big bonus checks. It was really cool. But I didn't move to Nashville with the intentions of moving to another place. I moved there. And then I got this call from St. Louis. And I'm like, well, I really, you know, and by the way, you know, St. Louis wasn't going to hire me initially. They were like, hey, we really like you, but it turns out, we really don't have an opening. And I kind of forced the idea that there was an opening. And they hired me there. Like initially, I think they thought about moving me there to do mornings on KChi 95. They're like, we don't have a morning opening. And I was like, fuck it, I'll do afternoons. And I kind of forced that. And I regret that when you say, hey, things you regret in life. I wish I just would

have played that shit cool. Because my dad taught me something. And this is what my dad's always said when he's had jobs. And when he had a job at one of the country stations in Bat Rouge, there'd be another country station that would be like, hey, come work for us. And he'd say, no. And I go, well, dad, why do you keep turning these jobs down? And he goes, well, as long as I still have the job I have, that other job is still available.

The second I take that job, that job is no longer available. And that makes sense. And I may have worded that poorly or described it poorly. But it's true. Like there's always that other thing waiting for you until you take it and then it's gone. When we go back to the regrets episode a couple weeks ago where we were saying that like 47% of people or whatever it was that they have no regrets, I'll tell you this, a regret that I have. And looking back on it, it was a bad decision.

And not every decision I've made is a bad decision. You know, they may not have worked out, but I mean, some of them were good decisions, whatever. Some are just horrible decisions. I'm a flawed human, right? leaving Nashville, big picture. Now, eliminating Philly, which if I were still in Philly, I'd be Angelo in Philadelphia right now. It'd be fucking amazing. I'd probably be making lots of money.

I'd have a podcast with a million listeners. And that's a regret. Okay. But if you're going recent shit, like I can't go back and undo it because I got fired in Philadelphia. Now, that was my own doing, but I got fired. I didn't get fired in Nashville. I left in Nashville. And, you know, Jillie and I were talking about all this because she was.

she's tired of moving and we'll see something on TV like, this is a weird thing. But there was some thing we were reading about this fast food cereal killer in the 90s in Nashville. And she's like, you know, I really miss living in Nashville. I liked where we lived in Nashville. It's a good place. I liked it. You know, and I'm like, yeah, no, I get it. And the regret I have about that is that, you know, they reached out to me about the job in St.

Louis because there was a whole moving parts thing that happened. There's a big morning show on a rock station in St. Louis. one of the guys on that show had to be fired for something that he did. So they were looking for someone to replace him. They were going to move this gal that was on Casey over to this station. So they needed someone to occupy her spot. And I was like, I'll do that. Like I really want to go to St. Louis.

But looking back with regret, kind of to my dad's point. And no one ever gave me the advice and said, don't go to St. Louis. My agent didn't say, don't go to St. Louis. My dad didn't say, don't go to St. Louis. Nobody did, you know. I wish my dad would have. Maybe he did. I don't remember, but I don't think he was ever like, hey, don't do that.

I think it's a mistake because you hear K-G-95, you're going to take the gig, you know. But the regret is, looking back on that, once you take that job, that job no longer exists. And that's a piece of advice that my dad inadvertently gave me many years ago. And I should have followed that advice and I should have thought about that. Because, Josh, if they want you now, what's going to stop them from wanting you in a year or two years? even said that. They said, we'll call you in two years. I'm like, nope, that's not good enough. And I flew myself to St. Louis to meet them. And I regret that. I wish I would have probably played that cooler and said, all right, that's fine. You know, you guys, there's nothing available.

That's fine. We don't have to do it. But I got so caught up because in that moment, you don't know if that moment's ever going to come again. It's easier to sit there now, four years later, or whatever it was, three years later, and go, you know what? Play it cool. They're going to come back around again. But you don't know that. You never know if someone's going to pick up the phone again and actually call you and say, hey, we do have an opening. You never know if things are going to turn around for what they have there and they're not going to need somebody for that opening. Like you don't know these things. So you get giddy about it. You're like, God, I've got to have this. And that was a regretful thing. It's regretful, but it was a big gig and it

was lots of money and it seemed like a place you'd be forever. I've never moved to any of these places thinking, hey, I'm going to move to something else. because none of these are shit cities. You know, I haven't worked in horrible places. You know, Baton Rouge when you're a kid. You're like, I want to move up to the next big thing. But like, I moved to Houston. You know, my intention initially, it wasn't the city so much.

It'd be if it was a better job, maybe, but I never thought, oh, I'm going to go to somewhere else other than Houston. Although when I got there, almost instantly I started getting phone calls for people because I was a young cheap guy, a talented young cheap guy. And that's what these radio stations look for. You know, they want to get rid of dudes making, $250,000 a year, and they want to take a guy that's making $35,000 a year in Houston being the third guy on a morning show, move him up to the midday show or the afternoon show as a lead

host in another city and pay him $90,000. And it's like a double a salary type of thing, yet they're trimming $200,000 off of their budget. You know, like that's what they're looking for. And that's what they were looking for in 2009, 2010. And I got calls from a lot of places, you know, and I told you in that one, when I got fired in Philly, there were some. But when I was in Houston, dude, I would make demos for, I made a demo from Miami. I made a demo for Kansas City.

I made a demo, well, oh, ESPN Radio, National, they were looking for someone. Like, I did a lot of shit because, like, I didn't want to leave Houston because I wanted to go to a bigger city. I just, you know, I wanted a bigger gig, I guess. And, you know, I wanted to go to L.A. Like, I really wanted to go to L.A. You know, at that time in my life, I thought that would have been cool. You know, whatever. Why do I tell you all this?

And what does it have to do with this Sabin shit? Now, well, you talk about being unable to enjoy shit in your life and look at life and go, you know, why do you not enjoy the victories? And that's kind of the thing in the Sabin documentary that I, again, have not watched yet. So I don't know all the details, but I saw something from Paul Feinbaum. And Paul Feinbaum said that, you know, Nick Saban never seemed to enjoy anything. And his assistant coaches said that he never seemed to enjoy anything. And that's what kind of blew them away is. that they were so laser focused on this task and winning championship.

So you would think that when he'd win the championship, he'd be excited or he'd be happy or there'd be some sort of joy and there'd be some sort of relief and release. And they were like, no, this guy would go out and win. And then he'd be like, so what? Let's go to work tomorrow. And I don't think I'm that psychotic. But that's how I've been everywhere. And I think that's to your detriment.

Like you should enjoy your victories. And that's something I'm not good at because I always look for the reasons why it could go away. Here's the thing, though. Like if you're playing sports, there is a winner and there is a loser. There is a scoreboard. And the scoreboard is definitive. You scored more points than the other team. There is no system that gets you those points.

You're not relying on anybody else. It's you. I work in a business where your success is determined. not just by you would think hundreds of thousands of people that are out there with radios. It really isn't. It's determined by a handful of fucking people. And your numbers can go up or go down based on one or two people in this system that we use. And I know this.

And I've told you guys this before. I knew too much about how the sausages made. And that really came from the time that I worked in Philadelphia. And we would dissect this shit. because there was a time when I was going up against Missonelli. It was wild to think because that was like 12, 13 years ago. Jesus, fucking Christ. But when we were in Philadelphia, we would really dig deep

because that was the most focus anyone had ever paid to the ratings in anything I've ever done. It's the most I've ever paid since. And you'd see the stories about how, well, Missonelli's streaming numbers are like septuple those of WIP. And then you would look at the data. And it was truly, and I'm not making this up. That number was determined by one dude.

One guy, 35 years old, black guy and Broomall, and wherever it was. And since he was a black guy, the ratings counted for a lot more. That's just the way the balance of it goes. And that's why that number was huge. But every story was, oh, my God, Missonelli's got him by a billion shares. And I'd be like, great, but like that's not real. or the last time we were number one, I believe, was the end of 2016. Like I think all through 2016 we were number one, but I'd start looking at the numbers.

And you could see the way it was trending. And I think we were number one that last month, maybe because the Thanksgiving game was on a Thursday during the afternoon. They played on Thanksgiving. And it was in the afternoon. So that shot the number up enough to make it look like we were number one. in that month. And we may have still been, but it was like,

that helped. And I would read that. And it'd be like, hey, you guys are number one, congrats. And I'd be like, yeah, but it's going away.

Like, we got to, like, it's, it's going to go away. Now, when I first started getting those number one

months with Tony, like, I'll tell you, the best feeling I've ever had. This is the most joy I used to get out of this shit. So we started that show,

I guess, in February of 2015, maybe? I guess it was February. March, February, one of them. And it was around the Super Bowl, I guess. And the first month was a pretty good one, and we were up from what it was,

and we beat Missinelli in the first month, right? And then it just started going through the fucking roof. And you'd never seen anything like it. I wish I could dig up the old numbers or emails or whatever, but it was just going through the fucking roof. And I got a call the first time. And it was like, hey, by the way, pal, your number fucking one. You're number one in person.

You're number one, men 2550. or it might have just been men 25-50 for at first, and then it was eventually became persons like, you guys are fucking number one. And it happened in a fucking month. And you're a fucking boss. And like the first month of it, I'm like, this is really fucking cool.

And then every month I'd sit back and wait for that call. But then the more you win, the more you're waiting to lose. And that was the problem. It's like, because like I couldn't enjoy winning it. Because all I could think about is eventually I'm not going to be winning it. And it's a bad way to,

I guess it's a bad way to live. I don't know. But like, that's kind of how I was. I was just waiting for it to fall apart, you know. And I would get those calls, though. And I was like, eventually it went from being a happy thing to relief, especially as it started becoming a news story. As Crossing Broad started writing more shit and other people started writing more shit

about it and it became a topic of conversation amongst people, it was a relief. Every month that we were number one, it was a relief. it became stressful and not fun. And maybe that's kind of what it is for Sabin. Maybe at some point, winning became joyless and became more stressful because the expectation is that you win. And it's almost like, like, winning became, it was more of a relief than it was joy. And maybe that's what happened to Nick Sabin.

I don't know. Like, look, on a very smaller scale, you know, I had about six, seven, eight months of this dominance that was really fucking cool. But then you look at it and you're excited that you have those numbers and you go on air and you boast about them and you swing your dick around a little bit. But you also know that one person can make or break that. And that's what started happening with the streaming numbers that everybody started bragging about for Fanatic. It was like, oh my God, look at these streaming numbers. I'm like, bro, it's not fucking real.

That's one person. It is literally one person determining that. What are you going to do? But it is tough because, and this would be my. advice to people and it's more of a do as I say not as I do piece of advice because I suck at this shit like I'm I don't follow my own advice enough and I wish I could but you got to enjoy the wins and I know it's hard especially if you know how the sausage is made but you got to enjoy your fucking wins man because at the end of the day like I think the reason in Philly it was like that

is because I made it a news story so like I was more concerned about what the reaction would be when I did lose, which we inevitably did. But I was like, you know, I was worried about what the reaction was going to be. You know, now it doesn't matter. No one's writing stories about the ratings, failures, or successes of Josh Ennis. Nobody gives a shit anymore because it's just not, I'm not in that world anymore, you know. But so maybe that was part of the reason and big part of the reason, very possibly. But like you got to enjoy your successes.

And it's just something I'm not good at. Oh, so this was the piece of information I was going to. tell you that I don't know if I've told you guys this because Jilly told me this the other day so I probably haven't. But this goes back to the thing about moving from place to place and how you're never happy anywhere and how you're always looking for the next thing. And I never moved to any city planning to move again, as I told you. But what'll happen is I'll get somewhere and the newness will wear off of it. And then I'm kind of like, all right, what's next? And I don't know. It's a weird flaw. If you want to call that a flaw, I think it's a character flaw.

that I possess, I think that's fair to say. And she goes, I would talk to your bosses at two different places since you started doing rock stuff. I talked to our boss in Nashville. And regularly, he'd say, does your husband go to therapy? And if he doesn't, should he? Like, is he a fucking mental case? And then in St. Louis, we'd be at concerts.

You know, and my boss would be there and I'd be going to get beer something. And she'd go, your husband. the most wonderful guy, and he's so talented, and all this shit. But does he go to therapy or should he? Because, like, they thought, I mean, they thought I was insane. Because I was never happy with shit. I was always, you know, I never enjoyed victories. I never, like, I was always like, I mean, I was fucked.

I mean, I would literally tell these people that employing me didn't make any sense. I am fucked up. I mean, that ain't a lie. You know, I'm broken in that way. But in a, and again, I'm not sitting here telling you, oh, I'm Nick Saban, because I'm not Nick Saban, clearly I'm not. But I am at a point where it's like I, you know, I've done something at a high level and I've done things that are in the public eye. And I do struggle to enjoy victories. I struggle to enjoy, you know, like this, like, it's weird.

Here's how I am. You break this down how you want to break it down. But I want people to acknowledge that I'm doing well. But then the second they do, I downplay it. But if they don't tell me I'm doing well, I'll stew over it. And I'll be like, what the fuck? They're not giving me my credit for this. I'm doing really well.

The second they do, I'll never go, yeah, I'm pretty fucking good. I don't know. That was an awesome or whatever. I'll say, ah, it's not that big of a fucking deal. Whatever, you know, that's fine. Whatever. Like, I'm a weird person. I am a very broken person in that way, a very strange person in that way.

But.