It can be very difficult to get Alabama coach Nick Saban to focus on anything besides football. After all, this is a guy who said he didn’t know it had been Election Day.
But on Tuesday, Saban received a visit from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (who has embarked on what looks suspiciously like a political campaign primer). Zuckerberg posted a photo on Facebook of himself and his wife with Saban and another of him lunching with some Alabama football players.
Saban must have been really intensely engaged with this meeting because at a luncheon afterward he charmingly referred to Zuckerberg as “the Facebook guy.”
Via Alabama.com, here’s what Saban had to say about Zuckerberg:
“I just met with Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook guy,” Saban said. “He wanted to know about leadership, and what do you do to affect people.”
Zuckerberg, he said, was aware of the role of football in the state. “It was kind of interesting that he saw the spirit that we have in this state relative to supporting athletics as something that is very special, very unique, and very wholesome in terms of people having the opportunity to create hope whether it’s in competition, or something they believe in or a spirit,” Saban said.
It sounds like a mutually productive meeting. Zuckerberg learned about Saban’s leadership strategies, and Saban learned Zuckerberg’s name.
