Does Alabama demand too much of their football players?
Anthony Steen, backup center for the Miami Dolphins and a three-year starter at center under Nick Saban, believes that a lot of Alabama players he played with mentally pushed themselves through more than they really should have.
“Football, a lot of it is mentally,” Steen said, via Joe Schad of the Palm Beach Post. “If you can work through pain, you can go. But at ‘Bama, that was the problem. A lot of things you went through and you shouldn’t have. You should have stayed off of it. That’s why a lot of guys from ‘Bama are hurt.”
Steen required a shoulder surgery after his final year, and he expressed some regret that he waited too long to have it.
Late Friday, Steen took to Instagram to clarify his comments, which were construed by some as being critical of Nick Saban’s program for pushing players too far.
“They started to ask me about being hurt now and being hurt in college and bama players getting hurt in the NFL and what I said was that I think that a lot of it has to do with mental toughness because at bama we played through everything because we all were mentally tough!” Steen wrote. “Those of you that know me know i wouldn’t ever talk down about ALABAMA and I was really trying to compliment how I think bama players are mentally tough and of course the media turned it into something else!”
Saban does get a lot of criticism for how he runs his practices, but of a different sort. Steen was simply praising Alabama players as being mentally tough and able to play through a lot. That’s not necessarily a good thing, but it’s not really meant as a criticism, either.
