Nick Saban says he called recruits from the White House, where every Alabama player gets to make regular appearances

Alabama spent Tuesday at the White House for a ceremony to honor the program’s national championship in 2017. Nick Saban did not take the day off from his usual business:

Saban’s Alabama teams have been regular visitors to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The Tide have won five national titles since 2009, and they’ve followed each of those with a trip to Washington. While opinions of the person occupying the White House at any given time (and especially now) vary, there are doubtlessly many teenagers who’d think it amazing to get a tour and a ceremony of one of the world’s most important buildings.

So, the Tide are used to this. Saban said it was a “special day,” anyway. But it wasn’t special enough for Saban not to call recruits and remind them that they, too, could probably get a White House visit out of the deal if they decide to play for him. There haven’t been more than two seasons between Alabama titles since Saban’s first there in ‘09, which means anyone who’s gone to Bama since then and stayed there for a standard college career length has at least gotten the opportunity to go see the president at his digs.

We’re in the midst of what the NCAA calls a recruiting “quiet period,” which means Saban’s limited in the type of in-person contact he can have with recruits. But he’s free to call them, and if you’re working with limited recruiting options, you could do a lot worse than ringing someone from the White House. Saban is famous for squeezing every ounce of recruiting time he can out of his calendar and once got annoyed that a title game had cut into his recruiting schedule.