Justin and Rachel Williams

Coach Saban is Amazing

This blog is a tribute to coach Saban.
I am truly thankful that Bama has him as a coach. Our team is disciplined and the kids learn how to achieve whatever they want to under his leadership. A good coach teaches you life lessons as well as guides you to be the best in your sport.
Coach Saban took our football program and turned it around in one year. I was in school during the 2007 season and it was so amazing to see a packed out stadium for a spring football game! Where else does that happen? Everyone knew what Alabama football could be under Saban, but I’m not sure anyone expected what our teams have accomplished.
I love the fact that you will never see our kids getting overly excited at any point in the game, and not see Coach Saban run at them with veins poking out yelling at them to “Calm down!” I love that he tells the kids be the best you can be every single day. I love how he tells the kids to finish, its not over until it is… The “good enough” attitude is not acceptable. Imagine if the kids are able to carry this attitude with them to their jobs and their future families and even their spirituality. I love that Coach Saban has faith in our guys. We don’t line up for field goals as soon as we get in the red zone. I love that you will never see one of our players drop-kick the opponent or throw a punch on the field, and then see them return to the game. I love how coach knows his craft and gets fired up about bad calls and stupid errors committed by our players. He truly is after perfection and domination of the sport. He preaches responsibility, accountability, and work ethic. He hates the media, and while I guess I don’t really like that about him, I do think its downright hilarious.
One of the players last week said in an interview that one of his favorite quotes from coach Saban was “’There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you’ll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment.”
I love coach Saban because I think he is the best coach I have ever watched in my adult life. The players respect him, and other fan bases hate him. (Probably because they would love to have him on their sidelines.) With Coach Saban our team is serious, our team is classy, and our team dominates. In the past 4 of 5 years under Nich Saban, Alabama has been ranked at least #2 in the BCS poll each year. We have made it to two SEC championships, 1 National Championship, produced a Heisman trophy winner, and we’re probably about to repeat the latter two this year.
I wish we all could take the Saban-mindset with us in everything we wish to succeed in. Be dedicated, be classy, be relentless and finish the job.

I hope we go to New Orleans, and I feel confident in our team. I’m so excited for the guys, and I hope, hope, hope Trent gets the Heisman!! Roll Tide!!

Hi everyone! Well obviously, I have failed at keeping this thing up to date.

A lot of things have changed since I last wrote.

Daniel is now back from Afghanistan (YAY), and  in February Justin and I were able to drive down to SoCal and visit with him. We picked him up in Oceanside and the next day we got all of his luggage from Camp Pendleton and headed to Los Angeles to vacay!

We had so much fun! The first day we found our hotel room and then went out to Universal City for Daniel’s birthday celebration. He turned 21!  At Universal City we decided to eat at Boca de Pepe’s. It is an Italian restaurant owned by Danny Davito, Sylvester Stalone, and Charlie Sheen ( boo!). Haha, it was really good though. Huge portions! Just the way we like it!

We then drove around and visited Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, and the Santa Monica Pier. It was so cool to see everything you’re so used to seeing on TV, and see how posh Rodeo Drive and Beverly Hills are. We drove through the rich neighborhoods and saw the homes of the stars and even drove to the playboy mansion! In Silverlake, we got to see some venues where bands first started out before they became famous. Justin was really excited about that. We have actually seen Silversun Pickups in concert, and to see the venue where they first began and the liquor store across the street that inspired their name was pretty cool (and a little weird too, but I guess artistic personalities can draw inspiration from anywhere!! haha)

In downtown LA, we saw the fashion school, the Staples Center and many many many Lakers fans, and the completely amazing ESPN Zone. Hello! I would love to watch an Alabama football game on that HUGE TV.

Justin is friends with Peanut, the bass player from 311, on twitter and Peanut told Justin to make sure he visits the Frolic Room while in LA. I think its actually in Hollywood, but we went there and it was really neat! Even one of my old friends, Ori, that I met in Europe in 2007 came out to meet us. It was so good to see him. He has lived in LA all his life so it was wonderful to get a local’s perspective.

The next day we slept in and went to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles for brunch. Fried chicken, yummy buttery waffles and syrup and beer! What a way to start the day! It was soo good! I wake up craving this combination sometimes now. Ha! Don’t knock it til you try it!

We headed to the Santa Monica Pier, and then walked down to Venice Beach and Muscle Beach. Talk about awesome. It was so neat to see everything you see in the movies. The beach is extremely wide and Arnold’s beachfront gym is one of a kind. Daniel was excited to see the famous ocean side skate park where some of the proskaters used to ride. It was really neat. The street performers on the boardwalks were uh, individuals, lol. There are no words to describe some of them…

For dinner we ate some fresh seafood right on the beach. It was so nice to getaway and spend some time with my youngest brother. Justin and I hadn’t seen him in over a year.

He is doing really well and thank you all for your thoughts, prayers, and support for him and my family while he was at war. Please continue to pray for the rest of the military family. I pray that God is with them, that they rely on God for strength and that they return home happy, healthy, and mentally strong.

Our last day we had to head out to take Daniel to San Diego so he could catch his flight home to Alabama. After we dropped him off and said our goodbyes, Justin and I headed to the famous San Diego Zoo! It was huge! I loved seeing all the animals. The zoo was so large and it took us about 6 or 7 hours to do everything, so by the time I bought some souvenirs and we got in the car to drive all the way back to the bay area it was 430 PM. We didn’t think much of it and started back on what should have been a 7 hour drive or so…

Well.. previously in the trip we had commented on how LA traffic was not as bad as everyone said, blah blah blah… well when we got to LA around 530PM we didn’t leave the city for 3 hours! The entire interstate was like a parking lot. It was horrible. Justin and I were exhausted and tempted to stay the night somewhere, but we kept on driving and eventually made it back at 330 AM the next day! lol – It was quite the adventure!

Edit (Justin): I couldn’t help but notice she didn’t tell you about this, you should ask her   …..

As I was driving back home yesterday, I thought of some funny things that have happened to Justin and me since we have been out here in California. I thought I should start a blog and update it often with funny things that happen to us.

1) When Justin and I first moved out here, if we ever had to show our license to somebody Justin would throw his license out on the counter and say, ” Here ya go. I bet you’ve never seen one of those before.” They never thought that was funny. lol.

2)The pedestrian law here in California must be heavily enforced. …When Justin and I lived in San Ramon, we would sometimes go for walks through the neighborhoods. Whenever we met a car at any intersection, the car would always stop and let us cross – even if they didn’t have a stop sign. Justin and I were shocked, but just thought maybe the people around there were nice. One day, we decided to walk to a shopping area and get a red-box dvd. We had to cross a highway with about 6 lanes of traffic. We ran across the first 3 lanes when there was a break in traffic. We stopped at the median and planned to wait for another break in traffic, but to our surprise about 50 cars came to a stop on the highway to let us cross! haha! It was so funny. We felt so powerful!

3)On our drive out to California, we were talking with some people outside a rest station. They were doing most of the talking, and Justin replied with a singe “yeah” to one of their questions. This was the first and only thing he had said, and they immediately responded, “Where in the world are you from?”

4)On one football Saturday (Alabama/Arkansas game), we went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the game. In the South, if you walk into a Buffalo Wild Wings you will find groups of people yelling things at TVs and there will surely be a game playing over the speaker system. One does not go here to talk over dinner. In California, its ‘college’ football Saturdays (not as good as NFL football Sundays….). Buffalo Wild Wings had games on the television, mostly the USC game on almost every TV. Nobody was into anything on TV! People were actually just eating, as if it were a normal restaurant, and there was soft pop music playing over the speakers. Buffalo Wild Wings was actually a quiet, pleasant restaurant, LOL. That is until we got them to turn the BAMA game on the big screen. I think Justin and I kept scaring everybody with our random blurts of yelling, “GO, GO, GO, GO, GO!.” “YOU CANT THROW THAT, GREG!!” “WHAT!?! THAT WASN’T PASS INTERFERANCE!” At one point, I embarrassed myself when I jumped up in front of a party of 8 when we intercepted a pass. The women at the table were like, “Oh my.” LOL