With Nick Saban playing behind him, Kalen DeBoer crosses another Alabama rite of passage off his list

Hoover, Ala. – As Kalen DeBoer’s SUV pulled up to Greystone Golf & Country Club Wednesday morning, tens of fans quickly swarmed the car looking for autographs and selfies — anything to get a piece of Alabama‘s new football coach.

There will be a series of “Welcome to Alabama” moments for the low-key DeBoer this first year in the Yellowhammer State, and playing in the Regions Tradition Pro-Am was one of them. Starting with Gene Stallings, every Alabama football coach has played in the event (even Mike Price, who was fired before ever coaching the Crimson Tide in a game). Within a week of being hired in January, the event was put on DeBoer’s calendar because it’s a “rite of passage,” according to the event’s executive director Gene Hallman.

Interestingly, the man he replaced was there, too. Nick Saban has played in the event every year except one since taking the Alabama job in 2007 — his lone absence was last year because of a trip to Italy — and he made the trek back from his $17.5 million vacation home in Jupiter Island, Fla., to play in an event that also featured Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze and Senator Tommy Tuberville. The event helps benefit local charities including Children’s of Alabama. 

In a moment that felt too on the nose to be real, at one point DeBoer literally stood in Nick Saban’s shadow as both hit golf balls on the driving range before beginning their rounds. Following in the footsteps of college football‘s greatest coach will chase DeBoer around all year as he replaces a man who won six national championships during an unprecedented run of success in Tuscaloosa. At least on this day, DeBoer got to play ahead of Saban in the tee times. The two posed for a photo on the range beforehand with Saban wearing his traditional straw hat and DeBoer advertising the program’s Name, Image and Likeness collective with a red Yea Alabama polo — a tiny moment emblematic of the new college football world. 

The presence of Saban was unmistakable even as he eases into retirement. He had three police officers protecting him all day — DeBoer had two — and hundreds of fans and autograph seekers followed him around the golf course all day in the humid Alabama weather. As much as you know it to be true, it still catches you off-guard to hear Saban introduced as the “former head coach of the University of Alabama,” but even in…