Nick Saban is worth every penny.

You've heard that before. I know you have. We've all been in or near a conversation in which the Alabama football coach's $6 million-plus salary comes up, and inevitably, some Alabama fan in the group will blurt out: "Hell, he's worth every penny and then some!" As if $6 million is a completely reasonable sum for convincing a group of teens to get a ball in a rectangular area better than another group of teens.

(I would say that Saban also might convince them to get the ball through those tall goalposts, but, well, it would take a second to run past you why he's not very good at that.)

Saban is an excellent football coach. One of the best, if not the best in the game today.

To make sure it retains the best teacher of young footballers, the University of Alabama, in addition to that $6 million-plus salary, allowed a group of boosters who run a non-profit organization to buy Saban's $3.1 million home last year, according to various news reports.

The coach still lives in the home, and the director of this non-profit says Saban will continue to live there for as long as he likes, as the non-profit pays the property taxes and the Sabans enjoy that $3.1 million.

Why? Because Saban is a good coach. And to attract and keep the best at something, every football fan in this state will tell you, you have to pay the going rate. Just the cost of doing business. It's a known fact. No disputing it. The way of the world in a capitalist country.

Except, of course, when it comes to school teachers and cops and firefighters and judges and pretty much anyone else whose paycheck comes from tax dollars.

We have cut and cut and cut some more all of those.

State troopers, in addition to overall force reductions, haven't had a raise in at least seven years. The starting pay is only $35,589, the same pay they were receiving in 2008.

For that $35k, you get a guy who's expected to risk his life, work nightmare-inducing traffic accidents and be level-headed and smart.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that you can't get and keep good troopers at that pay rate. What you can get are a bunch of thrill-seeking dopes who turn every speeding ticket into the takedown of a drug lord.

We have similar problems in local police departments, where recruiting new, competent officers in some larger cities, like Montgomery, has become a major issue.

But nowhere can the effects of low pay be spotted as easily as in education.

You can rant and stomp your feet all you want about unmotivated and uncaring teachers — and that's exactly what the Republican-led Legislature did a few years ago when it succeeded in sticking teachers with higher insurance premiums and fewer benefits — but the bottom line is Alabama teachers are underpaid. We all know it.

We know that other school systems in other states are not only paying higher salaries, but they're also providing the tools and resources that make a teacher successful — the training, the pre-K opportunities for all students, the summer schooling for at-risk students and smaller class sizes.

That's why they're moving ahead and leaving us once again sitting near the bottom.

But hey, don't take my word for it. Take the word of former Gov. Bob Riley. A Republican who I know for a fact agrees with me on about 5 percent of things — almost all of them education-related.

He saw how awful our schools were back in 2002, when he was elected. So he expanded programs started under former Gov. Don Siegelman and started his own. He increased teacher pay and pushed for smaller class sizes.

No surprise: Alabama moved 30 spots up the rankings in some polls over the course of those few years.

People act as if educating children is akin to playing solitaire with 51 cards. It's not. It's a winnable task, and we know the solutions. We know the programs that work, the approaches that work, the teachers we need to make it all work. It's just a matter of paying for it.

Same with police and fire and courts.

They're all exactly the same as football.

You get what you pay for.

Read or Share this story: