The Fairmont Times picked up this Washington Post article about Alabama’s Tide Foundation buying Brother’s home for $3.1 million -- $200,000 more than the Sabans paid for it -- with the stipulation that he could live in it for the rest of his life, even after he retired as Alabama’s football coach.

Now I’m going to tell you the rest of the story, as radio host Paul Harvey liked to say.

The Tide Foundation purchased the Saban domicile because Texas was trying to lure Brother to replace Mack Brown as their coach. 

Foundation assistant secretary Scott Phelps explained that it was done to “keep (Saban) happy.” The sale was completed in March 2013 amid rumors that Texas wanted to dump Brown for Brother. 

Texas settled for Louisville’s Charlie Strong, paying his buyout fee to the Cardinals by making Strong’s first year’s payday $9.375 million.

It’s not a first, even in the Southeastern Conference. Auburn University purchased coach Pat Dye’s home in 1983.

Because head football coaches move around so much – they average 5.1 years at their jobs -- unloading their mansions can be a problem.

Southern Cal head football coach Lane Kiffin and his wife, Layla, bought a 7,308-square-foot home in Manhattan Beach for $5.5 million – two years’ salary at the time. Three years later, he was fired, and the mansion became a white elephant.

Brother hired Kiffin as Alabama’s offensive coordinator a few months later.

It took Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze nine months to sell his Oxford, Mississippi home in 2007 when he left as the school’s assistant coach.

Freeze’s predecessor at Ole Miss, Houston Nutt, was stuck with two homes, a $1.6 million mansion on 30 acres and nearby 136 acres with a barn and nine horses that cost $1.3 million, when he was fired. Both properties were on a 45-acre lake.

When former West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez was canned by Michigan, he had to take a $200,000 loss after nine months of trying to sell his home in Saline, Michigan. It went for $1.3 million. 

Rich and Rita’s sale of their Cheat Lake home in Morgantown wound up in the State Supreme Court and in and out of other courts after the Weirton purchasers sued.

After former Arkansas Razorbacks coach Bobby Petrino was fired, he took a $550,000 loss on his Fayetteville, Arkansas, home. The 8,740-square-foot house went for $1.7 million.

Ron Zook, fired by Illinois, was stuck with a 6,000-square-foot house in Champaign, Illinois. Even at $799,000 and being on the market for seventh months, it remained unsold. 

Zook and wife Denise have built 13 homes in their 31-year marriage. He went to work for CBS Sports and moved into a house he built in Lake Weir, Florida.

Ohio State coach Urban Meyer and his wife, Shelley, paid $1.45 million for their 11,700- square-foot Muirfield home overlooking the seventh green of the Muirfield Village Golf Club in a gated portion of the Dublin golf community. 

They’re still trying to sell their $1.7 million house in Gainesville, where the average home sells for about $149,000. They bought it while Meyer was Florida’s head coach.

"If you win, you move, and if you lose, you move," says Terry Saban. "You like to be positive and have faith, but you can't help but think about the next move."

Nick and Terry Saban bought a home in Lake Burton, Georgia that they intended to use for their family, but changed their minds after a different lot became available. Priced at $10.95 million, it is 10,000 square feet, with six bedrooms and nine baths.

Brother had national champions at LSU (in 2003) and Alabama (2009, 2011, 2012), the only major-college coach to do that at different schools. He and Bear Bryant are the only coaches to win an SEC championship at two schools – Bryant at Alabama and Texas A&M.

Brother was a graduate assistant at Kent State, then an assistant coach at Syracuse, West Virginia, Ohio State, Navy and Michigan State and with the Houston Oilers and Cleveland Browns in the National Football League.

His first head coaching job was at Toledo for the 1990 season, where he turned down Urban Meyer’s application to be his assistant. Brother became East Michigan’s head coach in 1995 and took over at LSU in 1999 before switching to Alabama.

The pride of Carolina and Monongah High, where he quarterbacked the Lions to the 1968 state championship, is a son of Nick Lou Saban, Sr. – sponsor and coach of the legendary Black Diamonds Pop Warner youth football team -- and his wife, Mary.

Nick and Terry Constable have two children, Nicholas and Kristen. 

Brother’s sister – who gave him the nickname that has stuck to this day – is Dianna “Dene” Saban Thompson, Class of 1968, a Monongah Elementary teacher who lives in Hutchinson with husband Leroy.