By Associated Press
Tuscaloosa, AL – As an audiotape spread on the Internet, Alabama coach Nick Saban Wednesday acknowledged using a term considered derogatory to Cajuns but said he doesn't condone such language and merely was repeating something a friend told him. Saban, a former L-S-U and Miami Dolphins coach, used an ethnic slur January Third while telling Florida reporters in Tuscaloosa an anecdote about an L-S-U fan's angry reaction to his hiring. When asked about the L-S-U fans' reaction, Saban related a phone call from a friend on the L-S-U board of trustees, whom he did not name. In what seemed to be an attempt at humor, Saban told of the friend's encounter with an L-S-U fan, who speaks in a Cajun dialect. He described the fan as one of those coonass guys that talk funny. Continuing to tell the story, Saban then quoted the worker's vulgar comment about Saban going to Alabama. Saban, in a statement Wednesday, said the word can be taken as derogatory by some people. But he said the comments need to be taken in the proper context. He also said he was paraphrasing a story a friend told him and used the same wording.
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