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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Terry Saban energetically marches through the halls of Alabama’s football building, stopping frequently to pop her head into office doorways and offer friendly greetings, smiles and hugs.

Outgoing and cheerful, Alabama’s football first lady seems in sharp contrast to her more introverted, intense husband of 36 years, Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban.

He is more comfortable studying film in his office than chatting in the halls. That doesn’t mean he’s not friendly, his wife says.

“A lot of people have mistaken his maybe downcast eyes when he walks through the hall as conceit, but honestly he is reserved, he is shy and he pretty much has the attitude of speak when spoken to,” Terry Saban said. “Unlike me. I’m always looking for eye contact: Did he look at me. Did she see me? Hi!

“I’m always looking for that. I feed off it, and I love it and if I don’t have it for very long I miss it.”

Saban is the coach known for his national championship at LSU, his record-setting $4 million salary at Alabama and his not always media-friendly public persona. Terry Saban, by contrast, is a genial unofficial ambassador for the program. Helping raise money for charities. Speaking to about one church or civic group per week.

And smiling. Frequently.

“I remember the first time I met her, when coach invited us out to their house, I felt like I’d been knowing her for years,” Tide center Antoine Caldwell said. “I don’t think she’s ever met a stranger in her life. That’s how she makes you feel.”

And the first time he met Saban, at a team meeting shortly after he arrived in Tuscaloosa?

“He actually tried to crack a joke during the meeting, but nobody really knew whether to laugh or smile,” said Caldwell, adding that it took a while to get to know Saban.

“They say opposites attract,” he said. “I guess that’s how coach and her got together. She’s a real sweet lady.”

Terry Saban has helped organize fundraisers at Alabama’s past two spring games, raising about $50,000 for tornado victims in Enterprise last year and the university library this past Saturday.

For her latest efforts, she scurried around outside the stadium with a bucket helping collect money, easily mingling with fans, exchanging frequent hugs and posing for dozens of photos while a security guard struggled to keep up.

“I don’t even have to go to the ball game,” one fan said, walking away after having his picture taken with her. “My day’s been made.”

“I appreciate all you do,” another fan, Jacee Butts, said while sharing a hug. “You’re such a sweetheart.”

The Saban’s own charity, Nick’s Kids, donated over $300,000 mostly to local charities helping children in 2007. The workaholic coach gives his wife credit for devoting her time to help guide those endeavors.

“She’s got a lot of compassion for people,” Nick Saban said. “She’s got a great heart about helping others and works hard at Nick’s Kids and works hard for the university. When she sees something that she feels she can affect, she’ll go for it. And she enjoys doing it.”

Terry Saban, who married Nick when he was a graduate assistant, seems to embrace the public role of being a head coach’s wife in college football country. She splices two of her husband’s favorite phrases into a 30-minute interview, like “the process” of building a program and “it is what it is.”

She wears sandals that have numerous miniature footballs protruding from the straps. And she helped steer Nick Saban back to college football from the NFL’s Miami Dolphins.

Terry Saban said she has only missed one of his games, home or away, in 36 years, and that’s when her mother was sick. They have a son in college and a daughter in high school.

Nick Saban calls home at least once a day to check on her, she said. She talked him into going to Pilates classes with her once or twice a week this spring after he had neck surgery.

“He may be an old dog, but you can teach him new tricks,” Terry Saban said.

Nick Saban also credits the daughter of a West Virginia coal miner with helping him overcome shyness and “get rid of my hillbilly slang and language.”

“I went to this small rural country school where we all wore white socks and she was from the big city, even though in West Virginia 30,000 is like New York City,” said Saban, who is from Fairmont, W. Va. “She was a little more worldly and I was very shy.

“She’s very, very outgoing. I was probably the quiet, shy type. And I think it helped me through the years develop a more confident social kind of attitude.”

Not entirely sociable. He would still rather settle into his Lazyboy recliner with the dogs than go out to a fancy restaurant after a long day at the office.

Terry Saban said that has more to do with him not getting enough down time at home than not wanting to mingle with fans. It is apparently worth a lot to him.

Last Mother’s Day, for instance, Terry Saban said she wanted a grandfather clock.

When she told him how much it cost, “He said, ’That’s ridiculous. I’m not buying that,’” Terry Saban said. “I said, ‘Fine, just take me out to eat.’ He said, ’How much is the clock?” ’

© 2008, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.