BATON ROUGE – LSU women's basketball coach Kim Mulkey was on the phone Wednesday afternoon with a friend who she said is a huge Alabama football fan when her son, Kramer, and assistant coach Joe Schwartz texted her and broke the new to her that Nick Saban was retiring.

"How am I going to tell my friend this on the phone?" Mulkey recalled. "When I did, there was dead silence and then she said, 'that's why my kids were trying to FaceTime me and said are you sitting down, mom?'"

Saban, who won the most national championships as a coach in college football history with seven at LSU and Alabama along with 11 total Southeastern Conference championships at both schools, stepped down as the Crimson Tide's coach after 17 seasons.

Earlier this month, the Tide lost in the semifinals to eventual College Football Playoff champion Michigan in overtime in the Rose Bowl.

Mulkey has met Saban in passing at an SEC meeting, saying she went out of her way to shake his hand. But she's admired the Alabama football coach from afar for some time.

"I'm a huge fan from afar," Mulkey said. "If I had to tell you why? He's a winner. He's a leader. He's the leader of people in a locker room. You don't have to like him, half the people in the world don't like me, but he's a leader, he knows how to win.

"He went out on his terms, they had an unbelievable season with probably a team that overachieved."

Saban and Mulkey have plenty in common in terms of success in their respective sports thanks to their demanding styles of coaching.

How he operated and managed his staff and teams stood out to Mulkey and she knows that the profession won't be the same without Saban in it.

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"He's going to be missed, not just in football but from a coaching perspective, you watch coaches. And I've watched him for years, I've read his books," Mulkey said. "That's what I think of him, as much respect. I would've want to be the person that follows him"

Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers and Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers and Cajuns coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU/UL athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Kim Mulkey on Nick Saban retiring: 'He's going to be missed'