The unofficial commissioners meeting consisted of a lawyer, a doctor, an investment banker, a retired businessman and a sports writer.
The office was a west Little Rock pizza place with several TVs and Wednesday, shortly after 4 p.m., minutes after the team meeting in Tuscaloosa ended, a crawl on the TVs said Nick Saban was retiring.
First thought was half of Alabama -- the Auburn half -- was singing the king is dead and the next thought was probably most of college football coaches throughout the entire country were sighing in relief.
A few coaches in the SEC had to be thinking, finally, job security.
His retirement, actually predicted in this space last summer, was not really a shocker. He and his wife "Miss Terry' had bought a $17 million mansion last year, more than 700 miles away on Jupiter Island, Fla., where a neighbor is Tiger Woods.
That's not a weekend home even for the man who has won more national championships in college football than anyone.
Who technically never had a losing season in his 28-year career as a head college football coach. Who is often referred to as the Greatest Of All Time, although some who had to deal with his gruff exterior and gruffer interior might have just called him an old goat.
He wasn't paid to be a nice guy. He was paid to win, and he did that in big numbers whether it was at Alabama or LSU, Michigan State or Toledo.
The West Virginia native was born to coach in the SEC and his conference record, including five years at LSU, was 148-27, counting three games Alabama had to vacate for NCAA violations before Saban arrived, but he still won the games.
He was 20-2 vs. Arkansas and one of the Razorbacks' wins was called a Miracle on Markham Street.
Most likely no one will ever challenge his total of seven national championships, and while he said his decision to step aside now was because at 72 (as of last Halloween) he couldn't meet his own demands, but the NIL had to figure in it.
His sales pitch to recruits that he could make them NFL millionaires in three years lost some clout when others were able to make recruits instant millionaires.
Saban was not perfect and didn't pretend to be.
Shortly after he landed at LSU, he was nicknamed "Satan," and it bothered him enough to ask sports writer Ron Higgins why he was called that.
While at Alabama, Coca-Cola reportedly came up with a promotion that had life size cutouts of Saban, Auburn's Tommy Tuberville and Ole Miss' Houston Nutt on display in grocery stores in the South. But it was only for a short time because Saban was much shorter -- about 5-6 -- than Tuberville and Nutt and he thought it might hurt recruiting.
Down came the cutouts.
Still, no one has dominated college football like Saban did at LSU and especially Alabama, where he not only won six of his national titles but was in the championship game three more times.
His grand finale was a 27-20 overtime loss to Michigan in the semifinals of the College Football Playoffs, and the Wolverines easily won the championship 34-13 over Washington.
While yours truly was always thankful he didn't have to cover a coach who used the media to get messages to the fans and players, Saban was respected for being the best at his job there ever was.
The question now is who is willing to replace a legend? It will need to be someone with a a huge ego, maybe even have some narcissism.
It took Alabama six coaches and 25 years to replace Paul "Bear" Bryant with the fans.
It will take longer to replace the G.O.A.T., if it can be done.
Long live the king.