TUSCALOOSA, AL (WIAT) - Thursday, Terry Saban - wife of University of Alabama head football coach Nick Saban - spoke at the annual graduation of six-year-old students from the RISE school.  Since 1974, the school has served as an early intervention program for kids battling both physical and mental handicaps.  The sixteen students from the 2010 class walked across the stage at the Stallings Center to the delight of their parents, families, teachers, and loved ones in attendance.

The Stallings Center was made possible with the help of former head football coach Gene Stallings.  Coach Stallings had been inspired by the need for such programs through his relationship with his own son, Johnny, who lived with down syndrome.  Like the Stallings, the Sabans have been active with RISE since coming to Tuscaloosa in 2007.

"Terry's been a wonderful friend.  She's been a friend of RISE - she and Nick - since they moved here.  They have a lot of respect for Coach Stallings and what Coach Stallings has done, so it was just a natural match.  We're a Nick's Kids agency, and we've always had a very positive relationship with the Sabans," says RISE director Martha Cook.

You can watch some of Terry Saban's inspirational comments in that attached video.  You can also learn more about RISE and Nick's Kids by visiting their websites.