Announcement at 4 pm re UAB Football reinstatement.

If you believed that the announcement on June 1st that UAB football was coming back and that Bill Clark would be the coach, you still don't understand how the Alabama Board of Trustees works.

Look this over: UAB Leadership Stalling Return of Blazer Football (Again)

In brief, what's gone on in the last couple of weeks is this. First, the UAB fans were told that unless $2.5m in cash was raised by September 1st, "they" were not going to allow the return of football, as "pledges are not money". Never mind that they are holding $22m in pledges dated to be paid by 1/1/16, no money in hand months before then means there is no support. VP Finance Allen Bolton, Smithers to President Watts' Mr. Burns, claims that this demand was made by the UAB administration, not the board. More on Smithers, I mean Bolton, in the above article.

Then it was announced that even though the UAB SGA had voted for a $25 per semester fee increase with that money to be dedicated to helping fund Foorball, Bowling, and Rifle's return, the board demanded that the students vote on the fee increase months later. Note that all of last year's seniors are now gone and can not vote. There is also concern that whatever the percentage of students vote (and such things generally have a low turnout) the board will say "See? Only 25% of the student body even bothered to vote, there is no support to bring it back". We also get around to who gets to count the online vote. I don't recall any other tuition or fee increase ever being voted on at UAB - or at UA. Note that when fees went up and subsidies to Athletics went down, there was no such vote. UAB sports subsidies from university decreased as student fees went up in 2012-13

Next came the announcement that the Board of Trustees was going to establish a "UAB Liason Committee". This group is packed with enemies of UAB, with the leaders of the movement to support the return of the UAB programs notably absent. Included are Watts and Smithers (I mean Bolton), six of the trustees, Paul Bryant, Jr, who is retiring as a trustee but will serve here, the system chancellor, the board's legal counsel to UAB, and a number of big business Alabama boosters. This will be one more layer of resistance from the board. Three of the four most poisonous to UAB trustees are on this committee.

It then came out this week that the long stalled talks to extend Bill Clark's contract have culminated in a one year, $500k offer which includes no guarantee of any further facilities being built. This is the man who has stayed the course and fought to re-establish the program, and who is out trying to recruit. This offer is a direct insult, a "why don't you get the message and just shut up and move on?". It is calculated to try to force him to quit, because they know that he is the heart and soul of bringing the program back. If they can drive him off they can then hire a crappy retread to run things into the ground and watch it wither.

The corollary to this, and it goes to the fundraising in the third paragraph,is this. Sign Bill Clark to a decent five year contract and watch the pledge money roll in. No one trusts the administration to deal fairly, and so there is resistance to donate or commit to season tickets, and you can see why there is concern. This sort of crap is what has gone on for years, and all UAB supporters know it. There are two reasons that Clark has not been signed. One, they know that his getting a real contract will cause the interest and donations to explode, and two, Clark is not asking for an exorbitant contract but he is insisting that there be a commitment to facilities on a par with the other schools in C-USA.

Yesterday, Assistant AD Shannon Ealy, who was the interim AD after Brian Mackin resigned, was sacked, along with two other long time athletic staffers. Yes, I know that a new AD wants his own people. Surely it is a coincidence that long time supporters of UAB football were sacked, right?

Same old shit. I know you guys get tired of me preaching on this, but I keep thinking that eventually a pattern will start to emerge.

 

The pattern that should emerge is most schools below the Power 5 need to drop football, or cut most scholarships and coaching salaries.

 

Because unless we're talking UAB it's just not college football season.

 

I *have* no college football team to follow. For me, it's 721 days till kickoff.

Although Jacksonville St. is giving Auburn all they want, and Bill Clark recruited most of that team. For today they are my team.

 

If it was my team getting screwed out of existence, I'd scream from the mountaintop too.

 

How much is UAB planning to spend on new facilities? Are they going to build a new stadium?

 

Who knows? One of the first things that happened when Watts announced that UAB was indeed bringing football back was that he said that there would be no increase in the university subsidy (which is fine, it was generous to start with) and that there would be no long term debt issue, no construction bonds. In other words, you want turf on the practice field? Raise the money and pay for it. Indoor practice facility? Break out your wallet. A stadium? Better find some corporate sugar daddies. UAB Athletics has operated with zero long term debt for five or six years now, because the Trustees tool of choice is to refuse to allow the construction of any facilities for football. You guys know how this works - the university issues long term bonds and pays it off over years. Who pays for a football stadium in cash?

In the short term the plan is for about $13m to build a decent practice field with turf and an indoor facility that also houses the coaches' offices. To be included is a building housing researchers who are currently working at UAB on head injuries on the medical side and improved helmets at the school of engineering. Clark also plans to include physical therapy and nutrition research for athletes, in an effort to pull the medical research side of the university into having a stake in the program and to be at the cutting edge of such research for his teams.

One of the problems is that there is zero transparency on virtually anything. From how much money was actually raised to where it is being allocated it is impossible to follow the money. Watts incurred in the area of $11m in costs in shutting the program down - paying off coach's contracts, paying four different PR firms to polish the turd that is his reputation, paying penalties for breaking the contract on scheduled games and the like. We *think* that he's covering much of that with money that was raised, but who again, who knows? We were supposed to play Tennessee in the opener. Not doing so cost us the million we would have been paid for a body bag game and another million in penalty for breaking the contract. Add in that we had a decent chance to beat them.

A new campus plan was just released. This is unusual because one came out in 2013 and they typically come out every ten years or so. The new one showed tennis courts, sand volleyball courts, two softball fields, parking and more in the on campus area that was designated for the on campus stadium. On the other hand, it did *not* show the new coaches offices that new AD Mark Ingram was showing renderings of a month ago at a booster's meeting. Even that was a rendering that goes back about eight years to previous UAB President Carol Garrison's expansion plan. It was not the indoor practice field with attached coaches offices and medical research building that I have seen plans for. People raised hell, wanting to know where the new buildings that the fundraising was for were supposed to go. Two days later yet another campus plan was released with areas that had been parking suddenly designated for those offices, etc. The plans are dated three days apart.

The Birmingham business community has stepped up and gotten involved. Downtown Birmingham is in the middle of something of a Renaissance. The new stadium for the Barons and adjacent Railroad Park have been a huge success. There is something on the order of a billion and a half dollars of downtown construction going - condos, apartments,, grocery stores, entertainment district, etc have gone up and continue to. The UAB people want an on campus stadium and the university owns the land for the site. The city of Birmingham want to build a multipurpose facility near the current convention center. If the city ponies up the money it will go there, if the boosters have to pay it will go on campus.

As of June 1, everything was all roses. Thirty million dollars had been raised in less than six weeks, and fund raising was ongoing. To be accurate, 7 1/2 million of that was donated contingent on building an on campus stadium. The board continues to throw up obstacles. Overcome one and two more pop up. They keep the goalposts on wheels so that it is easier to move them.

 

Would 150 million for an on-campus stadium and practice facility be in the ball park?

 

The man gets his money.

UAB signs coach Bill Clark to new incentive-laden 5-year contract

 

More in the area of $15 to $18m for the combination of outdoor practice fields with turf, the IPF and coaches' offices. Stadium probably around $80m, 35k or so seats, built to be able to expand. As to his contract, there was absolutely no commitment to facilities, which Clark had been fighting for. UAB President Watts has put out an edict that there will be no construction bonds issued, so any facilities must be paid for by the boosters out of pocket. His contract language did for the first time authorize the UAB Football Foundation, to raise funds for athletics and in particular football.

If I had to guess what was going to happen in the short term I'd say that the foundation builds the IPF and practice fields. The stadium is a bit up in the air. It is possible the city of Birmingham issues bonds and builds an open air stadium. If so it will be done as part of the civic center complex, uptown and off campus. If the city can't/won't do that, then the alums and boosters go into fund raising mode to build the on campus stadium.

The main thing is that Clark was signed. This will break the logjam in recruiting and fundraising, because no one locally trusted the process until his contract was done. The finance committee of the UA board approved the contract formally this morning.

Bill Clark's new contract shows a deeper commitment to UAB football's return

 

Neutral, you're slipping.

Growing friction between UAB football coach Bill Clark and AD Mark Ingram, sources say

 

Nah, its more that I'm trying not to pester y'all about UAB too damn much.

Things are to the point that the UA BOT, post Paul Bryant, Jr.'s retirement, is generally being more supportive than they ever have been. PBJ is still hugely influential behind the scenes, but the BOT was pretty badly burned over the football shutdown, and are either staying out of things or being very cautious. Everything done in public has gone very smoothly, and I think that a number of members of the board are more aware of and willing to fight what has been going on in the past. There are reports that there are a number of heavy hitters at UA who are involved in the Dark Money PAC (aka "the girlfriend fund") that was going to fund Governor Bentley's advisor/paramour. There are three separate investigations into that currently, including the FBI. I strongly suspect that there are two or three people on the UA BOT who are sweating what will come out if the donations to and expenditures by that PAC are revealed under subpoena. The 401(c)(4) PAC was initiated by Cooper Shattuck – general counsel for the UA Board of Trustees and former Bentley legal adviser

The biggest obstacles to UAB Athletics currently are the University President and his hand picked toady, AD Ingram. Both of them have had to be arm twisted into making obvious choices, and both of them are chipping away at the edges in any way they can. They're still trying their best to run Bill Clark off behind the scenes. My bet is that he'll still be there when they are both gone.

Ingram has a bad case of smartest guy in the room, including with regard to things he is clueless about. For instance, on the new football offices and indoor practice facility Ingram has insisted that the IPF not be fully enclosed. It will be a turf field with a roof and open sides instead, which throws climate control out the window... well, out the side wall that isn't there. That can be added at a later date, but it is much cheaper simply to do it all at once. The contractor could do it cheaper than Ingram thought, but he knew more than the 250 years or so of experience sitting at the table... and yes, I know someone that was at the table. The contractor suggested that positioning the building on the site the way that Ingram wants it will cost on the order of a million dollars extra due to rerouting water, sewer, and electrical... nope, that's where I want it. The current plan is to break ground on that facility this summer and to have it in place for the 2017 season.

There is a lot of money coming in for athletics, but Ingram has been responsible for little of it. Most of it is coming from the group of big Birmingham businessmen who have chosen to join the UAB Football foundation. There have been three different companies who donated $500k in the last few weeks - but it's not the AD's doing.


Then there is this press release, which has more topspin than Nadal's serve. It was distributed at a recent Public Relations Society of America's Counselors to Higher Education meeting in New Orleans.



Here you have Watts taking credit for things that were forced down his throat. He's saying that since the UAB family quit picketing in front of the Administration Building and chanting "Fire Ray Watts" on visiting team free throws that everything is calm and settled. They are not, Clark and the Big Boosters had put the word out to be calm and courteous since things are going pretty well. I read this article as basically Clark putting the word out to put the heat back on. That's somewhat delicate as withholding donations will be painted as a lack of support for athletics. The answer to that is to suspend donations to Watts pet fund which is shooting for a billion dollars and to direct funds to athletic scholarships, endowing chairs, or other areas of financial support instead of the Fund For UAB. I suspect that people will be back in the streets.

My personal favorite line on that particular piece of propaganda is "Social media returns to civil level". Facebook has heated back up quickly, and both his e-mails and social media are about to return to a boil with this article coming out.

489 more days until #TheReturn of UAB football.