Tip-off the C-USA schedule with the UAB National Alumni Society on Sunday, January 3, 2016 as a part of
UAB Men's Basketball Alumni Day.
12:30 p.m. - Lunch
1:30 p.m. - Blazer Walk to Bartow Arena
2:00 p.m. - Tip-off against MTSU
Pre-game lunch tickets:
$5 - NAS Members
$10 - Non-Members
(6 and under - free!)
Game tickets are NOT included with the lunch ticket. Tickets to the conference opening game can be purchased during the event at the UAB National Alumni Society House (1301 10th Avenue South).
Contact Sarah Salzmann for more information at ssalzman@uab.edu or 205.934.3555.
GO BLAZERS!
Did everyone else reup their alumni society membership? Given the the "attitude" of the leadership during the football crisis, I did not. (I sure they won't miss me.) Kahn, and Becky are gone, but the alumni leadership was too close to Watts during the entire affair for my comfort. Plus their changing of the bylaws in order to stay in power ticked me off. Maybe when Watts is gone.....
(12-10-2015 01:32 PM)CajunBlazer Wrote: [ -> ]Did everyone else reup their alumni society membership? Given the the "attitude" of the leadership during the football crisis, I did not. (I sure they won't miss me.) Kahn, and Becky are gone, but the alumni leadership was too close to Watts during the entire affair for my comfort. Plus their changing of the bylaws in order to stay in power ticked me off. Maybe when Watts is gone.....
I'm not planning on going back, AND I didn't renew that dragonless car tag either. The NAS bottom line must be hurting from that.
I'll reconsider after some time passes, maybe.
I kept the old tag and said no to the NAS.
FWIW - the NAS is not one person, or one attitude, or one approach. It is everyone in the NAS. If you leave because you don't like it, you just move the needle a little bit in the direction you don't want it to move.
During the crisis there were people in the NAS and on the board who were thoroughly pissed by what happened... but there were others who just didn't get it, don't get sports in general, don't get football, don't get southern culture about football, etc. There were probably even some that agreed with what happened or were at best apathetic.
What publicly comes out of the NAS is filtered through that diversity of viewpoints/positions as well as political posturing. I think the desires of those angry about what happened, however, were eventually carried out.
The NAS leadership had to 1) represent everyone, 2) at least appear objective to the administration to keep the embassy open, and 3) use the political climate/opportunity to help UAB as best as they knew how. I know some will argue that there were people who were more interested in helping themselves. That may be true, but I would argue that is true of almost any political situation.
It wasn't exactly pretty, but if you recall a few amazing things came from the NAS during all that happened.... I think it was probably a group of former NAS presidents that suggested to Watts that a re-evaluation would be prudent. The conditional no confidence vote was weird, but Watts had just announced the re-eval. It should have been worded better, but they could not slam the door the president just opened. The NAS eventually requested that Watts resign. The president of the NAS made the president of the UA NAS seem silly with the latter's request the keep politics out of the BOT - now go email your senator message. LOL! They got in person meetings with the BOT (thanks to the political climate created by the protests of others). It takes some people making a ruckus for that to happen, but you can't have the NAS leadership making the ruckus themselves - otherwise, again, you are slamming a door. The NAS then pledged a significant amount to the football campaign.
So... in the end, I think it did fairly well.
Regarding the change in the bylaws... that was handled poorly. Then I think they realized that and halfway backed off.
From the NAS perspective, they were worried that their meeting, which is normally a lighted attended formality of announcing new members, would become a bashing session for their volunteers to knock them down while hyping the "FreeUAB" candidate. Also, I think that there was some worry that they, who have been doing this for years, raising scholarship money, begging people to come to games, etc., while no one else seemed to care all that much, would get booted out via a rather bizarre set of voting rules in the bylaws that no one cared to notice before.
In the end, that was all moot. There were two write-in slots, the names everyone should write in were widely distributed. When the votes where counted, the write-ins were no where close to taking those two seats. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I was at the meeting where the results were announced. Enough info was given that you could do the math, and I looked at the guy next to me and we agreed that for as much noise as people were making, they stunk at putting an envelope in the mail. If you can't take two seats via write in, you aren't going to coup de tat the whole board.
(12-10-2015 03:11 PM)legalblazer Wrote: [ -> ]FWIW - the NAS is not one person, or one attitude, or one approach. It is everyone in the NAS. If you leave because you don't like it, you just move the needle a little bit in the direction you don't want it to move.
During the crisis there were people in the NAS and on the board who were thoroughly pissed by what happened... but there were others who just didn't get it, don't get sports in general, don't get football, don't get southern culture about football, etc. There were probably even some that agreed with what happened or were at best apathetic.
What publicly comes out of the NAS is filtered through that diversity of viewpoints/positions as well as political posturing. I think the desires of those angry about what happened, however, were eventually carried out.
The NAS leadership had to 1) represent everyone, 2) at least appear objective to the administration to keep the embassy open, and 3) use the political climate/opportunity to help UAB as best as they knew how. I know some will argue that there were people who were more interested in helping themselves. That may be true, but I would argue that is true of almost any political situation.
It wasn't exactly pretty, but if you recall a few amazing things came from the NAS during all that happened.... I think it was probably a group of former NAS presidents that suggested to Watts that a re-evaluation would be prudent. The conditional no confidence vote was weird, but Watts had just announced the re-eval. It should have been worded better, but they could not slam the door the president just opened. The NAS eventually requested that Watts resign. The president of the NAS made the president of the UA NAS seem silly with the latter's request the keep politics out of the BOT - now go email your senator message. LOL! They got in person meetings with the BOT (thanks to the political climate created by the protests of others). It takes some people making a ruckus for that to happen, but you can't have the NAS leadership making the ruckus themselves - otherwise, again, you are slamming a door. The NAS then pledged a significant amount to the football campaign.
So... in the end, I think it did fairly well.
Regarding the change in the bylaws... that was handled poorly. Then I think they realized that and halfway backed off.
From the NAS perspective, they were worried that their meeting, which is normally a lighted attended formality of announcing new members, would become a bashing session for their volunteers to knock them down while hyping the "FreeUAB" candidate. Also, I think that there was some worry that they, who have been doing this for years, raising scholarship money, begging people to come to games, etc., while no one else seemed to care all that much, would get booted out via a rather bizarre set of voting rules in the bylaws that no one cared to notice before.
In the end, that was all moot. There were two write-in slots, the names everyone should write in were widely distributed. When the votes where counted, the write-ins were no where close to taking those two seats. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I was at the meeting where the results were announced. Enough info was given that you could do the math, and I looked at the guy next to me and we agreed that for as much noise as people were making, they stunk at putting an envelope in the mail. If you can't take two seats via write in, you aren't going to coup de tat the whole board.
Good Post. As Far as the By Laws, I had a couple of discussions with NAS leadership and had to explain the anger. It was poorly executed by the NAS.
(12-10-2015 03:11 PM)legalblazer Wrote: [ -> ]FWIW - the NAS is not one person, or one attitude, or one approach. It is everyone in the NAS. If you leave because you don't like it, you just move the needle a little bit in the direction you don't want it to move.
....
So... in the end, I think it did fairly well.
...
If you can't take two seats via write in, you aren't going to coup de tat the whole board.
Also, if you pay your dues, and the people who are in charge act crazy (even if many of them didn't act crazy and even if many agreed with you), then you can make the choice to say, "I'll take my funds elsewhere."
I am okay with what the NAS did in the end. It was bumpy along the way.
A failed coup doesn't mean the masses weren't right. In fact, part of the failure of the coup was that many had already walked away from the NAS by then and didn't help with the vote. Also, many (including me) didn't want the WHOLE board out because we recognize, as you pointed out, that there are some loyalists on the board who love UAB and work hard for it. Maybe those people can get the NAS headed back in a good direction.
I'll wait for that.