@Pyrizzo: Thank you, many here at UAB wishes we could break that grip that the BoT has on our athletic program sooner rather than later, there is a grassroots movement underway whose very mission is to do just that - FreeUAB.

Former head football coach Neil Callaway almost took our football program "down thru there" in the 5 miserable years that he was in charge of the team, although his teams handled Southern Miss well, to the tune of a 3 game winning streak against them after not being able to beat them for a decade, that was his biggest and only noteworthy accomplishment on the field. One of my co-workers told me that Callaway's related by marraige to one of alabama's biggest boosters, and that's how he got the job instead of Jimbo Fisher, who they said was "too expensive" for UAB (at $600k a year, half of which local businessmen offered to pony up 1/2 of his salary, which the BoT refused to allow) yet were willing to pay him more to play second fiddle behind saban at alabama...The handwriting was clearly on the wall at this board's intentions, to sabotage UAB's hire of a real football coach and add a vital component to alabama's crimson empire. You all know where Jimbo is now since that fiasco, Florida State made him an offer he couldn't refuse, and I don't blame him, but you can bet, many at UAB were furious with how close we were to having our first "impact" football coach, only for them to throw a monkey wrench in things and force-feeding us their choice for us...IMO, his mission was to kill our football program at their behest, and he almost succeeded. At one point in his tenure, he'd even gotten a contract extension after going 15-33 in 4 seasons, based on according to our AD, "his entire body of work" WTH?! I thought to myself, especially after the basketball season we had with UAB won its' first outright regular season conference title, Mike Davis won Conference Coach of the Year, but in addtion to not being given a contract extension, he was fired the following season after a dismal 12-18 (or somewhere around those numbers) record. In all fairness to him, he was really up against it, the Todd O'Brien fiasco, the death of two very close family members in his life in the same year, it had to be kind of overwhelming. If you were to ask most UAB fans, I'd be surprised if they didn't say that both departures were necessary for the future of UAB athletics, and both new hires have sort of re-energized our fan base due in part to the fact that neither coach has a connection or ties of any kind to the university of alabama, as Davis and Callaway had. Time will tell in terms of wins and losses, but most are happy with the direction we're heading, if our football team can just get out of that relic Legion Field and into an on campus stadium, watch the life force around here go thru the inosphere. Just the thing that the UA board of trustees and most members of the birmingham sports media don't want to see...September 1 will the day that shows me if we're in the early stages of a sports renaissance or not...