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Boss Hogs fingerprints are all over the weapons used to murder UAB football. Remember 2006?



Everything came out in the open last week when the UAB Blazers of Conference USA were ready to hire LSU offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher as their headcoach. All that remained was ironing out the details. It was to be for $600,000 a year, most of which was going to be covered by some influential UAB supporters. But then the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama system (which includes the University of Alabama, UAB and UAH) stepped in and said that UAB could not hire Fisher. They claimed it was because of financial considerations, but that excuse doesn't hold water since the bulk of Fisher’s salary was going to be covered by boosters.

Apparently, the Board of Trustees realized UAB was about to hire the most coveted assistant coach in the country. They realized It also could mean that UAB might wind up with a better coach than Alabama, and the idea panicked the Board of Trustees. They decided that couldn't happen, so they stepped in and overstepped the boundaries of a Board. They took the hiring of UAB’s coach right out of UAB’s hands. Not only did they not allow UAB to hire Fisher, they then imposed their own handpicked candidate on UAB. They strongly suggested Neil Callaway, was the acceptable choice for UAB.

The Board will deny the Callaway link, but after the Fisher debacle there is no other explanation for UAB turning to Callaway, a former Alabama player with no head coaching experience that no other school on the planet was looking to hire. Fisher had no head coaching experience either, but he has been coveted by schools before and will be again; Callaway has not. Fisher is thought to be the next Bob Stoops waiting to happen; Callaway is not.There is one other possible explanation. The Alabama job is still open and there are plenty in Tuscaloosa who believe Nick Saban is going to leave the Miami Dolphins after Miami’s season ends. If Saban were to actually take the UA job, perhaps he would bring his old offensive coordinator from LSU with him, and that would be Jimbo Fisher. Then, in four of five years when Saban got the inevitable itch to move on, it would be an easy move to elevate Fisher to the head coaching job at Alabama, which could be what the UA Board of Trustees wants all along. That way they could achieve two goals–they could get one of the hottest coaches in the country at Alabama and simultaneously knock the pins out from under the UAB football program, making sure it continued to struggle along until perhaps just giving up the ghost and dropping football. That would delight the University Of Alabama Board Of Trustees.

It escalated after the OCS proposal.

Jimmy Filler in 2011:
"I think the final nail was today. The Board of Trustees has made a decision for the people of Birmingham that it will not have college football in the Magic City.

"I spoke with Coach Bartow this morning and he told me to never give up. But he did remind me that I owe him two steak dinners that I bet we would have a new stadium. I'm also sorry that the father of UAB athletics will not see his last dream come true."

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/...respo.html

2006 was ONE of the points in the BOT's "Body of work". One earlier point was when they learned that TWO UAB players, Thomas and Freeman, might be selected in the first round of Saturday's NFL Draft. The day before that draft, a BOT committee (under Joe Fine, now a paid lobbyist for UA in Montgomery) lambasted the UAB football program for its failure to make a profit and threatened to terminate the program soon. That attack completely killed any positive "buzz" around the draft of the two players, hence the term "Black Friday".

It is this "BODY OF WORK" over twenty years that damns the BOT in the eyes of any OBJECTIVE reader. Each act - always couched in "fiscal responsibility" terms - by itself is not proof but when seen as a pattern of belligerence, it shows up clearly. They are the enemy of both an independent UAB and the city in which it lives.

I sent this to some people privately as few days ago, but I feel compelled to share with everyone now:

Some of you may know that I played football under Watson Brown from 1995-1997. I had his number, so last night, I called him. He and I haven't spoken since he left UAB in 2006, but I was getting sentimental seeing him quoted in articles and hearing him speak on TV.

He is truly heart-broken. You guys may not realize it because of the crash we suffered in 2006, but he worked extremely hard for UAB for 12 years and faced our demons every day.

Here's the part you might be interested in: He said in 2006, he was ready to become the full-time AD and he recommended Pat Sullivan to be his successor. Carol Garrison agreed, but they knew it would not go over well with some trustees (given who Sullivan is/was), so he asked Garrison to let him handle it since he was the only UAB person with any slight relationship with Bryant. Garrison said no. She wanted to handle it, and she went behind Bryant's back to get it done.

Well, she called Watson at 10:00 PM one night and said, "I did it. (She had gotten enough trustees to agree to hire Sullivan without Bryant's support.) Come see me in the morning and we'll get everything ready and make an announcement that Pat will be the new head coach." So, Watson goes to see her the next morning, and Carol says, "It fell through." Watson was pissed and wanted to go meet with Bryant right then, but Garrison ordered him not to say a word. She said she was afraid the board would force them to close the program right then if they spoke out. Watson lost his cool, and resigned.

He was upset because he feels like if he hadn't lost his cool, he could have still been AD at UAB now and he would have seen this coming and stopped it. I'll agree with that, because there is NO WAY that Mackin didn't know this was coming. Mackin knew in July when UAB asked for a one-year deal at Legion Field (super red flag). Mackin must have known 1-2 years ago when a school called to schedule in 2017-2018 and someone told Mackin not to schedule that far out (another red flag). Mackin knew from WAY back, and he never alerted anyone to try to stop it. We figured it out in October, but the fix was in and we couldn't turn it.

Watson whole-heartedly agrees that Watts was hired to do this job.

Wow. Just wow.

That makes a lot more sense than Watson throwing Sullivan under a bus as has been rumored before.

I would agree with that.

If this is true, I'll be the first to say I owe Watson an apology. For years it seemed as he was the one who screwed Sullivan. But yet and still, no one will speak up. You do no good quietly supporting when people need someone to stand up and say what is going on.

Yep. It makes too much sense and has too many details to be far from the truth.

Yep. Pat was virtually signed, sealed and delivered and some of the Auburn faithful were knowledgeable of his impending hire and certainly were supportive of him becoming Head Coach at UAB. I'm glad to hear that Watson has laid out his position in this sorry state of affairs that we endured and are still enduring to this day.

(12-08-2014 02:43 PM)the_blazerman Wrote:  It escalated after the OCS proposal.

And after Dr. G was forced to resign because she defied them and put it on the agenda.

Does this mean that we can give the person formerly known as Zero a +1?

(12-08-2014 03:39 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  

(12-08-2014 02:43 PM)the_blazerman Wrote:  It escalated after the OCS proposal.

And after Dr. G was forced to resign because she defied them and put it on the agenda.

And when Callaway was fired.

(12-08-2014 03:22 PM)legalblazer Wrote:  That makes a lot more sense than Watson throwing Sullivan under a bus as has been rumored before.

Yeah, he went on to say that he was upset that he got blamed for it after he left. He said they used him as the scapegoat since he was already gone.

He indicated that this one event didn't run him off, but it was the last straw. He said, "I just couldn't take it anymore."

I never knew Watson Brown personally but I did encounter him a few different times and those encounters never led me to believe he was as self centered as some have made him out to be. This kind of narrative is more in line with the man I met.

Why did Watson leave?

Is it realistic for Watson Brown and Pat Sullivan to issue some sort of joint-statement about what's going on right now? Not saying that would be a cure-all but every little bit helps.

(12-08-2014 03:19 PM)biglizard Wrote:  Wow. Just wow.

Well, I'll be dipped!

I too thought that Watson got a lot of blame that he didn't deserve. There has got to be some SACS accreditation issues somewhere.