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After U.A.B. Football Program’s Death, Outcry Raises the Possibility of a Quick Resurrection
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/09/sports....html?_r=0

Looks like the BOT didnt get a chance to try to frame the article to put themselves and Watts in a good light. They both deserve to be in the High Beams, locally and nationally.

Pretty good article.

I think you are misreading the article. Watts comes across as embattled against the football crazed South. This is the New York Times after all.

As expected, the NY Times article picks up the process from last fall, ignoring the (hostile) actions of the system BOT since the beginning of this century. THEY carried out "Black Friday" entirely on their own. THEY blocked UAB's choices of coaching successor to Watson Brown and imposed THEIR choice of a coach THEY would NEVER considered hiring for their own program. THEY maneuvered to eliminate the OCS from their agenda by secret backdoor methods. In this light, it is not a stretch to consider that Dr Ray Watts was hired to be THEIR "hit man" to kill UAB football once and for all and the Carr report was only a convenient device.

Just like when Mike Shula's team went 6-6 giving them a chance to fire him, UAB's 6-6 record with its growth of attendance and promises of increased financial support for facilities, the BOT struck while "the iron was hot" to end UAB football before it got too big to easily kill. What if Shula's team had gone 9-3 or UAB had done the same the next year? The BOT would have been revealed as the self-styled omnipotent power figure it is if it killed either staff then.

It's a huge improvement over Nocera's one-phone-call hack job.

(02-08-2015 10:19 PM)58-56 Wrote:  It's a huge improvement over Nocera's one-phone-call hack job.

+1. Glad the NYT is still reporting on the story.

Quote:Susan Key, a member of the faculty senate and a management professor at U.A.B., said she was still struggling to understand why the university — with a budget of more than $2 billion — could not afford football.

“The whole athletic department is a fraction of the budget,” she said.

(02-08-2015 11:05 PM)hooverblazer Wrote:  

(02-08-2015 10:19 PM)58-56 Wrote:  It's a huge improvement over Nocera's one-phone-call hack job.

+1. Glad the NYT is still reporting on the story.

I agree, I was interviewed for the story. Someone at ViceSports gave the reporter my name and contact info with my permission. In fact I was the one who gave the reporter Susan Key's name and contact information.

I tried make the reporter understand the Faculty Senate problema with Watts was the unethical manner in which he did away with the program. However, I think that his preconceptions about football crazy Alabama still dominated his thinking when he wrote the article.

That said, the reporter did put some work into the article and I think that it definitely didn't show Watts in a good light and didn't show us in a bad light while casting doubt on the whole process. The article could have been better, but it also could have been much worse.

(02-08-2015 09:49 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  I think you are misreading the article. Watts comes across as embattled against the football crazed South. This is the New York Times after all.

It doesn't read that way...and, uh, news flash. It IS the South, which IS "football crazy."

Its a good, high profile article, considering the source. The better story from nyt would be the story of bot meddling in uab athletics.

Direct Communications has already visited the comments section.

Which means they are still on the defensive.

The comments represent the reader base of the New York Times who believe that big time athletics have no business in colleges. The typical Eastern establishment bias against the "hillbilly" south.

(02-09-2015 08:24 AM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  The comments represent the reader base of the New York Times who believe that big time athletics have no business in colleges. The typical Eastern establishment bias against the "hillbilly" south.

It's the same comment, different screen name, we've seen many times: (paraphrase) I have degrees from both schools (not sure why this is included, but it's in most of them) and a university can't be all things to all people, they must specialize and UAB should stick to medicine.

You can find close variations of that comment often at al-dot-com and nearly every story with a comments section. It's not coincidence - they're textually much too close for that.

[add] And what's curious and a little middle-finger-waving about the version on NYTimes is the screen name, "JudyMiller," a callback to the second-most-damned Times incompetent (after Jason Blair).

I have a simple question: What do the UAB trustees think of all this? Yes, the vast majority of of trustees are from UAT, but the there are two trustees with degrees from UAB, correct? What do they think? I understand that one of the UAB trustees is Bobby Humphrey's wife, but that doesn't necessarily make her pro-UAT. After all, she should see the value of football at a university more than anyone. HER HUSBAND PLAYED FOOTBALL IN COLLEGE. The other trustees is .... who? What does that trustee think? And I don't mean what are these trustees going to say about this situation in public in front of a camera. I'm saying what are these trustees going to say when they're alone and talking with SACS? If the UAB trustees honestly think that UAB shouldn't have football and that the undergraduate side of the campus should be downsized, then I think the stakeholders at UAB have a right to know why? If these trustees think differently, then I think these trustees have a right to raise concerns in public and actually do something useful.

(02-09-2015 08:37 AM)Agent Orange Sauce Wrote:  After all, she should see the value of football at a university more than anyone. HER HUSBAND PLAYED FOOTBALL IN COLLEGE.

Her son played on the last UAB football team. Yet she has remained silent, giving approval to Bryant, Brooks, St. John et al.

Getting a Trustee - any Trustee - to break ranks and tell the truth would be huge. Their silence certainly looks like RICO to me, and I wonder how many of them are willing to do time for Junior.

And further, this is now a national story. Would be great if some national outlet like, say, Politico could get Barbara Humphrey on the record.

(02-09-2015 08:37 AM)Agent Orange Sauce Wrote:  I have a simple question: What do the UAB trustees think of all this? Yes, the vast majority of of trustees are from UAT, but the there are two trustees with degrees from UAB, correct? What do they think? I understand that one of the UAB trustees is Bobby Humphrey's wife, but that doesn't necessarily make her pro-UAT. After all, she should see the value of football at a university more than anyone. HER HUSBAND PLAYED FOOTBALL IN COLLEGE. The other trustees is .... who? What does that trustee think? And I don't mean what are these trustees going to say about this situation in public in front of a camera. I'm saying what are these trustees going to say when they're alone and talking with SACS? If the UAB trustees honestly think that UAB shouldn't have football and that the undergraduate side of the campus should be downsized, then I think the stakeholders at UAB have a right to know why? If these trustees think differently, then I think these trustees have a right to raise concerns in public and actually do something useful.

Since Bobby Humphrey works for Bryant Bank one would think that its in her best interest to keep mouth shut in her families interest regardless of what she thinks privately.

Barbara is a coach at a middle school. Marietta M. Urquhart is a real estate agent in mobile. Have you noticed that most of the members are very high profile people while the UAB graduates are certainly not. There is a reason for that.

In addition I know a number of UAB graduates, especially those who graduated more than 15 or 20 years ago who do not have strong allegiances to UAB.

Bottom line, if they chose carefully, and they do, the BOT could fill their organization with UAB graduates and still act exactly as they always have, treating UAB as the cash cow of the system and little more.

In addition UAB graduates probably have nothing to tell. Why would anyone think that the entire BOT knows what Teddy Bear, Finis and company are telling Watts or what deal they made with him in exchange for making him President. Do you think that Finis told everyone else on the board that he stopped Mackin from putting athletic turf on the practice field? Watts knows exactly who butters his bread. Do you really think the entire board knew he was told to cancel his clean air project?

Since the real power of the board rests in only a few hands, they don't have to corrupt entire BOT to get exactly what they want.

(02-09-2015 09:28 AM)CajunBlazer Wrote:  Since the real power of the board rests in only a few hands, they don't have to corrupt entire BOT to get exactly what they want.

True, but as a wise woman once told me, "Sometimes 'duh' is the most powerful quote you can get."

Get them on the record saying they have no role on the Board and no idea what they're voting on, and you have SACS's intense interest and possibly further than that.