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http://wiat.com/2017/10/11/uab-president...-decision/

Not sure what you expected him to say? No doubt he took a risk brining it back considering what his bosses wanted him to do....

(10-11-2017 08:35 PM)the_blazerman Wrote:  http://wiat.com/2017/10/11/uab-president...-decision/

Oy vey......

Ray is very happy to let the "Fiscally responsible University President fights out of control football spending" narrative go out there. It's completely nauseating BS, but it looks better than "Lickspittle does Board of Trustee's dirty work".

He didn't take a risk. He was forced to bring it back, and the BoT was forced to shut up and let it happen. We had too much documentation and proof of what was really going on, and Ray had some of our biggest donors backing him into a corner of his office and telling him he'd never see another dime if he didn't change his tune.

It didn't hurt that his beloved "Campaign for UAB", the billion dollar fund raiser, was dead in the water, either.

Ray didn't know what he didn't know, and it bit him on the butt.

This may not be a popular opinion. Please don't take this as an endorsement for Watts. If the program hadn't been shut down, I see no way we have the facilities we have now. Clark would of had a very successful 2015 & would've been scooped up by a bigger program. In a year or so we'd have been right back where we started. The shutdown changed the narrative, without it none of this is happening.

(10-11-2017 10:34 PM)stc Wrote:  This may not be a popular opinion. Please don't take this as an endorsement for Watts. If the program hadn't been shut down, I see no way we have the facilities we have now. Clark would of had a very successful 2015 & would've been scooped up by a bigger program. In a year or so we'd have been right back where we started. The shutdown changed the narrative, without it none of this is happening.

That is the opinion of most people. that is the opinion that will go down in history.

(10-11-2017 10:40 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  

(10-11-2017 10:34 PM)stc Wrote:  This may not be a popular opinion. Please don't take this as an endorsement for Watts. If the program hadn't been shut down, I see no way we have the facilities we have now. Clark would of had a very successful 2015 & would've been scooped up by a bigger program. In a year or so we'd have been right back where we started. The shutdown changed the narrative, without it none of this is happening.

That is the opinion of most people. that is the opinion that will go down in history.

We've got a few that don't believe it, lol. Long term what happened wasn't just best for football, it was best for the entire athletic department. We have a chance to grow now.

(10-11-2017 10:34 PM)stc Wrote:  This may not be a popular opinion. Please don't take this as an endorsement for Watts. If the program hadn't been shut down, I see no way we have the facilities we have now. Clark would of had a very successful 2015 & would've been scooped up by a bigger program. In a year or so we'd have been right back where we started. The shutdown changed the narrative, without it none of this is happening.

Those good things happened because of what we did, after the moronic blunders of Ray Watts. Not because of them.

In a state governed in the interests of its people and under the rule of law (you know, the things the United Nations Charter sets as a basic standard) we would have had all of those things: a Board of Trustees accountable to the people, making decisions to advance the university and thereby the community. That means soliciting and accepting donations for the football program, regardless of what the boosters for another program might wish, and regardless of the insane masturbatory fantasies of a dead football coach's offspring.

That we had to go through this sort of charade, and see real measurable psychic pain inflicted on a nunber of people - in direct violation of the oath taken by Ray Lannom Watts - to reach this point in the program's development is not a good thing. It is a measure of the vicious insanity that has governed Alabama for 198 years and is now metastasizing elsewhere.

The good things that happened here are those that we committed, and you stood tall among us. But the outcome is simply the one that should have occurred all along. What could we have built here under sane leadership, turning the energy we deployed to defeat the evils of Ray Watts into building something positive for our people and community? By the divine trunk of Ganesh, what could we have had we harnessed that passion and energy to a Krulak, a real leader with a real vision, instead of fighting the Trustees and Watts in the streets?

I'm proud of what we did. Of what you did, and the rest of our brothers and sisters. But I am fully aware that it never should have been necessary.

Ray Watts, and all those moral cowards who gave him aid and comfort in the guise of "playing devil's advocate," can burn in the Ninth Circle of Hell with the rest of history's traitors.

Fire Ray Watts.

(10-11-2017 11:07 PM)58-56 Wrote:  

(10-11-2017 10:34 PM)stc Wrote:  This may not be a popular opinion. Please don't take this as an endorsement for Watts. If the program hadn't been shut down, I see no way we have the facilities we have now. Clark would of had a very successful 2015 & would've been scooped up by a bigger program. In a year or so we'd have been right back where we started. The shutdown changed the narrative, without it none of this is happening.

Those good things happened because of what we did, after the moronic blunders of Ray Watts. Not because of them.

In a state governed in the interests of its people and under the rule of law (you know, the things the United Nations Charter sets as a basic standard) we would have had all of those things: a Board of Trustees accountable to the people, making decisions to advance the university and thereby the community. That means soliciting and accepting donations for the football program, regardless of what the boosters for another program might wish, and regardless of the insane masturbatory fantasies of a dead football coach's offspring.

That we had to go through this sort of charade, and see real measurable psychic pain inflicted on a nunber of people - in direct violation of the oath taken by Ray Lannom Watts - to reach this point in the program's development is not a good thing. It is a measure of the vicious insanity that has governed Alabama for 198 years and is now metastasizing elsewhere.

The good things that happened here are those that we committed, and you stood tall among us. But the outcome is simply the one that should have occurred all along. What could we have built here under sane leadership, turning the energy we deployed to defeat the evils of Ray Watts into building something positive for our people and community? By the divine trunk of Ganesh, what could we have had we harnessed that passion and energy to a Krulak, a real leader with a real vision, instead of fighting the Trustees and Watts in the streets?

I'm proud of what we did. Of what you did, and the rest of our brothers and sisters. But I am fully aware that it never should have been necessary.

Ray Watts, and all those moral cowards who gave him aid and comfort in the guise of "playing devil's advocate," can burn in the Ninth Circle of Hell with the rest of history's traitors.

Fire Ray Watts.

I agree with all stated. It SHOULDNT have been necessary. I just don't think the fight happens without the hiring of Clark (He brought energy back to the base) & the subsequent shutdown. I thought I had my "Damn we pulled this off" moment at the opener. But it really hit me me at the La Tech game. I thought the whole ride home about everything we all did to get to this season. I also know this has lead to the undergrad growth we are seeing. It's truly amazing what these vocal few got done. I'm enjoying every second.

(10-11-2017 10:34 PM)stc Wrote:  This may not be a popular opinion. Please don't take this as an endorsement for Watts. If the program hadn't been shut down, I see no way we have the facilities we have now. Clark would of had a very successful 2015 & would've been scooped up by a bigger program. In a year or so we'd have been right back where we started. The shutdown changed the narrative, without it none of this is happening.

I'd agree with that. Having the program taken away just when UAB fans were seeing a glimpse of hope, of what might be, mobilized them. The people who knew a bit about what was happening behind the scenes played their cards shrewdly. The Vocal Few refused to sit down and shut up, keeping up the pressure and the visibility until the Birmingham business community had time to think "Why on earth would a school the size of UAB, in Alabama of all places, NOT have football?"

That said, it was a dirty damn deal, and it's a shame that this PR fairy tale has been allowed to take root. You could fertilize fields with the stuff they're spreading.

& like mentioned - we are achieving in spite of Watts not because of him.

Imagine what we could do today with an AD, president, & Board that supported us.

We are nowhere near close to that being the case.

(10-11-2017 10:34 PM)stc Wrote:  This may not be a popular opinion. Please don't take this as an endorsement for Watts. If the program hadn't been shut down, I see no way we have the facilities we have now. Clark would of had a very successful 2015 & would've been scooped up by a bigger program. In a year or so we'd have been right back where we started. The shutdown changed the narrative, without it none of this is happening.

A plane was ready to go pick up Jimbo Fisher and Carol Garrison had a conservative yet profitable business plan for an on campus stadium

Ray Watts was no hero and should be fired. The damage he did was much deeper than just athletics

(10-11-2017 10:34 PM)stc Wrote:  This may not be a popular opinion. Please don't take this as an endorsement for Watts. If the program hadn't been shut down, I see no way we have the facilities we have now. Clark would of had a very successful 2015 & would've been scooped up by a bigger program. In a year or so we'd have been right back where we started. The shutdown changed the narrative, without it none of this is happening.

Without the longstanding trustee interference, we would have had new facilities and maybe a stadium years ago! The shutdown was right in line with a long series of events to undermine and destroy UAB Football.

1. Ray Watts is a flunky and what he did shutting down the program was atrocious
2. Ray Watts shutting the program down is absolutely the best thing that ever happened.

These two ideas do not have to be mutually exclusive. Sometimes what rises from the ashes is better than what was burned down, even though the burning might have been an arson. Do you hate someone set fire to it? Absolutely. But find the silver lining- you now have a house with a better foundation, a badass home theater system, and one of those things next to the toilet that squirts water on your tailpipe.

My question is this- how did Watts give that interview. How does he talk at all with the BOT's hog down his throat?

Better yet, why can't the interviewers ask the real questions that we are wanting to be asked -

How much did you get paid to shut down the program & when were you instructed to?

also

What changed to warrant the new president getting a substantial salary raise over the previous president?

(10-12-2017 08:31 AM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  

(10-11-2017 10:34 PM)stc Wrote:  This may not be a popular opinion. Please don't take this as an endorsement for Watts. If the program hadn't been shut down, I see no way we have the facilities we have now. Clark would of had a very successful 2015 & would've been scooped up by a bigger program. In a year or so we'd have been right back where we started. The shutdown changed the narrative, without it none of this is happening.

A plane was ready to go pick up Jimbo Fisher and Carol Garrison had a conservative yet profitable business plan for an on campus stadium

Ray Watts was no hero and should be fired. The damage he did was much deeper than just athletics

This.

The reinstatement and reinvigoration of the program happened in spite of Ray Watts and those "entrusted" to oversee and lead us.

I might also add, in a George Bailey sort of way, it's all Watson Brown's credit that we are where we are.

Had he not saved his baby brother Mack from drowning in that icy river (that part borrowed from "It's a Wonderful Life"), everything would have been different.

Instead, Mack took the money and ran from Texas, "retiring" in December, 2013. Texas then hired Charlie Strong from Louisville.

Louisville went and got Bobby Petrino from Western Kentucky. He then decided to hire Garrick McGee away from his head coaching position at UAB to be his offensive coordinator.

The same McGee who was a disaster as a head coach and who we could not afford to buy out. Instead, Louisville paid US a buy-out to get him! We were going nowhere with McGee as our coach, and what little life was left in the program he probably would have killed off with another 3-9 season.

But with him gone, we were able to hire Bill Clark. Of course, the president and trustees assumed we were already dead in the water and didn't offer him a long-term contract, knowing their plans that we would be one-and-done. But Coach Clark changed the whole culture of UAB football, turned things around on the field, and created a spark of enthusiasm that ignited to an even greater blaze when they shut us down.

If Mack never leaves Texas, setting in motion a series of events that got us out of the McGee contract and got us Coach Clark, we probably don't have football right now, and the university's enrollment is continuing to tank.

Thank you Watson Brown.

One of the first things we learn as physicians is to own our mistakes. Trying to minimize or candy coat them usually ends up in disaster. Every leadership class emphasizes the same thing.

All he would have to do is admit (in the most sympathetic case) the he looked at the data presented in the Carr report and didn't do the due diligence to confirm it. What followed was a series of miscalculations (like staying in CUSA without football) that hadn't been thought through.

All the gyrations RW has gone through since June 2015 to rehab his image are worthless when he does an interview like this. It only confirms what people say behind his back and likely to his face.

And I HATE it when he refers to people at UAB as his "constituents". No constituents elect people Ray. I would say the no confidence votes would eliminate that possibility.

Certainly we wouldn't be where we are without the actions that occurred in 2014, but as others have rightly pointed out, those actions were not intended to bring about the response that it did. It was a good, hard lesson learned by many which will pay dividends in the long run.

The fans and students realized what not having UAB football was like (as painful as it sometimes was when we had it). The media realized the choice they had regarding UAB football -- that of an advocate or that of a disinterested observer (or worse, an instigator). Administrators learned the value of UAB football as a marketing/recruitment tool and the impact that not having football had on enrollment.

(10-12-2017 09:17 AM)BatesUAB Wrote:  2. Ray Watts shutting the program down is absolutely the best thing that ever happened.

No, it is far from "absolutely the best thing that ever happened"

The "absolutely best thing that could have happened" would be Carol Z. Garrison still president and UAB would be playing their third season on Gene Bartow Field at Legacy Stadium

Ray Watts shutting down the program did spur good outcomes, but Bill Clark was hired before it happened and I don't think the program would have been mired in mediocrity had the administration not been actively hostile. Things might not have accelerated as quickly as they did, and the outcome has turned out to be greater than anyone could have imagined, but we would all have been better off emotionally and financially had things turned out differently