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Opening Drive ‏@openingdrive
Tomorrow morning at 7:30, @UABathletics AD Mark Ingram will join the show.

this should be interesting, i'll make sure to listen lol

I wonder if it'll be open questions that Watt's probably should answer to or just now I'm going to be down to the business of raising funds & how I'm going to do it type???

I honestly think our AD is in a crappy situation until Watts is gone. I think he wants to see football at UAB. I think he has something to prove. If he's successful and getting facilities built and more funds raised to resurrect our program, he'll be in line for AD at a P5 school for sure.

I can't tell if Ingram reminds me more of the Smails kid from Caddyshack or Biff from Back to the Future.

Did he tell you he ran a marathon? Twice?

Good for him. I hope he is that successful. To be that successful he will have to fight tooth and nail for crumbs from the grand exalted rulers. I hope he fights hard and builds his resume.
Can we get Hatton Smith as President or AD?
Or anybody with a hint of excitement?
Or a heart?

He is also appearing on a talk show here in Knoxville on the Animal between 3 and 5. I missed what they were saying this morning by about five minutes...

I was happy to hear yesterday during the press conference that he had regained some memory of his college football playing days.

@openingdrive

Ingram: We're looking at needing about $3.25 million annually for the program.
Ingram: We're taking all of these good people of Birmingham who have made pledges at their word.
Ingram: It's a huge win for UAB to remain in Conference USA.

I like how Hatton Smith has come out of seemingly nowhere to be our biggest cheerleader.

(06-02-2015 07:42 AM)tibber Wrote:  I like how Hatton Smith has come out of seemingly nowhere to be our biggest cheerleader.

Certainly needed someone with energy yesterday.

Honestly, I'd never heard of the guy prior to yesterday, although I'm not the most knowledgeable about the Birmingham business community. Has he always been a UAB supporter?

(06-02-2015 07:42 AM)BeliefBlazer Wrote:  @openingdrive
Ingram: We're taking all of these good people of Birmingham who have made pledges at their word.

Also those forms they made us fill out twice.

Watts said we have the 17.2M pledged , which will cover the operational donut hole for the next 5 yrs. Ingram echoed that this morning. What was confusing is that Ingram said we have 2M toward the facilities upgrades. What happened to the extra 10M [ 30M that Jack Williams said we now had minus the 17.2 + 2 ] ?? If we are to believe Jack, we should have 12-13M left over to apply to facilities ( offices, team meeting rooms, practice field turf ). Sounds like more voodoo economics again.

(06-02-2015 07:42 AM)tibber Wrote:  I like how Hatton Smith has come out of seemingly nowhere to be our biggest cheerleader.

Big basketball guy in the past, I believe.

I still don't know about that Ingram except he wasn't close to being the selection committees top choice for the new AD. Watts knew this, but evidently chose the candidate he thought he could best control instead of the best candidate. (Like that is any surprise.) It wouldn't bother me to see Watts take all of his newly hired toadies along with a few turncoats with him when he hits the door for the last time.

Not fair to Ingram I know, he might turn out all right, but unfortunately for more than a few people the man has a big "W" stamped on his forehead right now and only time will tell whether it will eventually fade.

(06-02-2015 08:23 AM)CajunBlazer Wrote:  I still don't know about that Ingram except he wasn't close to being the selection committees top choice for the new AD. Watts knew this, but evidently chose the candidate he thought he could best control instead of the best candidate. (Like that is any surprise.) It wouldn't bother me to see Watts take all of his newly hired toadies along with a few turncoats with him when he hits the door for the last time.

Not fair to Ingram I know, he might turn out all right, but unfortunately for more than a few people the man has a big "W" stamped on his forehead right now and only time will tell whether it will eventually fade.

Who was the top choice?? There were only 2 other candidates of the top 3 that came out of the committee. Which one was the ONE they really wanted???

(06-02-2015 04:02 AM)UABslant Wrote:  I honestly think our AD is in a crappy situation until Watts is gone. I think he wants to see football at UAB. I think he has something to prove. If he's successful and getting facilities built and more funds raised to resurrect our program, he'll be in line for AD at a P5 school for sure.

I agree. He's BRAND new. Of course he's gonna read the statement his new boss wrote for him. Whether he believes it or not may be a different thing altogether. He sounded a lot better when he was answering questions instead of reading.
Either way, his actions will speak much louder than his prepared statement

(06-02-2015 08:29 AM)BlazrDawg Wrote:  

(06-02-2015 08:23 AM)CajunBlazer Wrote:  I still don't know about that Ingram except he wasn't close to being the selection committees top choice for the new AD. Watts knew this, but evidently chose the candidate he thought he could best control instead of the best candidate. (Like that is any surprise.) It wouldn't bother me to see Watts take all of his newly hired toadies along with a few turncoats with him when he hits the door for the last time.

Not fair to Ingram I know, he might turn out all right, but unfortunately for more than a few people the man has a big "W" stamped on his forehead right now and only time will tell whether it will eventually fade.

Who was the top choice?? There were only 2 other candidates of the top 3 that came out of the committee. Which one was the ONE they really wanted???

I don't know, but Ingram was their fourth choice, not in top three that they were going to present to Watts until the first choice took himself out of the running.

Frankly, I thought he as a boob yesterday. He had about as much energy and enthusiasm as Watts did. And what's this foolishness about how many marathons he's finished? What does that matter, other than showing some idiotic self promotion.

So far, he seems like a self absorbed punk to me. I'm going to hope I'm wrong, but so far he is standing right beside Watts on "taking the pledges at their word" instead of embracing the UAB community.
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