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A Reddit post I came across - C-Finder - 12-21-2024 06:21 PM

A campus expansion map from the early 2010s a redditor found at a garage sale, it includes an on-campus stadium 03-no

Reddit r/Birmingham post


RE: A Reddit post I came across - LairDweller - 12-21-2024 07:20 PM

Yup, I remember it well


RE: A Reddit post I came across - BTR - 12-21-2024 07:31 PM

Carol Garrison days...


RE: A Reddit post I came across - Trmp120 - 12-21-2024 09:44 PM

Would have been great, the stadium we play in now is way too big


RE: A Reddit post I came across - hooverblazer - 12-21-2024 11:18 PM

That really would've transformed UAB...

If we made the kinds of investments envisioned in this plan back then who knows where UAB could be now. The impact on Birmingham's downtown real estate would've been huge too.


RE: A Reddit post I came across - 58-56 - 12-21-2024 11:48 PM

(12-21-2024 11:18 PM)hooverblazer Wrote:  That really would've transformed UAB...

If we made the kinds of investments envisioned in this plan back then who knows where UAB could be now. The impact on Birmingham's downtown real estate would've been huge too.

It was a big deal at the time (the search function has crapped out again, so I can't pull up the relevant posts). That map was was posted on here, and the pictures of the stadium itself (closely modeled on SMU's Ford Stadium). The area around and under the interstate would have become a park (where tailgating would occur), with the EBSCO buildings smashed and turned into a parking lot (something I advocate regardless).

This project was, in a way, where our troubles began. Mackin did a very good job raising large-scale funding pledges for it (he's a banker at heart). The expected reaction from the Trustees, "look, they have the funds for their stadium" instead was "look, they're stealing money that should go to Tide Pride."

I did not trust the Trustees even before this happened, but I am a paranoid internet lunatic. After the stadium debacle, they became our enemies out in the open. Our AD had put his primary effort into the stadium fund-raising, and the athletic programs themselves suffered for it. He'd also proven that there was foobaw-related cash out there to be had from Birmingham donors. And the march toward December 2nd began.

Fire Ray Watts. (He wasn't involved at this point, but fire him anyway.)


RE: A Reddit post I came across - MAN4UAB - 12-22-2024 07:31 AM

(12-21-2024 11:48 PM)58-56 Wrote:  
(12-21-2024 11:18 PM)hooverblazer Wrote:  That really would've transformed UAB...

If we made the kinds of investments envisioned in this plan back then who knows where UAB could be now. The impact on Birmingham's downtown real estate would've been huge too.

It was a big deal at the time (the search function has crapped out again, so I can't pull up the relevant posts). That map was was posted on here, and the pictures of the stadium itself (closely modeled on SMU's Ford Stadium). The area around and under the interstate would have become a park (where tailgating would occur), with the EBSCO buildings smashed and turned into a parking lot (something I advocate regardless).

This project was, in a way, where our troubles began. Mackin did a very good job raising large-scale funding pledges for it (he's a banker at heart). The expected reaction from the Trustees, "look, they have the funds for their stadium" instead was "look, they're stealing money that should go to Tide Pride."

I did not trust the Trustees even before this happened, but I am a paranoid internet lunatic. After the stadium debacle, they became our enemies out in the open. Our AD had put his primary effort into the stadium fund-raising, and the athletic programs themselves suffered for it. He'd also proven that there was foobaw-related cash out there to be had from Birmingham donors. And the march toward December 2nd began.

Fire Ray Watts. (He wasn't involved at this point, but fire him anyway.)


I had my issues with Dr. Garrison; but, I witnessed her sitting with the fans at a road game at Troy. She cheered and yelled with the rest of us. I also seen her attending an alumni tailgate at FSU. It is my understanding that these were not isolated events. She bravely presented the stadium plan to an overtly hostile BOT which got her fired.


RE: A Reddit post I came across - UAB Band Dad - 12-22-2024 08:11 AM

I saw Dr. G at a number of road games, and also at MBB, WBB, softball, baseball. She held a President's Tailgate at most home football games, and while my wife wasn't a high profile UAB employee she was invited to several of them. She probably had down sides I wasn't aware of, but she had a vision and she was not afraid to pursue it.

I hope that she tells her story publicly one day.


RE: A Reddit post I came across - blazerwkr - 12-22-2024 10:10 AM

People forget USA was also part of the system but they had influential people in Mobile to tell BOT to go eff itself & left the system. Since then the BOT has been sure to nip it in the bud of any one else departing. You won't see a pro UAB president anytime soon nor a pro UAH one either as that would start to lead to independence. Having an on campus stadium & what was happening during those yrs & even prior w/ Queen Ann was intolerable to Jr's BOT mentality. It's past time to have a Tea Party in Tuscaloosa, we need to have one.


RE: A Reddit post I came across - BirminghamBound - 12-22-2024 09:00 PM

(12-22-2024 10:10 AM)blazerwkr Wrote:  People forget USA was also part of the system but they had influential people in Mobile to tell BOT to go eff itself & left the system. Since then the BOT has been sure to nip it in the bud of any one else departing. You won't see a pro UAB president anytime soon nor a pro UAH one either as that would start to lead to independence. Having an on campus stadium & what was happening during those yrs & even prior w/ Queen Ann was intolerable to Jr's BOT mentality. It's past time to have a Tea Party in Tuscaloosa, we need to have one.

Would love to read more about this if there are resources anyone can point to.


RE: A Reddit post I came across - TheBanner - 12-22-2024 09:18 PM

58-56 is right, this was the beginning of the end of UAB football's first chapter. What people may not realize is how close this was to happening and how many pieces of this came to fruition. Dr. Garrison was a tremendous advocate for athletics but also had a very powerful support system of vice presidents who believed this step was critical to the future of student life at UAB - with athletics being the cornerstone of growing the undergraduate campus.

If you look at the map you will see the thing that really drove a wedge much more than the stadium itself. Green space. The idea was to extend the Campus Green from Southside (almost all the way to Dreamland) northto Railroad Park.

The football stadium was a centerpiece, but interconnected blocks of green walkable campus lined with new dorms, class buildings, and apartments and restaurants (as you went further north) was the dream for UAB's future.

Richard Margison was a great internal force behind this. This was a university initiative, not athletics. It was an exciting time where there was a clear vision for the future of UAB.


RE: A Reddit post I came across - blazerwkr - 12-22-2024 09:29 PM

(12-22-2024 09:00 PM)BirminghamBound Wrote:  
(12-22-2024 10:10 AM)blazerwkr Wrote:  People forget USA was also part of the system but they had influential people in Mobile to tell BOT to go eff itself & left the system. Since then the BOT has been sure to nip it in the bud of any one else departing. You won't see a pro UAB president anytime soon nor a pro UAH one either as that would start to lead to independence. Having an on campus stadium & what was happening during those yrs & even prior w/ Queen Ann was intolerable to Jr's BOT mentality. It's past time to have a Tea Party in Tuscaloosa, we need to have one.

Would love to read more about this if there are resources anyone can point to.

A quick little blurb on the early history of USA when a university is lead by people w/ visions of bettering their universities - https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/university-of-south-alabama-usa/


RE: A Reddit post I came across - jaymay2525 - 12-22-2024 10:01 PM

Dr Garrison was a visionary we needed for Sports


RE: A Reddit post I came across - ATTALLABLAZE - 12-22-2024 10:36 PM

I miss Dr G. Only AD I have drank beer with before a game and felt like she was one of us.


RE: A Reddit post I came across - mixduptransistor - 12-22-2024 11:31 PM

(12-22-2024 09:18 PM)TheBanner Wrote:  Dr. Garrison was a tremendous advocate for athletics but also had a very powerful support system of vice presidents who believed this step was critical to the future of student life at UAB - with athletics being the cornerstone of growing the undergraduate campus.

Dr. Garrison had big dreams for the undergraduate side of campus that have completely died. UAB has continued to invest somewhat on the west side of campus in terms of new buildings, but it's basically just keeping up with inflation vs. other universities.

During this era you had Dr. G and others like Drs. Margison and Marchase openly speaking about their ambition to get UAB into the AAU alongside universities like NYU, UNC, Texas, Caltech, Cal, Stanford, Duke, UCLA, Emory, Georgia Tech, Harvard, MIT, and many others. They were openly speaking about the issues on the undergraduate side that kept UAB out (namely, graduation rates) and were beginning to work on turning the ship. They very clearly had the idea that the undergraduate side of campus--all of it, not just Nursing and Public Health and departments that feed the School of Medicine--was important and should be as prestigious as the professional schools

Since she left, I don't think anyone with the word 'president' in their title, from VPs to EVPs to Ray Ray himself have uttered the letters AAU. The stagnation of athletics aside, the administration letting the undergraduate side stagnate and even begin to slip backwards is criminal. There is no reason UAB should not be mentioned in the same breath as those I did above. There's no reason UAB couldn't be Alabama's Georgia Tech, an academically rigorous university that generates some of the smartest and most successful graduates at all levels, while also performing incredibly important and meaningful research at the same time

I think this would have been just as if not more embarrassing to the Tuscaloosa crowd. UA is not in the AAU and has never had any aspirations to join. They already administratively treat the UAB Health System as separate from UAB. The satellite campus of the UAB School of Medicine in Tuscaloosa has "University of Alabama School of Medicine" on it, no mention of UAB and they all wear red piped coats, and it's administratively part of UA as the "Community College of Health Sciences"--no such setup exists in Huntsville, it's just straight up the UAB SOM reporting to UAB directly not UAH.

The jealousy extends beyond football, that just happened to be the red line they didn't want to be crossed



(12-22-2024 09:18 PM)TheBanner Wrote:  If you look at the map you will see the thing that really drove a wedge much more than the stadium itself. Green space. The idea was to extend the Campus Green from Southside (almost all the way to Dreamland) northto Railroad Park.

The football stadium was a centerpiece, but interconnected blocks of green walkable campus lined with new dorms, class buildings, and apartments and restaurants (as you went further north) was the dream for UAB's future.

Richard Margison was a great internal force behind this. This was a university initiative, not athletics. It was an exciting time where there was a clear vision for the future of UAB.

A lot of non-UAB land along that corridor, including government-owned buildings like the Jefferson County Health Department and Cooper Green. That big boulevard of a park was a bit of a pipe dream (these long-range vision maps always are to some extent). IIRC the map in the reddit post isn't even the original version, as the plan was that Regions Field would be a few blocks to the east, I think, and the green space was truly planned to go all the way to the park, but they ended up not getting the land they wanted for Regions Field and it shifted (someone correct me if I'm wrong here but I think I've got the gist of it)


RE: A Reddit post I came across - cb4029 - 12-23-2024 11:54 AM

(12-21-2024 09:44 PM)Trmp120 Wrote:  Would have been great, the stadium we play in now is way too big

You finally got something right. 05-stirthepot


RE: A Reddit post I came across - Trmp120 - 12-23-2024 12:35 PM

(12-23-2024 11:54 AM)cb4029 Wrote:  
(12-21-2024 09:44 PM)Trmp120 Wrote:  Would have been great, the stadium we play in now is way too big

You finally got something right. 05-stirthepot

Still waiting for John Neal and Vincent to do something 05-stirthepot


RE: A Reddit post I came across - BirminghamBound - 12-23-2024 11:33 PM

(12-22-2024 09:29 PM)blazerwkr Wrote:  
(12-22-2024 09:00 PM)BirminghamBound Wrote:  
(12-22-2024 10:10 AM)blazerwkr Wrote:  People forget USA was also part of the system but they had influential people in Mobile to tell BOT to go eff itself & left the system. Since then the BOT has been sure to nip it in the bud of any one else departing. You won't see a pro UAB president anytime soon nor a pro UAH one either as that would start to lead to independence. Having an on campus stadium & what was happening during those yrs & even prior w/ Queen Ann was intolerable to Jr's BOT mentality. It's past time to have a Tea Party in Tuscaloosa, we need to have one.

Would love to read more about this if there are resources anyone can point to.

A quick little blurb on the early history of USA when a university is lead by people w/ visions of bettering their universities - https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/university-of-south-alabama-usa/

Thank you.


RE: A Reddit post I came across - DragonClaw - 12-27-2024 03:23 PM

That would have been so coool. It still makes me soooo mad. 03-banghead


RE: A Reddit post I came across - Usajags - 12-29-2024 01:06 PM

The spot that shows the stadium is essentially still an open lot. Would you guys make a deal with the devil to get an OCS, but the catch is the stadium you get is ULM’s stadium???