(01-17-2015 01:38 PM)LightEmUp70 Wrote: Says the anonymous person on a message board.
There are a lot of people in the Save UAB Football Facebook group who are saying many of these things under their own names. These include people who have known and been friends with Brian for years. If you are a member of that group, go over and read a thread started by Frank Walton which begins with "Okay, under the comment section of this post..." It is over 300 comments now, with extensive discussion of Mackin's actions. If you are not a member of that group, why aren't you?
It has been reported that in a meeting regarding the advertising plans for UAB Athletics in March of 2013, the plan was largely built on football. Brian asked how such a plan would be constructed without football included. That was about a month after Watts became president. Why would he ask such a question unless he knew it was coming?
There is *no way* that Brian Mackin did not know that we did not have, and were not being allowed to schedule, non-conference games beyond 2016. Such scheduling is at the heart of his job. There is *no way* that he did not know that the contract for the use of Legion Field was only for one year, not the three or four that we usually signed with them.
I like Brian and I don't want to think bad things of him, but these are basic truths. He did not come out in opposition. I don't doubt that he did what he could behind the scenes, but when things were going down the pipe he did not get word to outsiders who could blow it up and start the fight. He has yet, some forty days after football was shut down, said one single word in his own defense or of explanation. If he's catching hell about that, he could speak. He has not and he remains in hiding. If he is still on the UAB payroll, when SACS gets here they may finally get something out of him.
Smith - I have my reservations about him, but I know little. I have heard mixed opinions, and I still watch and wait. No doubt he hobnobs with the big money boys at the bama games, but there is a lot of dealmaking done there, much like the golf course. I won't slam him for that, although it does not endear him to me.
Re the Monday NAS meeting, remember that the group that attended that meeting was an outraged group of the NAS who had forced the meeting under the bylaws. No Watts supporters (to the degree that such exist) or moderate voices were motivated to be there for a Monday night special session. The FreeUAB troops were. I can see how the NAS Board might feel that crowd was not representative of the NAS as a whole. They still gave a weak no-con, offering Watts a way to back down gracefully. It's not their fault that he's too egotistical and stubborn to take it. The very fastest way to re-establish football is for the President to rescind his suspension of the program, and that's what they're hoping for.
I'm not sure that I like or back Smith, but neither am I going to crucify the guy over the results of that meeting. That night the NAS did what no one has officially done before, they pointed an accusing finger at the UA Board of Trustees, and that was big.
If Mackin gets tired of sizzling in the frying pan, all he has to do is to sit down with Scarbinsky or Kyle Whitmire and spill the beans. Continued silence only convinces people that he must have something to hide, something that he is ashamed of.
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SACS Investigation
