The clock’s ticking in terms of being able to maintain a program for next season. While some may think it’s unlikely, if a few things happen over this upcoming week, there’s still a chance any or all of the ideas we’ve written about here and others will get a chance to be explored. It will be interesting to see how  things play out.

Long time, no see…

I posted this on the Save UAB Football FB page and thought it was worthy of posting here as another option of what should have been done.

[Any reasonable business person that cared about their business would have taken this report and met with the AD and said this is where we are. Take this to your head coaches and your marketing team and I’ll give you one year to show me that we can sustain this. If we tell the coaches and marketing team this is the number we need to hit in the first year to show its sustainable and if they don’t achieve that number then we will be shutting down these programs. 

Dr. Watts implied that he had fully disclosed the intentions of the office of the President of the University which would indicate that he would have had some idea of what he would do depending on how the Carr Study came back. There is no way that Coach Clark would have left JSU for UAB had he been given full disclosure about the possibility of shutting down the program. AND…how different would things have been for UAB if the BoT hadn’t shut down the proposal for an on campus stadium that the students could have walked to to attend a game? Also the $50 million that is going toward modernizing the student center, that was just built a few years ago, could have gone a long way toward building said on campus stadium.]

Not to mention, it is my understanding that the projected budget that Watts submitted to the Carr Report was based on the fact that Watts set the coaches up to hang themselves.  Dr. Watts indicated in his televised press release that some time after Coach Clark was hired, Dr. Watts went to him and asked what resources would be needed and what would it take financially to be successful and productive as a team?  Then he turns around and gives that as a projected budget to this Carr group and they used those numbers to estimate the cost over the next 5 years.  During this time, the Football Foundation and Justin Craft specifically worked his tail off to acquire financial backing to subsidize the program.  When presented to Dr. Watts weeks ago, it was completely shot down.  

Now I dont know about you but thats like asking a child what do you want for Christmas and then after checking the prices of what the child requested, you put the child up for adoption because you just cant afford them.  Another option would have been, as you said above, to compromise with the child for a lesser gift or tell them you only have this much money to go toward that shiny new bike.  If you want the bike, you’ll have to find a way to earn the rest.  Thats what my parents did with me when I was 12 and you know what, I found a way to come up with the money.  UAB Football was never given that opportunity.

Apparently the Mayor’s office disagrees that a capital budget is necessary for major expenditures. While there has been no budget in recent years, there have been plenty of major capital expenditures.

Thanks for the comment, @Dystopos:disqus. I’ll make the same point I did to Brandon though – the city would need to produce a capital budget for any major expenditure and it’s been a while since that’s been an easy task.

I’ll also add that you basically just summarized most of what I said in the first part of the editorial anyway.

Yes, Brandon, you’re right. Among the questions we have to ask though is whether or not the city is ready to build or renovate. A point I was saving for later is the fact that there hasn’t been a true capital budget presented for consideration to our City Council in a few years. Construction’s a capital project…

Please forgive typos in post – writing from a mobile device!