Brown blazes trail for UAB

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

Of the 56 teams in bowl games this season, the University of Alabama at Birmingham is likely the happiest to be in the postseason.

But, then, the Blazers have reason to be. For when UAB's charter flight touched down here yesterday, theirs was a journey of more than just the 4,370 air miles from Birmingham, Ala., to Hono-lulu.

It was a voyage from not just humble Division III beginnings but, more recently, from the threat of extinction.

In making the school's first bowl appearance, Friday against Hawai'i in the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl at Aloha Stadium, UAB (7-4) found paradise less than three years after football was faced with the possibility of being closed down, lock, stock and jock.

"Getting here is a major accomplishment for us, especially after what almost happened," senior wide receiver Roddy White said. What happened in April of 2002 was the Alabama Board of trustees gave UAB athletics an ultimatum: Balance the books, pronto, or risk being shut down.

At the time, athletics was awash in a $7.6 million deficit and the administration was caught up in a messy internecine war with the trustees who used the opportunity to take then-president Ann Reynolds and athletic director Herman Frazier to task.

Less than three months later, Reynolds had resigned and Frazier was on his way to Hawai'i to become athletic director at UH. Suddenly, football, which began as a Division III program in 1991, was on the brink.

With the deficit still hanging over a program in limbo, the feeling was, if athletics was cut, football would be first on the chopping block. "The players started to panic," said quarterback Darrell Hackney, who said he thought about transferring.

The players said the beginning of regaining their confidence was when head football coach Watson Brown, who had overseen the rise from a I-AA program since 1995, was tapped to be interim athletic director, in addition to his football duties. "Coach had a team meeting and told us what was up," Hackney said. "Once we understood, it was OK."

Said White: "He (Brown) told us he'd get it done; we believed in him."

Juggling his football responsibilities with an exhaustive fund-raising push that took him to 40 corporations and businesses in the first months, Brown was able to demonstrate to new president Carol Garrison that athletics could reduce the deficit. By Aug. 1, 2002 — a week before the start of fall football camp — Brown was formally given the dual title of AD and football coach and has been in perpetual motion since.

With the deficit falling, Garrison got the trustees to rescind their resolution last year. Brown said the deficit has been pared to "about $5 million" with a plan "to knock it down a million a year.

"We've go to work on that and knock it down more, but, thank goodness, we were able to get that resolution off us last year."

It has been a balancing act for Brown, the man charged with doing it. While as football coach he might have wanted to fill a 2003 non-conference schedule opening with a soft Division I-AA team, as athletic director he had to bring in big bucks. So, Brown took the Blazers to Georgia for a $450,000 guarantee — and nearly got the win to boot, losing 16-13.

Not only did he have to battle with schools for recruits, he had to go elbow-to-elbow with in-state powers Alabama and Auburn for sponsor dollars and fight off overtures from Auburn and Miami to retain men's basketball coach Mike Anderson.

"It was tough, especially at the start," said Brown, who is one of only two football coaches also serving as AD on the I-A level. (Wisconsin's Barry Alvarez recently became the other.) "But it is getting better. I've got a lot of good people backing me up now," Brown said.

While the players thank the president for believing in them and trustees for the vote of confidence, they say their heart-felt admiration goes to Brown.

"When you think about the UAB football program and how it has come from nothing to where it is now, you have to thank Coach Brown," senior linebacker Zac Woodfin said. "He's somebody everybody looks up to and respects. I wouldn't trade him for the world."

Hackney said: "We're happy to be in our first bowl because now we know this is a program on the rise."

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.