The decision to end UAB football is about more than sports. It is about more than recruiting wars or a stadium. It is certainly about more than old grudges. This decision is also about employment, education and values.
The decision to end a football program that fought to overcome great handicaps and become bowl eligible for the second time in a decade is also about the jobs attached to that struggle. Ending this program shows a reckless disregard for the jobs of every janitor, facilities support staffer, lawn maintenance professional and administrative support worker. It also discards the concerns of their families who will sorely miss lost paychecks as they search for new employment in our still weak state economy.
Worse still, the lost spending power of the unnecessarily unemployed will ripple through the retail and grocery stores of a city trying desperately to rise. Birmingham Mayor William Bell likely did not write to UAB President Ray Watts simply because he likes watching Blazer football on a warm fall Saturday. He probably considered how these lost jobs will impact the economic prosperity of their communities through lost rent payments, lost homebuyers, lost taxpayers, underfunded schools and public works and lost customers.
This debate was about honoring The University of Alabama System’s commitment to the young men it recruited to play football. UAB football enabled young men from smaller, less resource-rich high schools – schools that Alabama and Auburn would never even consider recruiting from – to obtain an education while playing the game they loved, though UAB has stated it intends to honor the players’ scholarships.
This decision is dishonorable to the current freshmen and sophomores who wouldn’t have given up offers to play at other schools if they knew the rug was likely to be pulled out from underneath them. Ending UAB football callously forces these students to choose between finishing their education at the school they love or attempting to transfer schools and risk graduating late to continue competing.
The decision made about UAB Football demonstrates what The University of Alabama System values. This program’s untimely death lets all of Alabama know that this system prizes one team’s football domination over the educations of and commitments it made to 170 students. This system has revealed that it values the promise of championship rings over the guarantee of well-fed children and stable households. We now know that this institution chose the strength of an offensive line over the economic strength of a city.
Ultimately, this decision affects more than sports.
Leigh Terry is a junior majoring in economics. Her column runs weekly.
