Let me describe a hypothetical situation. A family has two children. The older child is the superstar of the family – a gifted athlete, the most popular in school, and always on the front page of the local paper. The younger child is also very gifted; while just a decent athlete, he is well liked around school, and mostly known for having the best project at the science fair. Unfortunately for the youngest of the two children, their parents are much more fond of their older sibling.

While mom and dad buy the oldest child brand new, expensive sports equipment, the younger one gets the worn out hand-me-downs after the eldest is done using them. Its not that the parents don’t love the younger of the two children and aren’t proud of their accomplishments, but the oldest is their golden child and the parents do just a little more for the older compared to the younger of the two.

As the University of Alabama at Birmingham has come to realize, sometimes it is tough being the younger child. While both UAB and our University are integral parts of the University of Alabama System (which includes the University of Alabama, UAB and the University of Alabama in Huntsville), UAB occasionally gets the short end of the stick between the two, with athletics being a prominent example. In the case of UAB’s push to build an on-campus football stadium, it looks like they’re going to be forced to stick with our hand-me-downs for at least a little while longer.

The University of Alabama System Board of Trustees recently denied UAB the opportunity to get their football team out of Legion Field, an 84-year-old stadium that is way past its prime, and build a $75 million, 30,000-seat on-campus stadium for their football program. Their decision to deny such a large financial undertaking is not the problem with this situation; it is the fact that the board made this decision without an official vote of the board and the proposal was not even discussed or on the agenda at the recent board meeting.

This is not the first time a UAB attempt to push its football program to the next level has been stopped unfairly by the board. In 2006, while both our University and UAB were in the hunt for a new head football coach, UAB was the first to find who they thought would be the best option to take over their team and revitalize their program.             Jimbo Fisher, who was then working as LSU’s offensive coordinator, was UAB’s first choice, and all that was left was finalizing the details of his contract before he would take over the reigns of the football team. Unfortunately for UAB, though, the board did not agree with this decision and claimed that they could not hire Fisher because of “financial considerations.”

While it is obviously smart for the board to be so fiscally responsible, the $600,000 a year salary UAB was prepared to offer Fisher is quite modest by today’s college football standards, and a large part of it was going to be covered by UAB boosters. Keep in mind as well that at this time the board authorized buying out the remainder of former Alabama coach Mike Shula’s contract, costing $4 million, and offered a six-year, $12 million contract to Rich Rodriguez to take over as the new head coach.

Now, it’s obviously unreasonable to expect the board to treat UAB’s football program on the same level as ours. We have a larger fan base, much more success and are undeniably the centerpiece of football for the entire University of Alabama System that the board presides over.

But it is unfair to the students, alumni, players, coaches and administration at UAB for the board to act like the biased parents who favor their favorite son, while giving the younger son the unwanted leftovers. I hope the board will give UAB the respect it deserves by allowing a public vote of UAB’s request for a stadium and, in the end, at least give the kid a chance.

Brad Tipper is a sophomore majoring in political science and economics. His column runs biweekly on Wednesdays.