This is the story of a program which had a lot to be proud of, but decided its own remarkable revival was less interesting than ESPN's 248th-most likable personality.
UAB has some resilient fans. They just show little passion for their Blazers (outside of “the Return”—which was more about spitting at the UA Board of Trustees rather than any true passion for the Blazers. Even the basketball team which has some 20th century history rarely draw more 4,000 fans in their 8,500 capacity arena.
High school to college coaches usually don’t work. Bob Cummins to Iowa was a debacle ( l actually declined a grad assistant job there) Gerry Faust to Notre Dame was an another one, I knew assistant who said he was completely out of league. The only one I remember that worked was Paul Brown from Massillon to Ohio State. My grandfather who had been a NFL player and former college head coach who had gone back to coach in high school in Northern Ohio years later said Brown was smarter than most of the college coaches
I'll take the L on this one. In my mind Huntsville is a tiny town entirely inhabited by rocket scientists. now I'm wondering why the BoT won't let UAH have a team.
Huntsville city may have a bigger population than Birmingham city, but Birmingham metro population is 700k larger than Huntsville metro. It's a whole city politics thing, but Bham metro is largest in state.
Birmingham was the largest city in AL for roughly 100 years--having a population of 340,000 in 1960. After the Civil Rights movement, the city began a quick decline--losing about 25,000 people by the 1970 census as whites fled the city. In the next 50 years as the city schools collapsed and violence rapidly increased, more whites and upper and middle class blacks also fled. Birmingham now has less than 200,000 having lost population in 7 consecutive censuses. Murder and crime are rampant. Many band-aids have been proposed but the city is most likely past the point of return.
While this isn't wrong, it also undermines the systematic destruction of the city center through increasingly powerful majority white suburbs. Birmingham has a complicated history but it has been on a pretty good rebound since 2010. The downtown area is like any urban downtown in the South that I have been to: there are lots of good places and some bad places and it is fairly easy to distinguish between the two. Murder and crime aren't rampant throughout the city but like many communities, we have had our share of heartbreaking tragedies.
Matt is right though, the city of Huntsville doesn't have the history of white flight to contend with so it is technically larger but if you include all over the "Over The Mountain" white flight suburbs the metro area is significantly larger.
I'm Canadian, and cannot watch college football (it's not on TV up here). Before about 15 minutes ago, I'd never even heard of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, but this story connected with me.
I have a few questions. First of all, was the AD in some kind of tight spot? That would go a long way to explaining the apparent need to make a splash, despite there being no need that I can understand. We can debate on how big of a splash Trent Dilfer may or may not be, but the question here is why was there a need felt to make any splash at all with how solid the program had been? Isn't that the opposite of what you'd like? My approach to dealing with a change to something so successful would be to rock the boat as little as possible.
The second question I have is that even if we take this at its word. UAB was looking to take a big step up in the college football world, and Bryant Vincent couldn't get that done. Is there any realistic chance of that happening? Keep in mind that my understanding of college football is very limited, but my understanding of this game is that it's a hierarchical, patriarchal system where the haves spend most of their time going out of their way to hold down the have-nots. Even if this hire worked out like gang busters, and Trent Dilfer somehow was the best football coach in human history, how far could the best football coach in human history take UAB? This could be a silly question asked by somebody who has no idea what sport I'm talking about, but it seems to me like UAB were near their ceiling anyways. How much of a step up did they plan to take?
Third question, WTF is with Trent Dilfer of all people believing he can put down his employers in that way? How can he get away with that? To me, this seems like politician speak. Trent Dilfer is acting like a cockroach, expending all of his effort to ensure that the failure doesn't rub off on him, instead of actually trying to prevent the failure. That's what a politician does, and why would a man feel the need to act like a politician so soon after getting the job? That is telling right there.
Great article Rodger! You've managed to get me stirred up about a controversy in a sport I don't watch at a school I'd never heard of. I'd love to give you an even better compliment than that, but in all honesty that's a big enough compliment on it's own. From now on, I'll be hoping every day that the Blazers eventually get rid of this guy.
As to your 2nd question, the “haves“ undercut the “havenots“ by hiring coaches and taking the best players from successful “have not“ teams. This has become very common and often keeps “have not“ teams from gaining any traction from their own success. I think the intention is to benefit the “have“ teams which are always struggling to get to the top. However it does have the side effect of crippling the “have lots“.
Russillo is going to be so mad when someone shows him this. He is, after all, the only reason that Dilfer was still getting his takes off after his contract dispute with ESPN fell apart (allegedly over private plane use) in 2017.
UAB has some resilient fans. They just show little passion for their Blazers (outside of “the Return”—which was more about spitting at the UA Board of Trustees rather than any true passion for the Blazers. Even the basketball team which has some 20th century history rarely draw more 4,000 fans in their 8,500 capacity arena.
High school to college coaches usually don’t work. Bob Cummins to Iowa was a debacle ( l actually declined a grad assistant job there) Gerry Faust to Notre Dame was an another one, I knew assistant who said he was completely out of league. The only one I remember that worked was Paul Brown from Massillon to Ohio State. My grandfather who had been a NFL player and former college head coach who had gone back to coach in high school in Northern Ohio years later said Brown was smarter than most of the college coaches
Huntsville is the biggest city in Alabama, not Birmingham.
I'll take the L on this one. In my mind Huntsville is a tiny town entirely inhabited by rocket scientists. now I'm wondering why the BoT won't let UAH have a team.
Huntsville city may have a bigger population than Birmingham city, but Birmingham metro population is 700k larger than Huntsville metro. It's a whole city politics thing, but Bham metro is largest in state.
Birmingham was the largest city in AL for roughly 100 years--having a population of 340,000 in 1960. After the Civil Rights movement, the city began a quick decline--losing about 25,000 people by the 1970 census as whites fled the city. In the next 50 years as the city schools collapsed and violence rapidly increased, more whites and upper and middle class blacks also fled. Birmingham now has less than 200,000 having lost population in 7 consecutive censuses. Murder and crime are rampant. Many band-aids have been proposed but the city is most likely past the point of return.
While this isn't wrong, it also undermines the systematic destruction of the city center through increasingly powerful majority white suburbs. Birmingham has a complicated history but it has been on a pretty good rebound since 2010. The downtown area is like any urban downtown in the South that I have been to: there are lots of good places and some bad places and it is fairly easy to distinguish between the two. Murder and crime aren't rampant throughout the city but like many communities, we have had our share of heartbreaking tragedies.
Matt is right though, the city of Huntsville doesn't have the history of white flight to contend with so it is technically larger but if you include all over the "Over The Mountain" white flight suburbs the metro area is significantly larger.
This is awesome!
I'm Canadian, and cannot watch college football (it's not on TV up here). Before about 15 minutes ago, I'd never even heard of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, but this story connected with me.
I have a few questions. First of all, was the AD in some kind of tight spot? That would go a long way to explaining the apparent need to make a splash, despite there being no need that I can understand. We can debate on how big of a splash Trent Dilfer may or may not be, but the question here is why was there a need felt to make any splash at all with how solid the program had been? Isn't that the opposite of what you'd like? My approach to dealing with a change to something so successful would be to rock the boat as little as possible.
The second question I have is that even if we take this at its word. UAB was looking to take a big step up in the college football world, and Bryant Vincent couldn't get that done. Is there any realistic chance of that happening? Keep in mind that my understanding of college football is very limited, but my understanding of this game is that it's a hierarchical, patriarchal system where the haves spend most of their time going out of their way to hold down the have-nots. Even if this hire worked out like gang busters, and Trent Dilfer somehow was the best football coach in human history, how far could the best football coach in human history take UAB? This could be a silly question asked by somebody who has no idea what sport I'm talking about, but it seems to me like UAB were near their ceiling anyways. How much of a step up did they plan to take?
Third question, WTF is with Trent Dilfer of all people believing he can put down his employers in that way? How can he get away with that? To me, this seems like politician speak. Trent Dilfer is acting like a cockroach, expending all of his effort to ensure that the failure doesn't rub off on him, instead of actually trying to prevent the failure. That's what a politician does, and why would a man feel the need to act like a politician so soon after getting the job? That is telling right there.
Great article Rodger! You've managed to get me stirred up about a controversy in a sport I don't watch at a school I'd never heard of. I'd love to give you an even better compliment than that, but in all honesty that's a big enough compliment on it's own. From now on, I'll be hoping every day that the Blazers eventually get rid of this guy.
As to your 2nd question, the “haves“ undercut the “havenots“ by hiring coaches and taking the best players from successful “have not“ teams. This has become very common and often keeps “have not“ teams from gaining any traction from their own success. I think the intention is to benefit the “have“ teams which are always struggling to get to the top. However it does have the side effect of crippling the “have lots“.
Great piece, Rodge!
Russillo is going to be so mad when someone shows him this. He is, after all, the only reason that Dilfer was still getting his takes off after his contract dispute with ESPN fell apart (allegedly over private plane use) in 2017.
I guess this means I actually know one person who was a fan of Trent Dilfer's media career
just give Dilfer 10-20 more seasons to find guys with Dude Qualities and he will get this ship turned around