University of Alabama - Birmingham (UAB) President Ray Watts announced the end of the school's football program in Dec., but he had known that for months.
AL.com reported obtaining documents that suggest Watts knew about the impending closure of the UAB football team as early as the summer before the season. The report indicates UAB leadership consulted with two public relations firms that advised the school to wait until the school was over to try and limit potential blowback.
The documents reportedly show UAB's correspondence with Sard Verbinnen & Co and CarrSports. Both PR firms advised Watts to delay the announcement until after the season.
But some publications caught wind of the plan to close three athletic programs, the football team chiefly among them, and Watts responded by stating a decision had not been made as of yet. Ultimately, AL.com noted, he led the public to believe his decision was finalized in Nov. and announced a month later.
"At UAB, as with any major organization, it is common to prepare for potential scenarios from a communications standpoint, even prior to a final decision being made," the school told UAB in a statement." These documents are consistent with such a process. The decision was final in November after all information was garnered and analyzed."
The documents AL.com obtained seem to explicitly indicate there was an "Announcement Day" planned for Sept. 17, 2014, which would suggest UAB had its mind made up. That day also aligned with a bye week for the football team, meaning the staff and players would be on campus.
Alabama State Rep. Jack Williams also saw these documents, ESPN reported, as he has publicly called for Watts to resign.
"It clearly shows the decision had been made in spring or early summer to kill the program," he told ESPN. "The president is lying to the board, faculty, students and the community at large... I call for Dr. Watts to resign."
Watts called Williams' assertion "categorically untrue." Still, AL.com analyzed a draft of a document from CarrSports dated Sept. 3, which reportedly contained several similarities to the one Watts used in Nov.
The decision to hold off on the announcement was apparently made to avoid a wave of "immediate transfer requests" and potentially "a full team boycott." Despite the decision to shut down the football team, UAB was apparently concerned with the notion they "would not be able to field a competitive team - or any team."
