Talk:UAB Blazers

Fisher controversy
The following text was removed from the Jimbo Fisher article as it was far too detailed for his page. However, it (or some portion) may be appropriate here; I'll let regular caretakers of the article make the call. === UAB Controversy === Following the 2006 season, Fisher interviewed for the head coaching position at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The school was prepared to hire him as the head coach, with a salary of $600,000, half of which would be paid by two Birmingham area business leaders. However, the Alabama Board of Trustees vetoed the contract offer, with one board member claiming it was a matter of "fiscal responsibility". This even though the $300,000 share that the school would be responsible for paying was no more than they had paid the previous coach, Watson Brown.

Interestingly, the same Board of Trustees authorized a $4,000,000 buyout of University of Alabama head coach Mike Shula, then offered a 4 year, $12,000,000 contract offer to Rich Rodriguez, until eventually giving Nick Saban $32,000,000 over 8 years, reportedly the largest salary ever for a college football head coach.

This has lead some to allege that the Alabama Board of Trustees (especially Paul Bryant Jr., the son of the legendary Alabama coach) has a vested interest in keeping the University of Alabama at Birmingham's football program weak, as a strong program could be a threat to the recruiting efforts of the University of Alabama.

On the other hand, the University of Alabama athletic department had a profit of $7,109,599 in the 2005-2006 fiscal year, while the University of Alabama-Birmingham athletic department had a profit of only $320,211 over that same time period, according to the US Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education.

Hope this is useful. AU Tiger » talk 04:53, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:NCA
Any opposition to moving this to University of Alabama at Birmingham Blazers? Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat 05:56, 29 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Please see Talk:USC Trojans for the discussion there referencing Naming conventions (common names) and note that:
 * Google: "University of Alabama Birmingham Blazers" = 924
 * Google: "UAB Blazers" = 280,000
 * Based on Google, and since the home state media, ESPN and :Sports Illustrated all refer to them primarily as UAB Blazers, I don't think the move would be appropriate. AU Tiger » talk 06:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Have you seen WP:NCA. That is the issue at hand. Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  14:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
 * In the context of athletics, the school refers to itself as UAB. Their website  has a big banner up at the top that says "UAB BLAZERS".  They treat it as an official name, not as an abbreviation. -- B  18:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
 * JMF, apparently you didn't read it that well; quoting WP:NCA:
 * "Acronyms can be used in page naming if the term you are naming is almost exclusively known only by its acronyms and is widely known and used in that form. (NASA, and radar are good examples). In order to determine the prominence of the abbreviation over the full name, consider checking how the subject is referred to by popular media like newspapers, magazines and other publications."
 * Above I gave you references per the precise wording of that section. AU Tiger » talk 19:53, 30 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Please stop making statements that are not about the content. Making references to how well I did and did not read a particular section is not appreciated. I'm suprrised at how often people cite google sources.  That being said, I agree with you on the popular media.  However, many media outlets refer to the main campus for the University of Georgia simply as UGA.  I don't see UGA's sports pages titled as such.  Please stop taking a hostile approach, especially when I'm opening discussions.  Local media is not relevant as they always assume their readership is familiar with the topic.  Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  20:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
 * UGA, VT, UVA, GT, and AU are all abbreviations, not recognized names of their respective institutions. UAB and USC, on the other hand, in addition to being abbreviations, are also recognized informal names that are used by the media and by the schools themselves.  -- B  20:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I responded to your comment containing your own insinuation, but let me restate: I believe it's a good idea to have a full understanding of a Guideline before using it to assert a name-change is necessary. As to Google, people cite Google results because they are a valuable tool to get a quick rough gauge of things like notability and common usages; in fact there's an essay about it - WP:GOOGLE. The Google results I cite showed a usage preference on the order of 300:1 - a compelling indicator of relative preferred usage. Finally, as B states, UAB uses UAB Blazers as an official name; they've even registered it as a trademark but they did not register "University of Alabama at Birmingham Blazers". Btw, I must admit that I erred with my first search above, using "University of Alabama Birmingham Blazers" rather than "University of Alabama at Birmingham Blazers"; the new result for your preferred term (with 'at') was only 563 (only 1/500 the usage of UAB Blazers). AU Tiger  » talk 20:45, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot (talk) 19:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:UAB blaze.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 09:52, 21 January 2008 (UTC)