EchoBooming in Birmingham

Richard Margison, UAB Vice President for Finance and Administration, will take on the additional responsibility of administering the Blazer Athletics department on an interim basis, effective immediately, allowing Watson Brown to devote all his energies to his head football coaching duties.

That means that UAB hasn’t had a full time AD since Clean Gene.
(Herman Frazier was PT AD, PT Olympic Committee member).

Someone with inside info had this to say on http://blazertalk.com:

OK, I still have some connections at UAB from my old days, and this one has administrative connections that puts her in the know. BTW, she didn’t know any of this until the past week, when it was put in motion, and she had to handle some of the details.

She says the following:

Margison will be AD through June, likely no longer. A quiet search is already underway, led by Garrison, with no input from Brown, but apparently lots of input from CMA. While Bartow has received tons of support, Garrison has no intention of putting him in power, even as a two-year or so interim. She considers that a step backward.

Brown has been told in no uncertain terms no conference title game next year, no more employment. Apparently, he doesn’t have to win it, he just has to have us playing in it, and in a bowl game. It’s assumed if we play in the title game, we’ll go to a bowl.

He has been told to “make corrections” to his staff, which is clearly inadequate. She doesn’t know more than that, but she said he’s very resistant to making any changes on his staff.

With his AD duties stripped, so is his salary. By half.

he knows little about sports, but she said this stuff is pretty common knowledge around her office. I doubt she’s making any of it up. She also said Brown wasn’t happy with any of it. She thinks, as did several administrators, that the MTSU thing was almost a done deal, and that Brown may still be looking because he’s feeling mistreated by the adminstration (sic). However, she did say Brown was given a choice between head coach and AD, and he decided he wanted to coach. She said Garrison and Margison both would have preferred he made the other choice.

It’s a step in the right direction, and I hope that the ultimatums that Garrison has placed on Watson are true. He needs a fire under his ass…