05-31-2007, 10:30 PM
A caravan of Blazers made the trek from Birmingham to Jackson, Miss., for the Blazers' inaugural NCAA-sanctioned football game on Sept. 7, 1991.
It was a brutally hot and humid afternoon in the Mississippi sun as the Blazers played the Majors of Millsaps College. While this was only Division III football and none of the players were on scholarship, the game had a much-bigger-than-usual feel. For UAB, this represented the first step on an unprecedented jump to Division I in only five years. In Birmingham, the Blazers' debut was trumpeted with a front-page story in the Birmingham News. But even the folks in Mississippi could see that this might be the start of something big. The Jackson Clarion-Ledger, in its game preview, noted that Millsaps also held the distinction of being the first football opponent for another big southern school. Only time will tell if the Blazers do indeed someday reach the level of the Florida State Seminoles.
Besides the historical implications, the Blazers drew inspiration from the pregame pep talk of assistant coach Billy Tohill. The former head coach at TCU was a fiery orator who intruduced the term "snot-bubble those MFs" to the young UAB charges. As he wrapped up his speech, an odd laugh/growl/howl sound erupted from the players in the locker room that could be heard by people gathered outside the doors, and then the Blazers poured out looking like dragons with smoke billowing from their nostrils.
For the UAB fans in Jackson, there were few sights more prideful than seeing real-life UAB football players walk out of a tunnel and run through warm-ups. Wearing white jerseys with "U-A-B" on the front, with yellow pants with green and white trim and green helmets with yellow face masks, the Blazers were nearly 100 strong. QB Doug Gann came out for the coin toss, while Gene Bartow prowled the sidelines like a proud papa. He wore a white button that said "I was there: Sept. 7, 1991, UAB FOOTBALL" and passed them out to anyone who extended a hand. He gleamed with pride as he talked to Kevin Scarbinsky of the Birmingham News, noting that if someday UAB was playing in a big conference like the ACC, we could look back and say it all began here in Jackson. Gene was always ahead of his time. The ACC probably isn't in UAB's future, but even in 1991 Gene understood that the conferences would realign and that UAB must have football to be part of it.
Can't remember who won the toss, but UAB took the ball first. Arlan Bryant holds the distinction of being the first UAB player to touch a football in NCAA play as he returned the opening kickoff. James Jones took the first run from scrimmage, but that was more or less the highlights for the Blazers as Millsaps dominated. The Majors had a stiff defense led by three-time All-American Sean Brewer, and they stiffled UAB all afternoon in a 28-0 shutout. Those postgame Wendy's sandwiches they passed out to players, battered and bruised, probably didn't go down very well.
But the final score didn't really matter. What did matter was the birth of a program -- one that would show its remarkable progress just a year later by shutting out the Majors in Birmingham.
It was a brutally hot and humid afternoon in the Mississippi sun as the Blazers played the Majors of Millsaps College. While this was only Division III football and none of the players were on scholarship, the game had a much-bigger-than-usual feel. For UAB, this represented the first step on an unprecedented jump to Division I in only five years. In Birmingham, the Blazers' debut was trumpeted with a front-page story in the Birmingham News. But even the folks in Mississippi could see that this might be the start of something big. The Jackson Clarion-Ledger, in its game preview, noted that Millsaps also held the distinction of being the first football opponent for another big southern school. Only time will tell if the Blazers do indeed someday reach the level of the Florida State Seminoles.
Besides the historical implications, the Blazers drew inspiration from the pregame pep talk of assistant coach Billy Tohill. The former head coach at TCU was a fiery orator who intruduced the term "snot-bubble those MFs" to the young UAB charges. As he wrapped up his speech, an odd laugh/growl/howl sound erupted from the players in the locker room that could be heard by people gathered outside the doors, and then the Blazers poured out looking like dragons with smoke billowing from their nostrils.
For the UAB fans in Jackson, there were few sights more prideful than seeing real-life UAB football players walk out of a tunnel and run through warm-ups. Wearing white jerseys with "U-A-B" on the front, with yellow pants with green and white trim and green helmets with yellow face masks, the Blazers were nearly 100 strong. QB Doug Gann came out for the coin toss, while Gene Bartow prowled the sidelines like a proud papa. He wore a white button that said "I was there: Sept. 7, 1991, UAB FOOTBALL" and passed them out to anyone who extended a hand. He gleamed with pride as he talked to Kevin Scarbinsky of the Birmingham News, noting that if someday UAB was playing in a big conference like the ACC, we could look back and say it all began here in Jackson. Gene was always ahead of his time. The ACC probably isn't in UAB's future, but even in 1991 Gene understood that the conferences would realign and that UAB must have football to be part of it.
Can't remember who won the toss, but UAB took the ball first. Arlan Bryant holds the distinction of being the first UAB player to touch a football in NCAA play as he returned the opening kickoff. James Jones took the first run from scrimmage, but that was more or less the highlights for the Blazers as Millsaps dominated. The Majors had a stiff defense led by three-time All-American Sean Brewer, and they stiffled UAB all afternoon in a 28-0 shutout. Those postgame Wendy's sandwiches they passed out to players, battered and bruised, probably didn't go down very well.
But the final score didn't really matter. What did matter was the birth of a program -- one that would show its remarkable progress just a year later by shutting out the Majors in Birmingham.