The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
Message From Director of Athletics Mark Ingram
9/2/2015 12:00:00 AM | General
Our student-athletes returned to campus last weekend and have completed one week of the Fall semester. Thanks to the Office of Student Affairs, they had the chance to begin the week last Sunday night with a welcome back bar-b-que and free concert, starring hip-hop recording artist B.o.B.
Academically, our student-athletes continue to perform exceptionally well in the classroom, 50 of them earning their degrees this past May. Last year, our team GPA, as a whole, ranked second in C-USA. We had 187 of our more than 350 student-athletes earn a 3.0 GPA or better for the Spring semester and 37 of them scored a perfect 4.0. Additionally, over 200 Blazer Student-Athletes were recognized on the C-USA Commissioner’s Honor Roll. Men’s and Women’s Tennis each received a NCAA Public Recognition Award for posting Multi-Year APR scores that are in the top 10% of their peers nationally.
Volleyball, Women’s Soccer and Men’s Soccer have all started competition, with Women’s Cross Country soon to follow. That being said, everyone is training for their upcoming seasons and excited for their opportunity to represent UAB!
On Tuesday, August 18, we kicked off UAB’s Finish the Drive Campaign for Blazer Athletics, and announced that we intend to renovate or build a new facility for each of our sport programs. Holding true to that, we continue to look closely at the full scope of several projects including our Football Operations Facility, a Track and Field Complex, Bartow Arena and Wallace Gym. Other projects will soon follow.
BBVA Compass Field, the new home for Blazer Women’s and Men’s Soccer beginning next season, is under construction and making steady progress. Sod will be laid soon and begin taking root. Plans for the stadium portion of the project are being finalized and construction will begin after our seasons are complete. In addition, thanks to a number of our generous donors, we are resurfacing the UAB tennis courts which are used by the Women’s and Men’s Tennis teams, as well as our students, faculty and staff.
Following our June 1, announcement regarding the reinstatement of Football, Bowling and Rifle, we began accepting payments against the $17.2 million that was pledged to support those programs. After setting a goal to collect at least $2 million by September 1, we received a fantastic response and have done just that, with more than half our donors making their first installments. We are excited to learn how much has been received once we calculate all donations. Not to be surprised, the support for UAB continues to be overwhelming and we thank all of you!
We look forward to seeing everyone at our Fall competitions… Go Blazers!
Warm Regards,
Mark T. Ingram
Director of Athletics
University of Alabama at Birmingham
