Photo courtesy UAB Athletics.
Coach Bill Clark
Bill Clark, head coach of the UAB Blazers football squad, recently told the Washington Post the amazing story of the program's comeback from two years of inactivity. The Blazers recently clinched the 2018 Conference USA West Division championship.
Welcome to another installment of UAB Briefs.
In this weekly online feature, we keep track of interesting people and events on campus.
Know people, places and programs on the UAB campus that deserve a mention? Email jchambers@starnespublishing.com.
UAB FOOTBALL
The UAB Blazers football team and Head Coach Bill Clark have a record of 9-1 so far in 2018 and a record of 17-6 overall since the program was brought back from the brink of extinction at the beginning of the 2017 season.
Not only that, but the Blazers clinched the championship of the Conference USA West Division when they came from behind to beat long-time rival Southern Mississippi 26-23 at Legion Field on Saturday, Nov. 10.
To cap off a great weekend for the program, UAB was ranked No. 25 in the new Amway Coaches Poll. This is their first appearance in the Top 25 since 2004.
Not surprisingly, the Blazers and Clark — recently placed on the watch list for the annual Paul "Bear" Bryant Coach of the Year Award — have received a lot of positive national press attention this season.
Few have done a better job of telling the inspiring story of the Blazers football comeback than author and Washington Post sports writer John Feinstein in his column, “There are comeback stories, and then there is Bill Clark and UAB football.”
The story was posted on Oct. 17, when the Blazers were 5-1 and just a few days away from a victory over North Texas State.
“You can’t make the story up because nothing like it’s ever happened before,” Clark told Feinstein. “What people in this town and our alumni and our players and coaches have done is just amazing. I can’t believe the place we’re in today compared to where we were back in December of 2014.”
The Blazers have a tough road test coming up on Saturday, Nov. 17, against SEC West power Texas A&M.
WIRED MEDICINE
UAB Medicine has been named one of “HealthCare’s Most Wired” institutions for 2018 in a 20th annual survey administered by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives.
This is the fifth consecutive year UAB Medicine has earned this recognition, according to a UAB news release.
The annual survey is designed to identify and recognize health care organizations that exemplify best practices through their use of information technology.
The survey polled 2,190 health care facilities, including 102 international organizations.
UAB's IMPACT
The huge economic impact of UAB — the largest single employer in the state — has long been apparent.
Now the school has been designated as an Innovation and Economic Prosperity University by the Association of Public Land-grant Universities, according to a UAB news release.
UAB is one of only 65 higher education institutions nationwide — and one of only two in the state, along with Auburn University — that have been recognized under the APLU program as IEP universities, the release states.
The program measures a school’s level of economic engagement by looking at several factors, including the advancement of talent, workforce development, innovation and entrepreneurship.
UAB’s designation is the result of a year-long, campus-wide effort led by the Bill L. Harbert Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in conjunction with the UAB Innovation Council.
“This process offered a chance to research and gather valuable insight that helped evaluate the university’s performance under our economic engagement goals,” said Kathy Nugent, executive director of the Harbert Institute, in the news release.
Some of the UAB programs highlighted in the IEP proposal were the UAB Commercialization Accelerator, the Center for Clinical and Translational Science and the Innovate Birmingham Regional Workforce partnership as well as the university’s partnership with Innovation Depot, the 140,000-square foot business incubator located downtown.
