quote:
Bartow also urged Berst to investigate the Alabama basketball program and noted that several football coaches whose programs had drawn NCAA sanctions--including Jackie Sherrill, Danny Ford and Charley Pell--were “trained” by Bryant. In a statement issued Wednesday by UAB, Bartow said: “I had great respect for Coach Bryant as the greatest football coach who ever lived and sincerely apologize to family, friends, former players and fans who were offended.

“I would also apologize to the coaches who worked under Coach Bryant who were mentioned. . . . They are all fine coaches, and I’m not sure why I put that in my letter. “This letter was written out of deep frustration about our apparent inability to recruit the same high-caliber players Alabama was getting under their former staff. I would like to emphasize that I have the greatest respect for the current athletic staff . . . at Alabama. “I was extremely upset at the NCAA enforcement staff at the time, especially with what I saw as their failure to enforce NCAA rules. . . . “

That rift has lasted until this day. UAB and Alabama will not play each other in football or basketball.

Some other things that added fuel to the fire is when Jimbo Fisher was LSU's OC and the UAB job was open. The University of Alabama system didn't want to pay him what he wanted for that job. UAB was (and always has been) losing money with it's football program and the view was that paying $600k a year to Fisher was not a good investment. And a lot of that built up to the point where the program was shuttered due to it continuing to lose money.

UAB fans were pissed and blamed Alabama. The auburn fans saw this as an opportunity to hurt Alabama, so they because very vocal and pro-UAB.

And it's the University of Alabama School of Medicine. Not the UAB School of Medicine. But that's another fight for another day...