Birmingham and Memphis can be looked at as sister cities.

Through the years they've traveled similar paths and lived similar history well before UAB and U of Memphis shared a men's basketball coach.

Who can forget the old WFL days with the heated rivalry between the Vulcans and Southmen?

Or when ESPN broadcast the Barons and Chicks game live on national TV.

Then the original USFL with the Showboats and Stallions.

Some of us go even farther back and remember the Alabama gang vs the Tennessee Tornado and Ellis Palasini at the Lakeland Speedbowl on Friday nights and Birmingham International Speedway on Saturdays.


The two cities are tied together like adjoined twins.

So if we do it then do it right.

Permanently move the game to a 2pm start time on Saturday after Thanksgiving.

This gives the teams and fans the time to spend the holidays at home.

Friday morning the BBQ cooking teams from visiting team takes the short drive along 78/22 and spends a couple hours setting up for the cook off.

Friday 2 pm the meat hits the cooker.

Friday 6 pm you have judging for presentation and theme of cooking teams.

Friday between 8-10 entertainment program with awarding awards for team displays.

Saturday 9 am cooking ends and crews present their entries for each category.

Saturday 10-11 am judging for each category begins, while teams start breaking down and securing their equipment and displays.

Saturday 2 pm game starts.

Halftime winners are announced and awards are handed out on the field.

Saturday 6 pm game is over and visiting cooking teams start home.

Saturday 8:30-9:00 visiting cookers arrive back home.

Saturday 10pm visiting cooker have secured their equipment and in bed.

Sunday morning everyone is awake and headed to their local church.

I hope this game develops into that sort of an event. The biggest problem I see is that the area around Protective Stadium is an active entertainment district for the convention center. So far there has been little support for events in that area that draw lots of people overnight. On Birmingham's end, it would require the city and the BJCC (who owns and operates the stadium) to get behind making this a well run and successful event. I would hope that they are forward thinking enough to support it and make it a big annual event.

This is a much nicer stadium, but it does not have the sort of open surrounding area that Lesion Field had. Businesses nearby aren't wild about a bunch of people, many of whom have been drinking, running around the area all night.

(07-02-2023 08:57 AM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  I hope this game develops into that sort of an event. The biggest problem I see is that the area around Protective Stadium is an active entertainment district for the convention center. So far there has been little support for events in that area that draw lots of people overnight. On Birmingham's end, it would require the city and the BJCC (who owns and operates the stadium) to get behind making this a well run and successful event. I would hope that they are forward thinking enough to support it and make it a big annual event.

This is a much nicer stadium, but it does not have the sort of open surrounding area that Lesion Field had. Businesses nearby aren't wild about a bunch of people, many of whom have been drinking, running around the area all night.

Exactly what band dad said. There is no open parking lot, just parking garages and they don’t make great grilling areas. Also I don’t believe there is an RV lot and the city of Birmingham doesn’t allow tailgating until 4 hours before kickoff so not even sure if they allow overnight parking. BHM has some figure it out to do when it comes to game day experience around Protective. They need to let the Bruno event team handle it.

(07-01-2023 12:17 AM)ncrdbl1 Wrote:  Birmingham and Memphis can be looked at as sister cities.

Through the years they've traveled similar paths and lived similar history well before UAB and U of Memphis shared a men's basketball coach.

Who can forget the old WFL days with the heated rivalry between the Vulcans and Southmen?

Or when ESPN broadcast the Barons and Chicks game live on national TV.

Then the original USFL with the Showboats and Stallions.

Some of us go even farther back and remember the Alabama gang vs the Tennessee Tornado and Ellis Palasini at the Lakeland Speedbowl on Friday nights and Birmingham International Speedway on Saturdays.


The two cities are tied together like adjoined twins.

So if we do it then do it right.

Permanently move the game to a 2pm start time on Saturday after Thanksgiving.

This gives the teams and fans the time to spend the holidays at home.

Friday morning the BBQ cooking teams from visiting team takes the short drive along 78/22 and spends a couple hours setting up for the cook off.

Friday 2 pm the meat hits the cooker.

Friday 6 pm you have judging for presentation and theme of cooking teams.

Friday between 8-10 entertainment program with awarding awards for team displays.

Saturday 9 am cooking ends and crews present their entries for each category.

Saturday 10-11 am judging for each category begins, while teams start breaking down and securing their equipment and displays.

Saturday 2 pm game starts.

Halftime winners are announced and awards are handed out on the field.

Saturday 6 pm game is over and visiting cooking teams start home.

Saturday 8:30-9:00 visiting cookers arrive back home.

Saturday 10pm visiting cooker have secured their equipment and in bed.

Sunday morning everyone is awake and headed to their local church.

+1. :cogs:

I'd be all in on getting this going again but it would take some buy in by the Bham/BJCC folks & someone from UAB getting them to buy in - all of those will be hard to happen. There's spots where it could happen but harder than it would be at LF.

(07-02-2023 09:49 AM)Usajags Wrote:  

(07-02-2023 08:57 AM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  I hope this game develops into that sort of an event. The biggest problem I see is that the area around Protective Stadium is an active entertainment district for the convention center. So far there has been little support for events in that area that draw lots of people overnight. On Birmingham's end, it would require the city and the BJCC (who owns and operates the stadium) to get behind making this a well run and successful event. I would hope that they are forward thinking enough to support it and make it a big annual event.

This is a much nicer stadium, but it does not have the sort of open surrounding area that Lesion Field had. Businesses nearby aren't wild about a bunch of people, many of whom have been drinking, running around the area all night.

Exactly what band dad said. There is no open parking lot, just parking garages and they don’t make great grilling areas. Also I don’t believe there is an RV lot and the city of Birmingham doesn’t allow tailgating until 4 hours before kickoff so not even sure if they allow overnight parking. BHM has some figure it out to do when it comes to game day experience around Protective. They need to let the Bruno event team handle it.

FWIW I think this may be a UAB Thing. I've gotten out there at 8am a few times for Legion (USL Soccer) night games. Usually do it at least a couple times a year for them. We also had Ghost Train "sponsor" a tailgate recently and they brought their huge (15ish feet) charcoal smoker and didn't have any problems.

I think it's a pretty cool looking trophy, actually. Better than the Civil Conflict.

(07-03-2023 03:38 PM)TripleA Wrote:  I think it's a pretty cool looking trophy, actually. Better than the Civil Conflict.

It's a cool trophy, but I'd like to see a plaque on it with the team that won that year.

Maybe we can get this going again.

It completely boggles my mind that we brought in a bunch of teams that finally provided drivable opponents for a ton of teams that didn't have them, went with single permanent opponents.................and didn't set them as rivalry week matchups.

Would really like to hear Aresco's reasoning for this. I know they said they wanted to mix things up in the first few years to get everyone familiar, so not ~3 permanent opponents like we all expected, but we did set one permanent opponent for most everyone.

I just don't get it.

(07-03-2023 03:38 PM)TripleA Wrote:  I think it's a pretty cool looking trophy, actually. Better than the Civil Conflict.

rumor has it...that the original Bones trophy was made of gold.
UAB thought it was such a nice trophy....they had it bronzed.