Football at Alabama-Birmingham is no more, but that didn’t stop one young kid from doing all he could to save the program.
According to Brett Edgerton of ESPN.com, 5-year-old Bennett Williams of Dublin, Ohio, began rooting for UAB when he discovered its mascot is a pretty sweet looking dragon. Although he follows in his parents’ footsteps of rooting for Ohio State, the youngster also checked to see how the Blazers did each weekend.
So when UAB’s president announced in a heartbreaking scene earlier this month that the school would shut down the football program, Bennett was devastated. However, he wanted to help.
“He looked at me and said, ‘How much money do they need? Would a dollar help?’ ” Bennett’s father, Brad, told ESPN.com. “I said, ‘Bud, that’s about $22 million short, but why not, we can try.’ ”
Bennett penned a letter to UAB and attached his weekly allowance of $1.
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The heartwarming gesture proved to be a bright spot in what has been an awful month for the school. Reid Adair, a longtime athletic department employee, was especially touched by the letter, and responded to Bennett with a letter and some UAB swag.
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“There’s been so much negativity and people have been so disappointed and upset,” Adair told ESPN.com. “So something like that — a little kid in Ohio who knew nothing else but our dragon logo giving up his allowance to help us — I think we all look at something like that and really appreciate what a bright spot it’s been in a bad time.”
The letter has been passed around the university and now is framed and hanging on the wall of the athletic department’s main conference room, ESPN reported.
