ATLANTA — When the football program at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, was shut down and boarded up last December, the issue that preoccupied many people nationally was the cost of major-college football and the politics that can surround any decision related to the most popular sport on campus.
Almost unnoticed in the debate among fans, bureaucrats and educators was a robust roster of U.A.B. players — runners, tacklers, receivers — who sat in stunned silence when they were told the program was being eliminated.
“We knew what we had, we had ballplayers,” tight end Gerald Everett said.