Athletics
UAB's athletic teams are known as the Blazers. The school athletic colors are forest green and old gold athletic teams at UAB. The school is one of the 12 ember institutions of Conference USA and participates in Division I of the NCAA. The UAB football team, which competes in the Football Bowl Subdivision, is led by Garrick McGee and plays its home games at 71,594-seat Legion Field. The men's basketball team, coached by Jerod Haase, plays in 8,508-seat Bartow Arena.
The school started its intercollegiate athletic program in 1978. The program was inaugurated with men's basketball by Gene Bartow, who was John Wooden's successor at UCLA. Bartow left UCLA after several exceptional seasons (52–9 over three seasons, including a berth in the Final Four in 1976) to head up the founding of the first UAB men's basketball team. He served as the school's first head basketball coach and athletic director for 18 years. Bartow led UAB to the NIT in the program's second year of existence, and followed that with seven straight NCAA Tournament appearances, including trips to the Sweet 16 in 1981 and the Elite Eight in 1982. Bartow retired from coaching in 1996 and,in 1997, UAB renamed its basketball venue from UAB Arena to Bartow Arena in his honor. In 30 years UAB has made 13 NCAA appearances, three Sweet Sixteen appearances and an Elite Eight appearance, and has had 27 winning seasons, 19 of which were 20+ wins seasons.
In addition to football and basketball, UAB also has programs in men's sports for baseball, golf, soccer, and tennis. Women's sports programs include softball, basketball, golf, soccer, tennis, track and field (indoor and outdoor), cross country, rifle and volleyball. On November 11, 2010 UAB announced the addition of sand volleyball and bowling beginning with the 2011-2012 academic year.
Professional golfer Graeme McDowell (winner of the 2010 U.S. Open) played on the UAB golf team from 1998 - 2002.
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