Blaze is the mascot of the
University of Alabama at Birmingham's athletics teams. He is a fire-breathing
European dragon.
UAB's athletic history goes back to 1977, when
Gene Bartow
Bobby Gene Bartow (August 18, 1930 January 3, 2012) was an American men's college basketball coach. The Browning, Missouri, native coached 36 years at six universities after coaching two high schools in Missouri for six years. In 1972 Bartow coac ...
was named the school's first athletic director. In January 1978, a campuswide vote bestowed the nickname "Blazers" on the team, hoping that the teams would "blaze" a new trail in college athletics. Originally, there was no official mascot, but that changed in 1995, when a European dragon was chosen as the mascot.
On January 6, 1996, "Blaze" was introduced at a basketball game. "Blaze" is considered a member of the spirit squads, and appears at all football and basketball games. Blaze's head has appeared on the sides of UAB's
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
helmets since 1996, when the team moved up to
Division I-A.
ReferencesUAB chronology
External links
Blaze's page at UAB's website
UAB Blazers
Dragon mascots
Conference USA mascots
{{Mascot-stub