The Last Dance (BSC Baseball, Spring 2024)

The Last Dance

(BSC Baseball, Spring 2024)

An Excerpt from CR Hayes’s Betrayed BSC: Making Sense of Birmingham-Southern College’s Closure

We all know the story of BSC Baseball. Most of the country does anyway.

Or, did, rather.

When BSC Baseball’s – “America’s Team” – miraculous run abruptly ended in a heartbreaking, nail-bitter walk-off finish on June 2nd, 2024, the curtain seemed to swiftly swing shut over the stage.

The encore act which never should have been came to a sudden, surreal end. 

A nation who had been eagerly watching the scintillating spectacle on the edge of their seats turned the TVs off. References to Birmingham-Southern Baseball and “America’s Team” – the talk of ESPN and most major news outlets for weeks – gradually faded from the public’s preoccupations over the ensuing days and weeks.

Just like that, with a walk-off homerun and the rounding of four bases, that was that.

BSC, a storied institution with 168-year-old roots, was, with that walk-off homerun in Eastlake, Ohio, at last, truly, totally gone.

For most of the nation, the story was over. That was that.

For us living vicariously through BSC Baseball’s unbelievable quest into The College World Series watching as our school was granted a brief afterlife none of us ever expected, the story was not yet over, though.

Just like all of us who savored the last days of access to campus before it closed to public entry, the BSC Baseball student-athletes wished to cherish the final, fleeting vestiges of a present soon to be condemned to the past.

The boys opted to take a bus home from the World Series rather than a plane so they could spend more time together. As Jason Sciavicco, Executive Producer of Blue Eyes Entertainment, the production company who secured rights to film BSC Baseball’s extraordinary World Series run, explained, “[The players were saying]: We just want to be together for another day.”

One more day. One more dance. One last time.

That is where the story ends for most: the BSC Baseball team boarding the bus after the tragic World Series loss.

Little known, however, is the story (the true final ending of BSC’s story) that played out when the players returned to a college campus in West Birmingham which had already been shut down for days.

On Monday, June 3rd, 2024, a ghost town awaited the BSC Baseball student-athletes upon their return to The Hilltop. No heroes’ welcome greeted the boys as their team bus rolled up to Striplin Field past empty parking lots.

Because many of the BSC Baseball players lived far away from Birmingham and could not immediately secure travel arrangements to return home that evening, BSC administrators allowed the players to spend the night on an abandoned, lifeless campus.

Exhausted from their exhilarating run in the national spotlight, the players slept like babies that night in dorm rooms they would soon be forced to say goodbye to.

Head Baseball Coach Jan Weisberg bought the boys one more night. The next night, Tuesday, June 4th, would be the boys’ last night on campus.

It would be the last night any BSC student would ever spend on The Hilltop.

In fitting fashion, the BSC Baseball players, to an audience of none, threw the most important on-campus party BSC has ever seen.

In the dugout – in the locker room – on the field – in the parking lot – on abandoned Fraternity Row – on the vacant Academic Quad – the party raged vibrantly everywhere across a vacant campus.

Everywhere, for everything, for all of us, all at once, one last time – one final, fleeting night before the lights turned off on BSC forever.

For one night – the last night – the empty Hilltop was the boys’ playground. For one night – the last night – the boys raised their glasses to each other and for all of us.

Coach Weisberg and the other coaches did their best to hang with the boys. The coaches were finally forced to bail on the party around 3 AM. The boys partied till dawn.

The next day, Wednesday, June 5th, the boys had to clear out campus by noon. The party was over. It was now time to join the rest of the vagabond BSC Family and vacate The Hilltop.

I wonder if the documentary crew following the team during that incredible time captured this epic epilogue by a sports team on a dead college campus which had once been abundantly alive, a place that had captured and cultivated the hearts and minds of thousands for generations.

I sort of hope they didn’t.

It’s almost better to leave it – that last night – that last dance – that final, fateful on-campus party – to our imaginations. It’s almost more special that way.

In spirit, we all attended this final party.

This party was for far more than BSC Baseball. This celebration – this beautifully tragic final dance in the dark – was for us – all of us who will never spend another night or step foot on The Hilltop we knew and loved.

It was for us – the kings and queens of BSC of old – those of us who spent the best nights of our lives on The Hilltop.

It was for us – wanderers of this new wasteland – as we raised our glasses in spirit with BSC Baseball at the special places around campus which meant the most to us and set off one last loud bang in the eerie silence of the empty campus which had once brimmingly burst with timeless tales of life and love.  

One final bombastic, beautiful, bold exclamation of “Forward, Ever!” before the curtain fell closed on us all forever.

(Opinion Article)“Bad Credit BSC: How Scrushy and Other Bad Actors Destroyed Alabama’s Most Important College From Within”

Richard Scrushy, perhaps one of the most notorious names in Birmingham’s history, was more than a corporate criminal who perpetrated a multi-billion dollar fraud - he was also one of several individuals who irrevocably mangled Birmingham-Southern College finances. He claims he’s innocent and wants a federal pardon. Big surprise.

Few are aware - and some that are in the know often wish to turn a blind eye to the troubling fact - that, pre the HealthSouth scandal in the early 2000s, Richard Scrushy was a key player in BSC’s affairs. In addition to participating as a Trustee of The College for many years, Scrushy also served as Chair of BSC’s Board of Trustees for a time. 

The man gave enough money to The College for BSC officials to anoint him with an “honorary doctorate degree.”

The Chair of The Board, along with The College’s President, are the two individuals ultimately responsible for the steering of the institution. It is horrifying to think Richard Scrushy was, once upon a time, one of these two pivotal men.

Prior to his fall from grace at HealthSouth in the 2000s, due to his sizable donations to The College, BSC’s baseball field was to be named “Scrushy-Striplin” field in his honor. There is, in fact, as Kyle Whitmire documents in his insightful article, “Beneath college’s struggle is Birmingham’s decline,” (and pictured below) a physical granite marker in the ground on Birmingham-Southern’s now defunct campus which signifies this original naming scheme by BSC officials. 

This plan was, of course, scrapped after Scrushy’s criminal activities were revealed to the public and The College wished to immediately distance itself from such stigmatizing infamy.

Many unsavory, unethical (and sometimes downright definitionally criminal) characters have helmed BSC’s business affairs over the years. Most, unlike Scrushy, have managed to escape the spotlight of criticism and are not forced to atone for their wrongdoing. Most of the culpable parties are praying the storm of BSC’s closing blows over and that few take a deep, critical look into the mechanics of The College’s decline and eventual demise. Only looking hard beneath the surface will the elusive answers be exhumed and a composite cause of death be discovered.

Did Scrushy cook BSC’s books while he was involved with The College in his influential capacity on BSC’s Board of Trustees? Was Kim Thrasher, BSC’s Vice President for Finance during “the crisis” of 2010 (whom it has been reported was also part of Scrushy’s book-cooking team at Health South prior to her employment by Birmingham-Southern College), a pivotal player involved in BSC’s fraudulent accounting practices?

Many BSC insiders close to the key financial calamities of the early 2000s seem to think so. 

Was BSC’s downfall the result of idiocy and inexcusable negligence by College officials? Was it sheerly a product of culture and the times? Were there bad actors engaging in bad faith who gambled The College’s future in order to cut corners? 

Did BSC perish because our culture no longer recognizes the value of the liberal arts or because incapable, morally questionable administrative stewards improperly ran The College’s finances? Were actions benignly termed “snafus” (such as the misappropriation of non-profit funds, reporting debt draws as revenue, falsifying balance sheets, and so forth) actually unethical, quasi-criminal actions which would spell disastrous consequences for The College? 

The answer can clearly be pinpointed in 2003-2004 when, after the discovery of widespread financial mismanagement undertaken by Dr. Neal Berte’s administration from 1976-2004 by BSC’s Board of Trustees, BSC’s Board immediately moved to boost its errors and omissions insurance policy to shield itself from the liability resultant of its failure to exercise its fiduciary responsibility to The College. (E&O insurance is a specialty type of insurance which covers claims made against officers of an organization who fail in the course of their stipulated professional duties.) 

Put simply, if you’re a Trustee of a non-profit organization (such as BSC), it’s precisely the type of insurance you would want if you dropped the ball and mismanaged people’s money.

After mismanaging and misappropriating millions of donors’ dollars, BSC’s Board should indeed have rightfully been afraid that they would be forced to pay penance for their negligence and misconduct. 

Asleep at the wheel during crucial junctures which would determine The College’s ultimate fate, an apathetic, irresponsible, incompetent, corrupt, rubber-stamping Board of Trustees played their little violin while The College marched to its day of doom. 

When BSC’s leadership finally woke up and tried to put out the fires spread by decades of misgovernance, it was too late. The damage had already been done. 

Publication Alert: “Betrayed BSC: Making Sense of Birmingham-Southern College’s Closure” (The 1st Edition)

The first edition (an abridged version comprised of excerpts from the soon-to-be released complete book) of “Betrayed BSC: Making Sense of Birmingham-Southern College’s Closure” has arrived! 📕✅

Part love letter to BSC, part tribute to The College, part history, part critical analysis - this investigative project is dedicated to unraveling the decline and demise of Birmingham-Southern College.

Get your E-copy of the first edition (abridged version) and sneak a book at the full book, for only $0.99 today!

Link: https://a.co/d/fP8TDXA

The completed 2nd edition of “Betrayed BSC” will be released later this year and feature paperback and hardcover purchasing options.

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