‘Take care of those kids’

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Auburn baseball’s Butch Thompson fears for Birmingham-Southern players: ‘Take care of those kids’

Published: Mar. 27, 2024, 6:00 a.m.

3–4 minutes

Auburn head coach Butch Thompson meets with officials before an NCAA baseball game against Iowa, Friday, Feb. 23, 2024, in Jacksonville, Fla. (AP Photo/Gary McCullough)AP

Auburn University’s head baseball coach Butch Thompson was still processing the news that Birmingham-Southern College will close on May 31 when he spoke to reporters Tuesday night.

For Thompson, whose ties to the Birmingham college stretch back more than 30 years, it was like learning of someone’s long-expected death.

“Kinda stunned all day, although it’s like somebody passing and you know they’re probably gonna pass, but until it happens, you know,” Thompson said. “I was sad about that today.”

Thompson pitched for BSC in 1991-1992, after playing two years at a Mississippi community college. He graduated with a history degree and served as assistant coach at BSC from 1994-1996 and again from 1998-2001.

“There’s a baseball team up there, student-athletes up there,” Thompson said at a press conference. “There’s people that have given a lot to that, that won’t exist.”

Thompson said he spoke to BSC baseball coach Jan Weisberg and feared for the student-athletes facing uncertainty after lawmakers failed to pass a bill to provide $30 million to keep BSC open.

“Where are they gonna go? Where are they gonna transfer? What are they gonna do? How are these kids going to get their degrees?

“Hopefully, all the adults in the room, if this gavel has landed to end that school, which hasn’t hit me yet, the proper response is going take care of those kids that are there now and what’s right. It’s pretty unbelievable.”

Though Thompson said he is “not political,” he does “care deeply about the place” and made calls to rally support, telling people: “I love that school.”

“I know it was an uphill battle once the college got to a certain place,” Thompson said. “I can’t move a mountain and I didn’t have any impact.”

Thompson noted that Auburn and BSC both traced their roots to 1856. BSC was originally called Southern University when it was founded in Greensboro. It merged with Birmingham College in 1918 and became Birmingham-Southern.

“That’s how long that that school had been there and served that little area on the hilltop there in Birmingham,” Thompson said. “It made a huge difference for me.”

Thompson said he “had an amazing coach there and it made me want to coach even more.”

“I found my faith there. Robin, my amazing wife, there in college,” Thompson added. “They invested in me, it made me want to coach there.”

“I just think it’s a sad day.”

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