Rush Propst is the former head coach of powerhouse Hoover High School in Alabama that gained notoriety on the MTV show Two-A-Days. In 2004, Jeremy Pruitt was hired by Propst as an assistant.
BIRMINGHAM — The UAB Blazers played in the Conference USA championship game for consecutive seasons in 2019.
The Blazers won the 2018 Conference USA championship under head coach Bill Clark.
Part of UAB’s 2019 Conference USA Western Division championship has been Rush Propst serving as a volunteer consultant for the Blazers.
Propst and Clark have a long history dating back to when the notable, former Hoover and Colquitt County High School head coach played for Ragan Clark, Bill’s father.
Propst went on to hire (Bill) Clark when he served as head coach at Ohatchee and Hoover. The two would also coach against each other when Clark served as Prattville High School’s head coach.
Propst discussed Clark’s remarkable run at UAB after the Blazers’ football program was shutdown following the 2014 season and did not compete in 2015 and 2016, returning to action in 2017.
The Blazers posted an 8-5 record in 2017 and played in the Bahamas Bowl. Last season, UAB went 11-3 and were Conference-USA and Boca Raton Bowl champions. In 2019, UAB is 9-4 and slated for a New Orleans Bowl appearance.
“I can’t say enough about Bill,” Propst told Vols Wire. “I don’t know what else I could say that would make people believe that this maybe the greatest job of college football coaching.”
Less than a year removed as Colquitt County’s head coach, Propst has been around college football during the 2019 season, serving as a volunteer consultant and co-hosting a radio show, ‘Tennessee Two-A-Days’, breaking the game down with the likes of Troy Calhoun, Trent Dilfer, Tony Franklin, Hugh Freeze, Todd Graham, Tyson Helton, Mike Leach, Hal Mumme, Jake Spavital, George Quarles and many others.
“He is one of my best friends, we are like brothers and like family,” Propst said of Clark. “I played for his dad, we coached together for his dad. Bill worked for me in 1989 and was the first hire when I got the job, he was the first phone call and the first assistant I hired. When I got the Hoover job in 1999, he was the first assistant I hired and he stayed with me from January until right before he took the Prattville job in July. He helped me establish the job at Hoover. He put the defense in and we ran his defense that year.”
Clark has now guided the UAB program from the dead to back-to-back Conference-USA championship game appearances and three consecutive bowl games.
With the relationship between the two, it is fitting Propst has played a role in UAB’s C-USA division title this season.
“For what Bill went through here is really movie-worthy and book-worthy because people do not know enough about it,” Propst said. “He comes in and leaves a Jacksonville State program, which is home for him and where he went to school. All of sudden UAB comes calling and he takes the job and has a heck of a year the first year, and to shut it down and to go through what he went through — to tear it down and for him to sit there and wait for two years and battle, and just battle.
“Bill is a fighter, he is competitive, but he is a fighter. He fought and Birmingham rallied, UAB supporters rallied, alumni rallied, he went around everywhere and said I’m not leaving and want to see this program reinstated — it is one of the greatest stories of all time in football.”