UAB’s BEEBe brothers look for breakout season in blazer backfield

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - August 28, 2024

Hindley Brigham, the man who helped build a series of legendary UAB running backs since the football program returned, held a meeting with his group just before fall camp opened. The meeting covered plenty of ground with a healthy dose of the agenda meant to build unity among the group.

At one point, Brigham went around the room, asking each one to identify a spirit animal for their running back teammates.

“Here's a good picture for you,” Brigham said. “When we asked the group what Lee Beebe’s spirit animal was Armoni Goodwin chimed in (with) ‘a tank.’ It was a funny thing to say, but it also like that's a great description of Beebe. He is seemingly indestructible and his little brother (Solomon) has some of those same qualities wherein they can go hard every play and just they keep on going.”

In some ways, the Beebe brothers – Lee and Solomon – are both poised to introduce themselves to college football this season.

Technically, Lee Beebe has already embarked on making a name for himself in the college game. The 5-foot-10, 223-pound redshirt sophomore with a bodybuilder’s approach to football carried the football 52 times for 360 yards with four touchdowns last season. He closed the season with a flourish, averaging 14.4 yards per carry on his seven rushing attempts and scoring twice in a season-ending loss at North Texas.

However, for the first time in his UAB career, Beebe enters the season with a chance at being the focal point of a crowded backfield.

Solomon Beebe, on the other hand, entered fall camp as an afterthought – at best – in the UAB running back equation. The youngest Beebe sibling, whose game is more geared toward speed and shiftiness, exited fall camp with a legit chance at becoming a regular part of the running back rotation when the season kicks off on Thursday night against Alcorn State at Protective Stadium.

Considering where their college football journeys began, that’s quite an accomplishment.

Both played at Park Crossing High in Montgomery. Both split time at running back and receiver in high school. Both are a solid example of why college football recruiting is not an exact science.

“I cannot even fathom the fact that both of those guys had zero stars, you know, zero offers,” Brigham said. “Zero opportunities to play college football elsewhere. It's just mind boggling to me that they could have slipped through the cracks that way. I mean, I have some theories, but I'll leave that for the theorists.”

It certainly wasn’t for a lack of planning. The Beebe brothers began playing football at a young age, coached at home by their father, Lee Beebe Sr., who played running back and wide receiver at Michigan State and Alabama State.

“My dad definitely got us into football,” Solomon Beebe said. “He got us in the backyard and would throw the football to us. You had to catch 100 and then you come inside. Hot day, cold day, didn’t matter. “

There was genetics involved also. Their parents were athletes but they were also competitive bodybuilders when the Beebe brothers and their older sister were youngsters. Lee said he remembers watching his parents in bodybuilding competitions and developed a love for the weightroom himself at an early age.

Both had solid careers at Park Crossing High. Both walked on at UAB. Lee’s path to the UAB football roster began in a summer prospect camp about a month before his freshman season began.  

“He worked out as a receiver,” Brigham said. “One of the receiver coaches was like, ‘Hey, Brig, you should check out this kid. He's a UAB student. He looks like a running back.’ He looked good at receiver, but we saw he could be something else entirely at running back. And so, you know, he was already enrolled in school. We gave him a chance to walk on. And he surprised me from day one.”

Finding a spot in the crowded rotation, which was led by record-setting DeWayne McBride, didn’t happen. Lee did play in the opening win over Alabama A&M, carrying the ball three times for 32 yards but did not see game action again as a true freshman. But he did turn heads the way he performed on the scout team during the season. He also showed his work ethic by often heading to the UAB Recreation Center after practice to lift weights on his own.

“I love working out and just like to max out on dead lifts, bench, squats, really anything,” Lee said. “So, yeah, after those practices, if I had energy, which almost every time I had some energy, I’d go to the Rec and workout again.”

Brigham said he noticed Beebe getting bigger but didn’t know that was partly because of the work on his own.

“He was getting really, really big, his traps shoulders were just getting huge,” Brigham said. “He was getting a little bit stiff and I asked him what he was doing and it turns out he was going every night after you know doing the developmental training and scout team running back, where they were beating the hell out of him, and then he goes and he's going to the Rec Center and was lifting weights at night.”

That type of approach, even though it was suggested that he slow down a bit to take care of his body, was part of the reason that Solomon had a clearer path to earning a spot in the program. And that path before a running back meeting when the players were comparing each other’s Hudl highlights from high school. Lee pulled up Solomon’s highlight tape and not long after he was being recruited. While there was not a scholarship opening for a running back, there was a walk-on opportunity.

Just like with his brother, Solomon made the most of his opportunity quickly. He’s not as big as his brother – checking in at 5-foot-10, 200 pounds – but appears to be faster, even though Lee argues that point. The two were going to decide who was faster with a post-practice race after a fall camp practice but the coaches shut down the competition. Solomon did show his speed during the team’s first scrimmage of fall camp when he broke off a scoring run of about 80 yards.

Perhaps the best indication of Solomon’s performance during camp was when the running back rotation was solidified, it included five players, including Solomon, including the expected four.

“Lee has a bigger frame than Solomon and is probably not as fast in a straight line,” Brigham said. “But Solomon had Lee to learn from. I feel like Solomon is way ahead of where Lee was (as a freshman), just in terms of his maturity as a player and his development as a running back in our offense. I think he's beyond where his older brother was for the simple reason that Lee Beebe carved out the path for him.”  

What might be most important, though, according to Brigham, is that the impact that both brothers made on this team during the summer and fall camp doesn’t start and end on the field.

“They love football, they love each other, they love the other running backs in the room,” Brigham said. “Their energy is just vibrating and infectious every day. It's really kind of incredible. They don't get tired They don't skip reps, they don’t have off days. I'm thankful. I want to write a letter to the Beebe parents and honestly, truly, like thank them. Their kids are incredibly humble. Their servants, you know, they're servant hearted and they're also like, they're just good people. If all the players on this field had Lee Beebe and Solomon Beebe’s energy, we'd be very difficult to contend with.”