auburn magazine winter 2008

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27Auburn Magazine For Alumni & Friends of Auburn University

By Michael Bradley | Illustration by Jim Bennett

College football’s greatest rivalry leaves Alabama a state divided

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Winter 2008 www.aualum.org

if you lost, you had to eat your words. Ninety percent of my teachers were Alabama fans, so I had to put up with that.”

Nix’s family moved to Albertville and, later, Attalla, both of which are in the northern part of the state and therefore closer to Birmingham and Tuscaloosa than to Auburn. No matter where the family settled, Tide fans were everywhere, and it was hard to be a Tiger. When it came time to pick a college, Nix tried to be neutral. He really did. A highly re-garded quarterback, he wanted to weigh all the offers, listen to everything the coaches had to say: He didn’t want to let his own biases color his decision.

Whom was he kidding?

“I tried to keep things open,” says Nix, University of Mi-ami offensive coordinator and Auburn quarterback from 1992-95. “Now, looking back on it, it’s kind of funny, be-cause there’s no way I could have gone to Alabama.”

And no one would have expected him to end up in Tusca-loosa. That’s just not how it goes in Alabama. Once you’re a Tiger, you’re a Tiger. And when you declare allegiance to the Crimson Tide, you tend to stay that way.

“People move into the state from Boston or somewhere else, and the first question they’re asked is, ‘Who are you rooting for?’” says Jay Barker, Crimson Tide quarterback from 1991-94.

He’s not exaggerating. Since the state has no profes-sional sports teams, identi-ties are established accord-ing to which university people pledge their loyalty. “There’s no question the fans take it very personally,” says Pat Sullivan, Auburn

quarterback from 1969-71 and winner of the ’71 Heisman Trophy.

Other rivalries throughout the country may attract more attention, but there is no game in America that inspires more intensity and animosity than the Iron Bowl. None. Oklahoma-Texas comes close. So does Michigan-Ohio State. But those games pit teams from different states against each other. Alabama-Auburn sets neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend and, yes, third-grader against third-grader.

could have been easier for

Patrick Nix ’95. Had he just

gone with the majority, with

the winners, his elementary-

school days would have

passed largely without inci-

dent. But, no, he was an Au-

burn man. He had no choice,

really. Both of his parents

graduated from the school, so

he would have been risking

serious familial turmoil, per-

haps even extra vegetables at

supper, had he declared his

allegiance for the University

of Alabama.

“People always say jokingly that when you’re born, you have to choose sides,” Nix says.

“It’s true.”

Nix estimates that about “90 percent” of the kids in his Haleyville elementary school supported the Crimson Tide. It made sense. Not only was ’Bama’s Tuscaloosa campus about 60 miles down Ala. 13 from his hometown, but it wasn’t until Nix was 10 years old that the Tigers actually beat Ala-bama in his lifetime. “Back then, it was easy to choose Alabama, because they were win-ning,” he says. Nix didn’t take the simple path. He screamed “War Eagle!” at the top of his lungs and then took on all comers at recess. And when Iron Bowl week finally ar-rived, he stood tall and told everybody—even his teachers—that Auburn was The One.

“You quickly learned that the rivalry was as serious as life and death,” Nix says. “I was not afraid to run my mouth, but I had to be tough and fight my fights on the playground. I got in trouble because of Alabama-Auburn.

“Twenty-five years ago, it was hard to be an Auburn fan. It was a war that week of the game, and the following Monday,

Alabama-Auburn sets neighbor

against neighbor, friend against friend

and, yes, third- grader against third-grader.

t

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“Fans live with it all year,” says Johnny Musso, an All-America halfback for Alabama from 1969-71. “You have in-laws and neighbors and the players who have to live with it, and, when you lose, you start working to-ward next year. It’s not a game that happens and is over. It never ends.”

Musso isn’t lying. This is a game that has an impact which extends far beyond 60 minutes of football. It goes well beyond bragging rights, too. This is about people’s identities. They are Alabama or Auburn. And after that Saturday in November, they are winners or losers. The glow of victory or stench of defeat doesn’t go away for 365 days—longer, if a winning streak is involved. And in a state where college football is taken as seriously as just about anything else, it’s not good to be on the losing side of the Iron Bowl.

“When I first went to Alabama, I had some death threats, because people from Alabama didn’t want an Atlanta boy coaching their team,” says Bill Curry, who directed the Tide from 1987-89. “Our minister from back in Georgia was concerned, and he called to see if we were OK.

“My wife said, ‘Football is like religion here.’ My minister said: ‘It’s more important.’ He’s right. It’s more important than anything else in their lives.”

The root causes of Auburn fans’ passion are different than those at ’Bama, which for decades considered itself superior to the school from the “loveliest village of the plain.” Tiger fans have always resented Alabama’s arro-gance.

“We were always the little brother, the stepchild,” says Tucker Frederickson ’66, an All-America back for the Tigers from 1962-64. “They thought they were a step up socially from us. Auburn is a more agricultural-ly oriented college, and that was always thrown up at us. They looked down on us.”

The Tide’s attitude was reinforced by a run of success from 1959 through 1981, during which ’Bama tore off a 19-4 section of Auburn hide. Alabama’s legendary head coach Paul “Bear” Bryant was ascendant during that period, and with few exceptions, his team’s faithful fans could lord their prosperity over the Tigers, and lord it they did.

“Auburn always had an inferiority complex,” says Ben Leard ’00, an AU quarterback from 1997-2000. “If we beat Alabama, that gave us another year of teeth.”

Auburn (then the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama) won the very first Iron Bowl game with a score of 32-22 on Feb. 22, 1893, in Birmingham. The two schools promptly got in a tiff over whether the game should be counted toward the 1892 or the 1893 season; squabbling continued over other issues—from per-diem expenses to referee partiality—as well. By 1908, school officials were barely speaking, and, after the 1907 game, Auburn and Alabama did not meet again on the field until 1948.

1893: Birth of a legend, and a feud

The 1957 Iron Bowl was never in jeopardy as an un-defeated Auburn powerhouse team under head coach Ralph “Shug” Jordan took on the struggling 2-6-1 Tide. The 40-0 Auburn victory capped off a perfect season for the Tigers, who went on to win both the conference and national championships.

1957: Perfect end, Perfect season

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Ever since that 23-year stretch, the Tigers have had an ad-vantage, 16-10, a condition which has done much to even things out, as well as a significant status boost in the form of a home-and-home climate for the games. From 1904 through 1989, the game was played in Birmingham, and

while the ticket allotments were split 50-50, Birmingham was ’Bama’s second home. Because of that, the Tigers never felt they were playing at a truly neutral site.

Former Auburn coach Pat Dye (1981-92) insists that “99 percent of the good seats went to Alabama fans,” a claim the

Tide administration denies. “Auburn felt like sec-ond-class citizens there,” Dye adds.

A 41-year interlude from 1907-48, during which the Crimson Tide won shares of four na-tional titles, played in six Rose Bowls (winning four and tying one) and posted six undefeated seasons, didn’t help Auburn either. In a state like Alabama, which struggled economically before, during and after the Great Depression, a champi-onship football team was a tremendous opportu-nity to generate self-esteem. And though Auburn wasn’t terrible during that stretch, its success didn’t come close to that of Alabama. If you weren’t an alumnus of either school, you were go-ing to pledge allegiance to the Tide.

On one Alabama game day, Auburn quarter-back Leard was heading to Jordan-Hare Stadium on the Tiger Walk, which the Auburn team takes from Sewall Hall on campus, along Donahue Drive, through thousands of fans and well-wish-ers. He made eye contact with one particularly emotional supporter. “I can remember seeing this 60-year-old man crying,” Leard says. “He said, ‘You have to win this one.’ He went through that stepchild stage.”

In most cases in which one school looks down upon another, there is little chance for an equita-ble distribution of hostilities. The difference here is that Auburn has a rich and successful football tradition, too. Take away the Bryant era, and the teams are pretty similar. In fact, minus that 19-4 run, Auburn holds a 27-19-1 advantage in the se-ries. And Auburn began the 21st century by win-ning five of the first six against the Tide. Included was a 21-13 decision in Tuscaloosa during its 13-0 run in 2004. The Tigers have occupied a more prominent position on the national stage than has Alabama, which has been stung by scan-dal and poor performance since head coach Gene Stallings left Tuscaloosa after the 1996 season.

Forget the first three quarters. The Crimson Tide held the Tigers to 13 yards of total offense and one first down through the first 35 minutes of play and had a 13-point lead going into the final five minutes. All the Tide had to do was hang onto the football and a com-fortable 16-3 lead. With 5 minutes, 30 seconds to play, AU linebacker Bill Newton blocked a punt by ’Bama’s SEC punt-leader Greg Gantt. Auburn’s David Langner ran it in for the touchdown, and the scoreboard read 16-10. It still looked bad for the Tigers, who trailed six points with 1:34 to play—until history repeated itself. Newton blocked another Gantt punt and, again, Lang-ner ran it home. Gardner Jett’s extra point gave the Ti-gers a 17-16 win, and the phrase “Punt, ’Bama, Punt” became an instant classic.

1972: Punt, ’Bama, Punt

This is a game that has an impact which extends far beyond 60 minutes of football. It goes well

beyond bragging rights, too. This is about people’s identities. They are Alabama or Auburn.

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As a result, the big brother/little brother feeling of the rivalry is long gone, and though there still may be ’Bama fans who think of their rival as a “cow college,” even they would have to admit—were they to embrace objectivity—that those cows have certainly developed a kick over the past two-plus decades.

Editor’s note: This article was excerpted from the Ala-bama-Auburn chapter of Big Games: College Football’s Greatest Rivalries, published in 2006 by Potomac Books. Author Michael Bradley is a writer and broadcaster who has contributed to The Sporting News, Sports Illustrated and ESPN the Magazine, among other periodicals. The Auburn Tigers have won six consecutive Iron Bowl victories to date, advancing AU’s in-state bragging rights to 2,190 consecutive days. The Tigers will go for consecutive win No. 7 over the Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa on Nov. 29.

Share your Iron Bowl memories on Auburn Magazine’s Web site. The fi rst fi ve Auburn fans to post their recollections will receive a copy of Big Games: College Football’s Great-est Rivalries. E-mail [email protected] or write to “Iron Bowl Memories,” Auburn Magazine, 317 South College St., Auburn, AL 36849.

I have a guilty pleasure to confess. I listen fairly regularly to “The Paul Finebaum Show” on the radio.

Maybe that doesn’t really qualify as a guilty pleasure, be-cause Finebaum seems to have a lot of other listeners. He certainly has no shortage of callers.

A few of those callers are, well, let’s just say they’re unusu-al. If there’s a guilty pleasure about Finebaum, it may be the time squandered listening to some of them:

The troglodyte “Charles from Reeltown,” who regularly threatens to administer a “country boy ass-whupping” to people he doesn’t like.

“I-Man,” who comes across as a vengeful Auburn jihad-ist.

Smug, self-styled sports commentator “Shane from Center Point.”

“Jim from Tuscaloosa,” who often seems on the verge of a violent seizure.

Or the rapturous “Dawson,” who says he’s a minister and brings good “Tidings” of great joy.

Mixed in with this Dickensian group of regular callers are actual experts—former coaches, professional commentators and even lounge-lizard oddsmakers—who know what

Going into the Nov. 27 Iron Bowl with a 10-year los-ing streak against the Tide, Pat Dye’s 7-3 Tigers appeared evenly matched against Bear Bryant’s 7-3 team. Before 78,000 fans at Birmingham’s Legion Field, ’Bama was up 22-17 going into the fi nal nine minutes of play. Finally, freshman Bo Jackson leaped over a mound of players for a one-yard plunge over the goal line with two minutes re-maining, and Auburn won 23-22. Bryant died two months later; this was his last regular-season game.

As a result, the big brother/little brother feeling of the rivalry is long gone, and though there still may be ’Bama

1982: BO KNOWS WINNING

By Ben Windham An odd couple bridges the gap

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32


they’re talking about: ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit and Tom Lug-inbill, commentator Tim Brando, former University of Ala-bama head football coach Gene Stallings and (The Tuscaloosa News’) own sports editor and columnist Cecil Hurt, to name a few.

And then there’s Pat Dye, who has a Monday-afternoon slot.

I never cared much for Dye. … But over the past few months, I’ve found that my bad opinion about Dye has faded.

It started when a report surfaced this summer that someone found his long-lost pants on the shoreline of Lake Martin. In-side one of the pockets of the green-and-blue madras golf slacks was an alligator leather wallet with Dye’s driver’s license and credit cards from the mid-1980s.

Dye said he didn’t remember losing the pants or the wallet. “But we can make up a good story,” he added.

I liked that response. And I liked the fact that he planned to auction the pants and its contents at an annual charity event,

the Blue Jean Ball, which benefits the Auburn Universi-ty School of Nursing.

But my real opinion-changing experience about Dye came on Sept. 22 when he spent most of his time on Finebaum’s radio show talking about Harper Lee. Even given the Diane Arbus-like parade of regulars, it was the strangest conversation I’ve ever heard on Fine-baum—and, hands down, one of the most fascinating.

Dye and Lee are an unlikely combination. She’s the author of one of the most perfect novels ever written, To Kill a Mockingbird. A University of Alabama graduate, she was close friends with Truman Capote and moved in circles of intellect and creativity. She’s known for her reclusive tendencies.

Dye is the kind of person who might get indigestion if the flamboyant Capote swished into a restaurant. A graduate of the University of Georgia, by his own ad-mission Dye completed freshman English his senior year in college.

But, he told Finebaum, he read To Kill a Mockingbird six or seven years ago and was moved. Then he read Charles Shields’ 2006 biography of Lee, Mockingbird, and learned that Lee once said “all I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama.”

Now who the hell was Jane Austen?

Dye decided to find out. So he got a copy of Pride and Prejudice, read it, and was captivated.

Then he decided to read To Kill a Mockingbird once more. He dug it out last year and liked it more than ever.

“Now a lot of people that’s listening to this show ain’t goin’ know anything about Harper Lee, and they ain’t

After Auburn had worked for years to get the Iron Bowl played at the teams’ home stadiums in Auburn and Tuscaloosa rather than in Birmingham, the No. 2-ranked Crimson Tide finally headed to the Plains for the first-ever Iron Bowl at Jordan-Hare Stadium. ’Bama fans weren’t happy about the move, but the 10-0 Tide bragged they were up to the challenge of meeting Pat Dye’s Tigers at home. The crowd noise was deafen-ing, and fans had plenty to cheer about as the 8-2 Tigers won the game 30-20.

1989: Home sweet Home

Harper Lee: “I don’t know why he wants to come see me. I don’t know anything about no football.”

Pat Dye: “Well, I don’t know nothing about no damned literature, neither.”

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goin’ know anything about Jane Austen,” Dye told Finebaum. But the crusty former Auburn coach was determined to meet the reclusive Alabama author.

He told the Selma Quarterback Club (in September) that his step-niece, who lives in Monroeville, helped arrange the visit. Lee, who had a stroke a few months back, now resides in an assisted-living facility in the south Alabama town.

Lee was wary at first, Dye told the Selma audience.

“She said, ‘I don’t know why he wants to come see me. I don’t know anything about no football.’”

He said he told his niece to tell Lee, “Well, I don’t know nothing about no damned literature, neither.”

All he knew, Dye told Finebaum, was that it was suddenly important to him to meet Lee. … He said he drove to Monroeville, picked Lee up and took her to a private home where they sat and talked by themselves.

He said he didn’t know what to call her—Ms. Lee, Harper Lee ... She told him to call her ‘Nelle,’ the name her friends use.

The conversation lasted three hours, Dye said.

Here’s what he said he told the world-famous author:

“You ain’t got sense enough to write a book like that. Nobody’s got sense enough to write a book like that. You got to write that book with your heart and your soul and your guts and everything in your body, plus your brain, to have the vision and the wisdom and the foresight to put that thing together like she did.”

Then he asked Lee to autograph a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird for his auction to benefit Auburn’s nursing school.

Dye said he knew that Lee had been wary of signing books since someone put autographed copies of To Kill a Mockingbird up for sale on eBay and made out like a bandit. But he promised that if she would sign To Kill a Mockingbird, he would too, and it would be the only copy of the book “in the world, forever, signed by Harper Lee and Pat Dye.”

The offer obviously appealed to Lee’s whimsy. She signed it.

And according to Dye, they plan to meet again.

“I’ve gotten a couple of notes from her,” he said. “I’m going back for another set-to.”

He added that if anyone listening to Finebaum hasn’t

Head coach Tommy Tuberville’s Tigers in 2006 tied Auburn’s longest Iron Bowl winning streak with five vic-tories over its archrival; the Tigers also won five years in a row between 1954 and 1958. On Nov. 24, the 8-4 Ti-gers met the 6-6 Tide at Jordan-Hare. ’Bama’s Nick Sa-ban might have been grabbing headlines, but the game belonged solidly to the Tigers, who won 17-10, bringing Tuberville’s Iron Bowl record to 7-2, Auburn’s winning streak to a record six games, and the overall record to 38-33-1 in favor of Alabama. Next up: Iron Bowl 2008, which will be played Nov. 29 in Tuscaloosa.

2007: Sixth SenSe

read To Kill a Mockingbird, they ought to go get it and read it. “Because it is a wonderful, wonderful piece of writing.”

That’s heady stuff on a sports talk show. Dye may not know “nothing about no damned literature” but he knows what he likes.

By the way, the book brought $8,000 at his auction, he said.

“And my pants brought $9,000.”

Abridged and reprinted with permission from the Tuscaloosa News. Ben Windham is the paper’s editorial editor.

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On the road from Slapout to savoir-faire, John Bridges ’74

tackles cell phone crim

es, sartorial sins and other travesties

of good taste among modern would-be gentlemen.

best-selling author of How to be a Gentleman: A Contemporary Guide to Common Courtesy and 12 other books of

etiquette, is late. I know this because we were supposed to meet at 4:30 p.m., and he’s just called at 4:35 to tell me he’s going to be late.

I’m also late. Bridges doesn’t know this because when he called to tell me he was running late I pretended I was already at our meeting place. “That’s fine,” I say. “No rush.” Meanwhile, as I talk on the phone, I’m swerving through late-afternoon traffic on West End Avenue in Nashville, Tenn., as if kickoff is mere moments away. I do my best to remain chatty, calm even. This is despite the fact that I’m late, and I’ve forgotten the object I told Bridges I’d be wearing, a

Tennessee Titans visor. “Oh,” I say, “and I don’t have the Titans visor on. I’ll

have on a blue T-shirt instead.” A gentleman never lies or dissembles. I’ve just lied and

dissembled, and this does not bode well for our meeting. Notwithstanding my lack of telephone manners, I do arrive

first at the coffee shop. I select a table in the corner and check my cell phone for the final time before turning it off. Truth be

told, I’m nervous—very nervous—that Bridges is going to judge my manners and find me lacking. So I don’t order anything. Instead, I sit down and jot notes to myself. I’m going to take advantage of having a manners expert sitting across the table from me and finally solve an issue that has threatened to tear asunder my

By Clay Travis | Photography by Bob Schatz

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marriage—namely, whether men are obligated to attend the wedding should they choose to attend the bachelor party.

I’ve been arguing no for years, that one or the other is fine. My wife disagrees. “That’s incredibly rude,” she says. Which then leads me to point out that bachelor parties are fun, and weddings are boring. Which always leads her to ask, brown eyes flashing, “Was our wedding boring?” Then I do what every man does in this situation: I claim to hear our 7-month-old son crying. Even when he’s 15 miles away with his grandparents.

But now, at long last, I’ll know the answer. Also, I want to clear up whether it’s OK for people from other geographic regions to make fun of me for saying “yes, ma’am” and “no, ma’am.” Last year at a Michigan gathering I was ridiculed to no end for saying “yes, ma’am” when asked if I wanted ice cream. “‘Ma’am!’” screeched my brother-in-law. “How old are you and where do you think you are?”

John Bridges, etiquette expert, arrives 15 minutes late. He has short gray hair, glasses,

and he’s wearing a purple polo shirt and sandals. I’m relieved to see he’s also in shorts. I’d feared he might not talk to me because I’m wearing shorts. He crosses the restaurant, shakes my hand and looks me up and down before saying, “I’m so glad you aren’t wearing that visor inside. I’ve been hoping you wouldn’t have that on ever since we talked earlier.”

He pulls up a chair across from me and rests one of his feet on the empty chair between us. Bridges is a 1974 graduate of Auburn University (master’s degree in English) who is originally from Slapout, Ala. His father was a car salesman there, and it was in Slapout that Bridges began to finely hone his gentlemanly code. Bridges has co-written (with Bryan Curtis) 13 books on etiquette that have sold more than 1.5 million copies in the past 10 years. His books aren’t only sold in bookstores, either. Chances are you’ve seen How to Be a Gentleman with a blue Brooks Brothers cover or a



36

red Dillard’s cover. Subsequent books have explored women’s etiquette, 50 things every young gentleman (ages 8 to 14) should know and what choices men should make when dressing up.

Bridges says his books are designed to be fun and provide information in a non-threatening way. The friendly tone of his books notwithstanding, sitting across from a manners expert is intimidating. Espe-cially when you’re nervous about whether your cell phone is off.

In fact, it doesn’t take Bridges long to dive into the topic of how technology is stripping our society of its manners. “Technology gives us more opportunities than ever before to be thoughtless,” he pronounces—particularly cell phones and text messaging.

“Cell phones are about showing off,” he adds, explaining he isn’t against all cell phone usage, just that which that draws undue attention. For instance, calling to tell me he would be late is fine. Calling from a restaurant table, however, isn’t fine.

“And the companies are encouraging people to use them incorrectly,” he declares, slamming down his hand on the table for emphasis. “Verizon has a print

advertisement where a couple is having a romantic dance, and the man is

checking his cell phone over his partner’s shoulder!”

He pauses to allow this travesty to sink in.

“Then there’s another commercial where the man is checking his cell phone under the table while they’re having a romantic dinner.

The cell phone allows you to know what you’re going to do next. What’s wrong with being in the moment?”

Being in the moment is very important to Bridges because being aware of your surroundings keeps you from shutting the door in the face of a pregnant woman, cursing among children or generally behaving boorishly. “People think that being a gentleman is about drawing attention to yourself for the way you act,” Bridges says. “Really, it’s the opposite—it’s about not drawing attention to yourself.”

Now comes the first true test of our conversation.

Bridges is talking about cell phones again, but there’s a woman in a plunging tank top sitting next to us. She keeps leaning over to adjust her chair, and I keep wanting to look at her cleavage. But I’m afraid Bridges will catch me. So I attempt to ogle while still maintaining eye contact with him.

How a gentleman is supposed to ignore cleavage is, unfortunately, not one of Bridges’ book topics.

“And don’t even get me started on those cell phone earpieces. I swear there’s no one talking to these people on the other end. Who would talk to people who use earpieces?”

The question is left hanging in the air. The woman next to us with cleavage has left. I feel a soaring emptiness in my soul.

“I don’t know,” I say, sighing. “Exactly,” affirms Bridges. He looks around conspira-

torially and glances over his shoulder. “I mean, those people are nerds,” he says. I nod. And it’s not just cell phones that lead us churls

astray—Bridges is not a fan of text messages either. He views them as an incredible danger. “People your age are sending them and almost dying. It’s rude.

“The other day a girl was walking in a big city and walked right in front of a taxi cab and almost died. She didn’t even see the cab! And it’s even in the grocery store now. People are texting as they push around a grocery cart. Can you believe this?”


Auburn Magazine For Alumni & Friends of Auburn University 37

I can believe it. I text while reading, watching TV, driving and changing my son’s diaper. If I went to the grocery store, inevitably I would text while pushing a grocery cart.

“No way,” I answer. I ask Bridges if he’s ever sent a text message. He

shakes his head. “My fingers are too big,” he says.

As we end the presidential election year, I ask Bridges whether Barack Obama

or John McCain strikes him as more of a gentleman. Bridges believes both men are gentlemen, citing their good taste in clothes, solid behavior around women and children, and the fact that they’re both well groomed. He even suggests, persuasively, that in order to be elected president, you have to campaign as a gentleman. “Now, sometimes after we’ve elected them they don’t monitor their behavior, but in order to be elected I think we subconsciously look for our leaders to be well-mannered gentlemen.”

He points to Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy as good examples, but remains coy when pressed to choose who’s the better gentleman between a pair of archrival Southeastern Conference football coaches: Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville or Alabama’s Nick Saban. “I can’t answer that,” Bridges demurs.

Having plunged the murky depths of mannerly behavior, it’s time for my personal etiquette questions. Briefly, I sketch out last summer’s trip to the Midwest, when I said “yes, ma’am” and was ridiculed for the remainder of my vacation.

Bridges is apoplectic.“People need to just get over that!” he asserts.

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. I still say ‘yes’ and ‘no, ma’am’ to women, and ‘no, sir’ and ‘yes, sir’ to men older than me. That’s fine—an example of regional mannerisms, but perfectly fine.”

Finally, Bridges says he’s now at work on a wedding-etiquette book for men, which provides the perfect segue to ask whether men are obligated to attend both the bachelor party and the wedding. Is it bad form to pick only the bachelor party—especially when both trips necessitate out-of-town travel?

Bridges is silent for a moment, deeply contemplative, the Dalai Lama of manners. He has not previously heard of this ethical dilemma. He purses his lips and pauses to take a long drink. At long last, the oracle speaks.

“I think that’s a personal choice,” he says. “You do the one you can, and if you choose the bachelor party and they’re going to hate you for not making it to their wedding for the rest of their life, then what can you do about it?”

Bridges shrugs his shoulders, then quips: “Closely monitoring the behavior of others is not a sign of manners, it’s a sign of being ill-behaved.”

Later that night, I share Bridges’ opinion on weddings and bachelor parties with my wife. “That,” she says, “is a load of crap.”

Proving, once and for all, that manners are in the eye of the beholder.

Clay Travis is a sports journalist, associate editor of the sports blog deadspin.com and author of Dixieland Delight: A Football Season on the Road in the Southeastern Conference (Harper, 2007).

This is his first article for Auburn Magazine.



When local Methodists raised the princely sum of $100,000 in the 1850s to help start the East Alabama Male College, little could they have envisioned the multiversity that eventually developed. Classes began in 1859 with 80 students and six faculty members meeting in a four-story gray building—considerably smaller than the 100-pupil women’s college down the street. That building—the first Old Main—burned in 1887 and was replaced by Samford Hall, which still boasts its iconic burnt-orange brick clock tower. As Alabama Polytechnic Institute, and later Auburn University, grew around it, so did a set of traditions, myths and downright exaggerations that survive today.

If walls could talk, Auburn’s remaining pre-World War II buildings would be quite the storytellers.

Oh, the stories they could tell. Join us on an anecdotal tour of old Auburn.

Glanton House B e h in d H aley C en t er

Comer Hall181 Roosevelt Dr.

Mell Hall271 Mell St.

Petrie Hall371 W. Thac h Av e.

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Women’s Quadrangle 246 Mell St.

President’s House430 S. College St.

Langdon Hall152 S. College St.

Duncan Hall322 Mell St.

University Chapel139 S. College St.

Petrie Hall371 W. Thac h Av e.

Mary Martin Hall211 W. Thach Ave.

By Suzanne Johnson

Illustration by Bruce Dupree

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Cary Hall (1940)Resident(s): Veterinary medicine students and faculty occupied the building from its construction until 1970. Today, the building houses the biological sciences.

Named for: Charles Allen Cary, first dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, founded in 1907.

Short story: In 1896, Cary established the first meat-inspection system in the United States, based in Montgomery. Then he set up meat- and milk-inspection ordinances in all major Alabama cities.

Cater Hall (1915)Resident(s): Cater was the original president’s home, first occupied by Charles Thach, whose granddaughter Nellie was born there. After the current president’s home was completed in 1939, the building was used by the dean of women for both a home and social functions. It now houses academic support services, which provides students with academic counseling, tutoring, study-skills workshops and other assistance.

Named for: Katharine Cater, dean of women (later dean of student life) at Auburn from 1946 until her death in 1980.

Short story: Open parlors without doors, called “dating parlors,” were built at each end of the building so chaperones could monitor female students as they entertained gentleman friends.

Comer Hall (1909)Resident(s): College of Agriculture, then and now. The building burned in 1920 and was rebuilt in 1922.

Named for: Alabama Gov. Braxton Bragg Comer (1906-11).

Short story: Comer Hall sits on land that originally was part of the first agricultural experiment station on campus. A private residence on the property in the late 1800s was the first in Auburn to have running water.

Corley Building (1939)Resident(s): The building’s original name was the Farm Engineering Building, later the Agricultural Engineering Building. Today, it houses the biosystems engineering department.

Named for: In 1998, the building was renamed in honor of Tom Edward

Corley ’39, longtime administrator

for the local agricultural experiment station and a pioneer in cotton mechanization.

Short story: The Corley Building was one of 13 Auburn

buildings constructed with money from President Franklin Roosevelt’s Public Works Administration program.

Duncan Hall (1928)Resident(s): The Alabama Cooperative Extension System, then and now.

Named for: Auburn’s ninth president, Luther Noble Duncan, who presided over the university during the difficult Depression years.

Short story: Duncan Hall’s builders had planned to buy limestone from Indiana,

but Duncan insisted on going local. Franklin County limestone was used instead.

Early Learning Center (1939)Resident(s): Sixty children between ages 2 and 5 attended preschool in what was originally called the Child Study Center, which still serves as home for children and family programs.

Short story: The Childhood Study Center was the first early-childhood learning lab in the South.

Glanton House (1939)Resident(s): Glanton House was originally a home economics lab. In 1973, it became home to the College of Human Sciences’ Marriage and Family Therapy Center.

Named for: Louise Phillips Glanton, head of the home economics program from 1927 to 1937.

Short story: To create a more inviting child-care environment, the building closely resembles a single-family home.

Hargis Hall (1888)Resident(s): Originally the Chemistry Building, then the Music Building, the Romanesque Revival structure now houses the graduate school and international education.

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Named for: Renamed in 1978 for Birmingham physician and primary donor Estes Hargis ’17.

Short story: A fire gutted the interior during a renovation, and the building sat vacant for a year while insurance settlements were negotiated. The cause was never determined.

Ingram Hall (1923)Resident(s): Originally Alumni Hall, the building served as a men’s, then a women’s, dormitory. It now houses AU’s business and financial offices, including payroll, purchasing and employee benefits.

Named for: William Travis Ingram, university treasurer for 48 years until his retirement in 1973.

Short story: The original dorm included a basement swimming pool, which was filled in during an early renovation to make room for a dining hall.

Jordan-Hare Stadium (1939)Resident(s): Auburn Tigers football.

Named for: Originally dubbed Auburn Stadium, the facility was renamed Cliff Hare Stadium in 1949 after the first of six expansions. Hare was a member of Auburn’s first football team in 1892 and later served as a chemistry professor and dean. In 1973 the stadium was renamed Jordan-Hare Stadium to honor Auburn’s all-time winningest football coach, Ralph “Shug” Jordan.

Short story: The original stadium seated a mere 7,440 fans and welcomed a sellout crowd for its first game in 1939 between the Tigers and the Florida Gators. The game ended in a 7-7 tie. Stadium capacity now exceeds 87,000 and is the 10th largest in the NCAA.

Langdon Hall (1853)Resident(s): Langdon Hall was originally built on North Gay Street; the university moved the building to its present location in 1883. Over the years it has housed classrooms, home ec labs and band rehearsals. For many years the Langdon auditorium was the only “movie house” in town; before “talkies” arrived, a player piano accompanied silent films.

Named for: Longtime Auburn trustee Charles Langdon, a state legislator and Alabama secretary of state.

Short story: In 1891, some students decided Langdon’s exterior needed a new paint job and chose to send the administration a message before family and friends arrived for graduation ceremonies. An intrepid senior climbed to

the top and wrote the word “pante” in large letters across the tower—his spelling gaffe remained on view through commencement week. The building was later resurfaced with brick.

Mary Mart in Hall (1910)Resident(s): Originally the campus’ main library, it housed several thousand books for more than half a century until the completion of the Ralph Brown Draughon

Library in 1963. Today, the library holds more than 2.5 million volumes.

Named for: Mary Eugenia Martin, Auburn’s librarian from 1918 to 1949. She grew a garden behind the library and occasionally used a hose to

spray ROTC students who dared walk through it on their way to the nearby drill field.

Short story: At one time, Mary Martin Hall featured life-sized statues based on classical Greek sculpture. Local socialites,

shocked by the voluptuous figures’ immodest clothing—or lack thereof—sewed pleated yellow silk skirts for the statues to wear.

Mell Hall (1925)Resident(s): Originally the Sigma Nu fraternity house, Mell Hall became part of the women’s dormitory quadrangle in the 1950s. It now houses distance-education and instructional-technology administrators.

Named for: Auburn professor P.H. Mell, early director of the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station.

Short story: Though they’ve long been bricked over, open porches once graced each end of the original building on both levels. The upstairs porches were for sleeping, reflecting the national obsession with the health benefits of fresh air.

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Petrie Hall (1939)Resident(s): Originally a field house, the building later served as AU’s athletic headquarters until Memorial Coliseum was built in 1969. The geology-and-geography department now calls it home.

Named for: Legendary professor and coach George Petrie, who brought football to Auburn and, upon retirement, wrote the Auburn Creed.

Short story: The building is a showcase of natural history, including a display of extinct marine lizards.

President ’s House (1939)Resident(s): The mansion was built as, and remains, the university president’s residence, with a total construction cost of $38,412.

Short story: The President’s House was the first of 12 Public Works Administration projects that marked a post-Depression building boom and prompted President Franklin Roosevelt to visit campus. A throng of people gathered to hear him speak, and the university named Roosevelt Drive in his honor.

Ramsay Hall (1925)Resident(s): The School of Engineering. It now houses the Office of Information Technology and other academic units.

Named for: Erskine Ramsay, coal-company executive, mining engineer

and inventor. His donation started the building fund.

Short story: The site chosen for Ramsay Hall included an existing building that had served, alternately, as the first pharmacy for the veterinary school, a fraternity house and a private home. It was torn down shortly before construction on Ramsay Hall began.

Ross Hall (1930)Resident(s): The Georgian-style building was created for the old School of Chemistry. It now houses the chemical and mechanical engineering departments.

Named for: Bennett Ross, who variously served as a chemistry professor, dean of agriculture, dean of chemistry and pharmacy, and acting university president—twice.

Short story: Ross died just before the building opened. His body lay in state in the main hallway.

Samford Hall (1888)Resident(s): Originally, Samford Hall was the university, housing classes until 1969, when it became solely the university administration’s headquarters.

Named for: Alabama Gov. William James Samford, who attended Auburn in 1860-61.

Short story: The first campus building, Old Main, burned in 1887, leaving nothing but brick and ashes—some of the brick was used in the foundation of Samford Hall. The legend that a number of

students led a cow through the attic and into the bell tower in the 1920s remains unsubstantiated, but it is true that, in the dead of night, a group of enterprising 1977 students, armed with paint, cardboard and tape, turned the stately clock into a Mickey Mouse watch face.

Smit h Hall (1908)Resident(s): Originally a dorm, the building also served the home economics and art departments until 1980, when industrial design moved in. It now houses outreach programs and campus planning. The interior was rebuilt in 1933 after a fire.

Named for: Otis David Smith, who served on the University of Alabama board of trustees while also teaching English and mathematics at Auburn.

Short story: Officials converted Smith Hall into an infirmary in 1918 when an outbreak of deadly Spanish flu swept through campus.

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Text ile Engineering Building (1932)Resident(s): The original name was simply the Textile Building, and it has always housed textile studies.

Short story: Money was scarce during the Great Depression, so the university raised construction funds by selling its electric and water franchises.

Tichenor Hall (1940)Resident(s): Originally built to house classrooms, the building is in the process of being renovated.

Named for: Auburn’s third president, Isaac Taylor Tichenor, who helped the university achieve its land-grant status.

Short story: Tichenor, known as an astute businessman, was also a Baptist minister.

University Chapel (1850)Resident(s): The oldest campus building still located on its original site, the chapel was constructed of slave-made bricks as the city’s Presbyterian church. Over the years it has served as a Civil War hospital, a USO and longtime home of Auburn theater productions. Now, it is serving again as a chapel.

Short story: Legend has it that the ghost of Confederate soldier Sydney Grimlett haunted the building for years, opening drawers and rattling doors in the old building where he died. When the thespians moved to the Telfair Peet Theatre in 1972, the ghost purportedly tagged along.

Upchurch Hall (1930)Resident(s): Originally the Animal and Dairy Science Building, then the Animal and Poultry Science Building, the facility was renamed Upchurch Hall in the late 1990s and still houses agricultural programs.

Named for: Ann Samford Upchurch, an Autauga County rancher and supporter of Auburn’s College of Agriculture. She died in 1996.

Short story: Upchurch was the first woman elected into the Alabama Cattlemen’s Association Hall of Fame.

Women’s Quadrangle (1940)Resident(s): The buildings were always women’s residence halls, with the Quad Center built concurrently as a dining hall; a second group of dorms was added in 1952. The women were displaced briefly during World War II when U.S. Army trainees claimed the space and female students moved into empty men’s dorms.

Named for: The buildings were named in the early 1960s. Dorm No. 1 was named for Elizabeth Taylor Harper Flanagan, the Auburn city founder’s wife who allegedly chose the town’s name from a poem by Oliver Goldsmith. Katie Broun (Dorm No. 2), Willie Gertrude Little (No. 3) and Margaret Kate Teague (No. 4) were the first women to graduate from Auburn, then known as the Agricultural and Mechanical College, in 1894.

Short story: First lady Eleanor Roosevelt paid a visit to the dorms’ construction site in 1939, where she spoke to a crowd

of 5,000. The complex was partially funded by the Public Works

Administration.

Source materials: The Auburn University Walking Tour Guide, by R.G. Millman; Auburn—Plainsmen, Tigers and War Eagles, by Elizabeth D. Schafer; and Auburn: A Pictorial History of the Loveliest Village, by Mickey Logue, H.E. Logue, Jack Simms and John D. Simms.

Futura BT condensed

#2’s rectangle is 5% larger than # 1

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#2’s rectangle is 5% larger than # 1

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auburn magazine winter 2008

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