To enjoy to all of the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering’s awesome 20-minute interview with Davis, go here, or just search “#GINNing” wherever you listen to podcasts. Oh, here’s the interview with Mike Horton.

This is what comes up.

That was written two years ago.

Yesterday, I interviewed her again. Hear how the Kick Six is still affecting Amanda Johnson’s life seven years later on the latest episode of War Eagle Reader Radio.

It was Saturday, Dec. 8, 2007, the millionth day of a 100-year, shadow-of-death drought that the Associated Press voted the state of Alabama’s top news story that year, bigger than that horrible tornado in Enterprise, bigger than the governor going to federal prison for bribery. Nearly 2 million residents were living under water restrictions, including folks in Tallapoosa County who wondered if they’d even be able to take baths by the end of the year. In August, Lake Martin was already at winter levels. The thing was a puddle. Alexander City and Dadeville started showing up on the date lines for national stories about how God had given up on the south. Islands were turning into peninsulas, people were planting peas and okra where they used to dock their jet skis, black widows were mysteriously swarming swimming pools. And yet in the midst of despair… a miracle.

Saint Shannon McDuffie and I are at the Chappy’s Deli in Auburn. You know where it is. It’s April. Shannon’s from Dadeville. We’re about the same age. One of the houses she cleans on Fridays is in Auburn. I wrote and told her if she could spare an hour I’d buy her lunch. So, I’m buying her lunch — chicken salad and anything else she wants. Coffee? Desert? Anything to keep her talking about it. She seems cool with it. Smiling. Laughing. Great laugh. Great accent. And she’s a Bama fan! She brought all the magazines and stuff that had been written about it… and there’s nothing about how it happened to a Bama fan, even though it might obviously explain why, of the two faces she saw in the wallet, she only recognized Christ’s, staring out from a copy of what looked to be the Lord’s Prayer that somehow hadn’t disintegrated.

“So, like, you had no idea who he was?”

Shannon shakes her head. She’s emphatic.

“It did not register to me at all who that was. Because everything had, like, 80s (dates) on it. I didn’t know. I’m like, ‘who is Patrick Fain Dye?’”

Her chocolate Labs sat and waited as she dug through it. Once upon a time, Patrick Fain Dye, of Graystone Ave. in Auburn, born Nov. 6, 1939, was an honorary Alabama state trooper. He was 5’11, 195 pounds, an Auburn University employee and a Delta Frequent Flyer. He got a government employee discount on Chevron gas, and he could use either an American Express or Visa to reserve a room for half-price at the Terrace Garden Inn.

She put the cards back in the wallet. It was nice — alligator. The expiration date on the driver’s license was August 4, 1985. So, it’d been down there… what, at least 20 years? More? She could still smell the leather.

“It was in Emerald Shores. It’s across from Stillwaters. The water was real low and I was back there taking my dogs and looking for old bottles in the lake and I found this bulge.”

The bulge was a pair of green and blue Madras golf pants.

“They were actually folded with the crease and all still in them.”

Still folded!

But of course they were just pants, old muddy pants. The wallet she fished out was what mattered. So, she dropped them. She left them. Repeat — she left the pants! Just left them there in the muck and started the hot walk back to the house in Holiday Shores. Her in-laws were over. They’d get a kick out of it. It was the only thing she’d found out there… but an old wallet belonging to some old man named Patrick Fain Dye… the name was starting to sound familiar… was obviously better than some old Coke bottle. She called for the dogs.

“I walked back and I was telling my husband and his parents about it, and they’re like ‘that’s Pat Dye from Auburn! You better go back and get them pants!'”

Pat Dye! Duh!

She hopped on the golf cart and floored it. She picked up the pants and heard a jingle. Inside the other pocket were keys to a Toyota latched to an Auburn football helmet keychain. And a handkerchief.

People had been finding all kinds of things that fall. Old coins. Lost rings. So, one of the local magazines, Lake Martin Living, had the idea to compile a list of the coolest, weirdest treasures for one of their drought stories. The Woman Who Found Pat Dye’s Pants heard about it and was like, ‘oh man, do I have something.’” She wasn’t super into football or anything, but she knew the pants of Auburn’s former football coach would have to be hard to top. Better than a Bicentennial license plate. Better than an old buck knife. Totally unique, right? Totally perfect. So, she called Lake Martin Living… and they go “nah…”

Just imagine that. She picks up the phone… with Pat Dye’s golf pants from the 1980s and his wallet and credit cards and handkerchief and Toyota keys next to her, all of which she’d found in Lake Martin’s corpse… and they tell her thanks, but no thanks.

The rejection understandably weirded her out. Ditto the few folks she’d told. How do you pass on that? How do you not include Pat Dye’s Pants in the list of cool things your readers have found in the amazing, disappearing lake? How do you not top the list with it? How do you not make it your cover? How do you not call the Smithsonian?

Gail, the wife of the man who owned the Piggly Wiggly where Shannon worked, wasn’t giving up on getting it out there. She called Auburn.

Um, yeah, hi… this girl Shannon McDuffie who works at the deli inside Piggly Wiggly found Pat Dye’s wallet, looks like he lost it or something…

… and the woman who picked up just kind of laughed: “Oh, again?”

Click.

And so, friends, The Pants (and everything that came with them) just sat there. They just sat there.

Months went by and hardly anyone outside of Clan McDuffie and some friends and Gail knew about the pants. Shannon would come home from Piggly Wiggly everyday and heat something up in the microwave and turn on the TV and they would just be there, maybe in a box, maybe in her closet: Pat Dye’s Pants. She and husband Derrick would go to sleep at night with Pat Dye’s Pants sitting there. She’d head out in the morning and they’d just be sitting there, Pat Dye’s Pants, home alone. She’d leave Pat Dye’s Pants to go to work, to go to the movies, and — praise the Lord — to go take a photography class at Central Alabama Community College taught by Kenneth Boone.

Boone owned the other local magazine, “Lake Magazine,” plus a few local papers. And he was a photographer. Shannon was starting to become a bit of a shutterbug herself.

“He was teaching a photography class in April 2008. It was a beginners class, anybody could go. I told him about it at class. I said ‘guess what I found in the lake.’ He said ‘wow, we need to do a story on that.’ So, that’s how this all came about.”

The photo on the cover of the July 2008 Lake Martin Alabama edition of Lake Magazine is perfect.

“I went a bought a new outfit for it,” Shannon says.

Here it is.

Boone took the picture. He set the whole thing up. Thankfully, he had some connections. After Shannon shared her secret, he made some calls. A few weeks later, he and Shannon and Pat Dye’s Pants hit the road for the most famous Japanese maple farm in Notasulga. And it was great.

Shannon showed the Pants to Coach. He remembered them. She showed him the wallet.

“Was there any money in there?”

Ha!

“I don’t have any idea how I lost’em,” he told Shannon. “But we’ll make up a good story.”

They walked around for an hour. Coach gave her the tour. Then he made a deal with her: Let him have his pants back, let him auction them off at the Blue Jean Ball, the annual charity thing he hosts every year for Auburn’s nursing school — it was coming up in September — and he’d have her and Derrick down as his special guests.

Kenneth Boone told them to stand next to each other. They stretched the pants out between them and said “cheese.”

Click, click, click.

Clicks, clicks, clicks.

It went viral, obviously. ESPN. The Washington Post. EDSBS. Rick and Bubba. Some old WordPress.com blog called The War Eagle Reader.

I thought it was the greatest story I’d ever heard. I wasn’t alone.

“Hello?”

“Yessir, this is Matt McDonald, you had contacted my office this morning about Coach Dye’s pants.”

Matt McDonald is a big Auburn fan. Huge. He attended AU for a few years in the mid-90s and owns some pharmaceutical industry companies down in Fairhope, which is how he developed friend-of-a-friend connections with the nursing school years back… which is how he found himself at Pat Dye’s Blue Jean Ball in 2008. The theme? Blue Hawaii. Hula dancers. Tiki torches. An Elvis impersonator. The eagle. And Pat Dye’s Pants, mounted in a custom-made shadow box alongside their former contents, ready to fund some nursing scholarships.

Dye called Shannon McDuffie up in front of everyone.

“I’d been partying with him and dancing,” she says, flipping through the photo album.

They stood next to the shadow box, leis around both of their necks. He introduced her as the woman who’d found his pants. People howled. Matt got ready.

“I was like, holy crap, that’s cool,” Matt says. “I didn’t even know the story about the pants.”

Several big bids later — they started off at $5,000 — he became a part of it.

Shannon captioned the picture she took with Matt: “Matt McDonald bought them 4 $8,000! Wow! Who knew, right!”

The night he paid $8,000 for Pat Dye’s Pants was actually the first time Matt met the man. They’ve since become pretty tight. They hunt together. Dye will have Matt’s family up to the house some during football season. Matt’s actually been one of the sponsors of the Blue Jean Ball since 2013 or so. He bids on stuff every year; he usually wins. He’s got a Toomer’s Oak clone (that Dye himself actually came down and planted in Matt’s yard). He’s got a cool hand-carved eagle Dye used to own. He’s got one of Dye’s shotguns. He’s got one of Bo’s shotguns, autographed of course. But when people step into his home office, nothing gets them talking more than the $8,000 pair of muddy pants

“So, you’re writing about them or something?” he asks.

“Yeah. I mean, kind of like you, I just thought it was the greatest story ever. Had I found those things, I think I probably would have passed out. It would have been such a shock. It was such a hilarious story, but such a cool thing at the same time, at least to me. Because the 80s were such a ripe time for college football lore, and Auburn at the time was right there in the middle of it. I’m just, like, what was happening when he lost them? What was going on? It’s like something out of a movie. I mean, we’d just won the Sugar Bowl and should have been national champs and we’re gearing up to play Miami to start the season. Because best I can tell from everything that was in his wallet, it had to have happened in either 1983, but probably 1984.”

“Yeah,” Matt says, “I’m pretty sure you’re right.”

***

The 1984 Pat Dye Invitational Golf Tournament, held Sunday and Monday, July 15 and 16, was probably the biggest they’d had since Dye arrived, the most attended. Who’s going to turn down two paid days at Stillwaters skiing and playing golf and stuffing yourself with barbecue chicken in the name of covering college football’s preseason No. 1 and interviewing (via teleconference, but still) that year’s Heisman frontrunner? No one. Definitely not Jon Johnson, that’s for sure. Jon has been the Dothan Eagle’s sports editor for the past 22 years. In 1984, he was the Plainsman’s, and he was one of probably 200 or so media members who absolutely took Auburn up on the offer.

“Auburn would have sports writers from around the state come up there (to Stillwaters) and just entertain them for the weekend,” Jon says. “Alabama did the same thing when Perkins was there and Curry was there — invite them and treat them to dinner and lunch, and you played golf, and then at night they’d sit around and tell stories and have all the assistant coaches there, too. And, of course, something like that you never see these days. You can’t do it anymore. Basically it was a big socializing event for a couple of days for sports writers and coaches.”

And that year, as fate would have it, for Joe freakin’ DiMaggio.

“Everyone got word (DiMaggio) was down there, and the most unique thing that I remember about it was… well, it’s kind of taboo to ask for autographs. That’s just not something you do (as a journalist). But this was different. I remember vividly people getting in a line to shake his hand. Guys who were with television stations, sportscasters…”

Guys like Jim Fyffe…

And sure, Jon, too.

“I got his autograph on just a piece of notebook paper. I kept it in my wallet for years and years.”

But beyond Joltin’ Joe being there, and the guy who hosted the Ray Perkins Show being photographed in an Auburn hat and a Bo jersey — David Housel threatened to send a print to Perkins — Jon doesn’t remember anything wacky happening. No skinny dipping. No rumors about Coach Dye dropping trou or anything. Just fun.

After finishing 18 holes on Monday afternoon, Jon hopped in the car a happy camper. He got back to Auburn and wrote his weekly column. Here’s how he ended it:

“Dye had said at his press conference he didn’t want anyone to leave on Monday without being able to say they had a good time. He didn’t have anything to worry about.”

***

Shannon took a copy of the magazine with her to the Blue Jean Ball. Coach signed it for her.

She slides it across the table.

To Shannon, thank you for finding my pant! War Eagle, Pat Dye

“Wait, he just wrote ‘pant’ — not ‘pants,’”I tell her. “There’s no ‘s’ on there.”

We laugh. She’d never noticed.

It was a big deal for a while.

Not long after the magazine came out, Shannon opened up her mailbox to something from Brad Cotter, the country singer who won “Nashville Star” in 2004.

“His cousin or aunt or something, I know her, and they’re big Auburn fans, and she just thought it was amazing and she told him about it, and he sent me an autographed photo that said ‘If you find my pants, please don’t tell anyone.’”

Since then, it’s mostly died down. But every now and then, someone will still say something.

“Yeah, I was known for a little while around my little town as the girl who found Pat Dye’s pants. They’d keep coming and asking me ‘did you find any pants lately?’ They just kept asking me ‘did he say why he lost them?’ Somebody said that somebody might have gotten mad at him and thrown them into the lake while they were out on a boat.’”

I tell her if we’d gotten there a little earlier, we could have slid into the back booth and asked David Housel. He always does Chappy’s for breakfast. He has to know.

“I have my own theory, though,” I tell her.

She nods along.

“Yeah, if it’s what I’m thinking, Joe DiMaggio was actually there. I’m thinking of starting the story with ‘while Pat Dye was on top of the world, his pants were at the bottom the lake.’”

The check finally comes.

“Well, if you talk to him, tell him I said ‘hi.’ I’d actually like to get back in touch with him and see what he says now. ‘Hey, it’s been 10 years, remember me?’”

***

I work mornings in the same building where Pat Dye records his weekly radio show. I’ve heard the man recount entire touchdown drives, down by down, from games played before half of us were born, games played in forgettable seasons…

But in 1984? It was greater than it usually was to be an Auburn Tiger going into 1984. And it was great to be Pat Dye.

He was coming off what should have been a national championship season. He had at least another year and maybe two with the best player in the country. He was gearing up to open the season against defending national champs Miami in the Kickoff Classic at the Meadowlands, then take on No. 4 Texas at Austin, back to back. He was telling reporters waiting to play golf at Stillwaters that Auburn had a “legitimate chance at the national title.”

Sure, he’s 79 now. But feeling a breeze, losing your keys, losing your wallet, asking for a ride home, canceling credit cards… all at the same time, all during what is arguably the peak of your coaching career?

Surely…

I’ve talked with him before. Been out to his house. Called him on the phone. But for a kid who in, say, 1984 thought Pat Dye was a god, tapping him on the shoulder is always pretty nerve wracking.

I took a deep breath. I caught him in the hall. He was wearing khaki pants.

“Hey Coach, remember your golf tournament at Lake Martin in 1984? Joe DiMaggio was there?”

“Yeah, yeah… Joe came down and was there at the press conference we did at Stillwaters.”

“Coach, I’ve been doing a little research… do you think that could have been when you lost your pants?”

He stops, turns around, looks at me.

“Well… it had to have been somewhere around then.”

“So, that sounds right? It could have been?”

“Yeah, yeah…”

“Coach, I actually talked with Shannon McDuffie the other day, remember her? She’s the one who…”

“Yeah, yeah… from Dadeville? She didn’t even know who I was. Her husband had to tell her.”

“Did you know she was an Alabama fan?”

“Well, that don’t make no difference.”

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Related: Pat’s Dry Field.

Oh, and yeah — we were robbed.

Check out fantastic footage from Auburn’s 1958 Beat Bama pep rally here.

You always hear about how Bear Bryant and Pat Dye were friends, but, like, good friends, friends who went hunting together and had pictures of themselves hunting and stuff. And that they maybe even had a protege / mentor thing going on. And to me at least, there was always kind of the implication that it wasn’t just because Dye was an assistant for Bryant at Alabama. It was, like, that they couldn’t help but be friends… that they shared some deep, generation-spanning understanding and appreciation of each other as southern football men or something.

Of course, most of that feeling comes from things Dye said over the yearss, about how Bear supposedly tried to talking him out of taking the Auburn job. And you just kind of wonder if maybe he was exaggerating a bit.

Sure, they both talked country and stuff, but did they really talk country to each other on a regular basis, even before Dye moved to God’s Country? Were they really close friends? Was Bear Bryant even capable of friendship? And did he really attempt to thwart the Dye-era at Auburn?

Looks like.

Because here’s some old news footage from Dye’s first days on the job, and lo and behold, there’s the incomparable Phil Snow sticking the mic in Bryant’s face and just asking him straight up… 

Phil Snow: Would you rather not have a guy as close as Pat is to you be the coach at Auburn?

Bear Bryant: Yeah, I’d rather he wouldn’t be the coach at Auburn.

Snow: Why is that, coach?

Bryant: Because he’s a friend of mine. I want him to continue to be a friend of mine, but it’s difficult to be as close as ones like we were and be cross state rivals. And I don’t want those Auburn people ruining him anyway.

Snow: Did you try to talk him out of taking the job?

Bryant: No, I didn’t try to talk him out… we talked before he was ever offered the job, before he was ever interviewed. I let him I know I didn’t think he should be goin’ down there I think. He didn’t pay any attention to me, naturally.

Related: Bear Bryant, Auburn fan?

I tracked Roy Tatum down pretty much just to hear about his double life as “Bart Raynolds” (and Bigfoot) because, dang, that’s a story, and you can read about it here. But, sure, yes of course, Roy, let’s actually talk Auburn football. Tell me something good.

It did not take long.

He’d probably never played better, and he’d probably never been more miserable. The rain, the rain, the rain. The cold. The mud. The run. The tackle. The tackle, Lord, the tackle.  Everybody’s got a story about it. Or most everybody. All Ken Jones could really muster at the ‘67 team reunion last Saturday was a distant look. He was a senior offensive guard, the hard-nosed type that, according to the 1967 media guide I was having him and all his fellow sufferers sign, really enjoyed football.

“We should’ve won it. We should’ve won it. I don’t know… we should’ve won it.”

They should have won it.

Auburn dominated the game, especially defensively. Again, the word is dominated. It’s easy to say it, of course, but you watch it and it’s true. Bama had four first downs, and 177 total yards, or 130 if you’re playing by the rules. Sure, a lot of that had to do with the rain and slop. It was like the final scene of “The Secret of Nihm” out there. You get anxiety just watching it.

But a lot of it also had to do with Roy Tatum.

When Stabler called his own number on Bama’s first two plays from scrimmage, No. 73 was there to stop him cold. It was his best season — he was runner up for Shug’s Headhunter of the Year award — and, again, the Iron Bowl wound up one of the best games of his career. The words “Roy Tatum” and “key stop” were the chorus of the Sunday sports section. So why were the two idiots talking trash, and to 6”3, 230 lb. defensive tackle Roy Tatum all people?

It took a while to get this particular gem out of him. He’s a minister now. He turned his life around a while back. (That’s a good story, too.) When it comes to the old days, he can get kind of sheepish sometimes. But I wanted to know what he’d done that night, after a game like that. Story goes that some of the guys went over to Bama’s hotel. The Tide had sent nine seniors out for the coin toss to Auburn’s two, Gusty Yearout and Forest Blue. And Gusty isn’t intimidated. He locks on Stabler like he would lock on him the whole game. He marches into the wind with the meanest All-Conference middle guard look he can muster, thunder rumbling, rain dripping from his teeth, determined to finally beat the hell out of Alabama and bite the head off the Snake, and Snake either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care and the only thing he does is invite good ol’ Gusty to the after party at the Bankhead. “We’ve got plenty of beer, y’all come on.” Gusty finally unclenches his jaw and just says “what room?”

Roy says he didn’t go to the Bankhead. Where’d you go, Roy? He hesitates. I press. He laughs.

“Um… I punched a couple of guys out at a place called The Cascade Plunge. I don’t know if you want to mention that.”

Um… I’m sorry, Roy — I have to. I’ll be tasteful. What happened?

“Well, I was talking to someone, and these guys kept going ‘Roll Tide! Auburn sucks!’ And I listened to it for a little while and they just kept on doing it. We were shell-shocked and beat up, and I’d probably had two or three beers and that was just enough. Your system is so clean coming off the field after a game like that, all the sweating. It doesn’t take much to get you jacked up.”

Was it still raining?

“Probably.”

***

There’d been rain talk all week. How would it factor? Who would it help?

Shug was convinced it’d hold off. They’d pulled into Birmingham on Friday and it had actually been a little sunny, nice even. Besides, who’d ever heard of a wet Iron Bowl?

Friends, it wasn’t just wet. It wasn’t just windy. It was Biblical, disgusting, totally unprecedented. Birmingham News sports editor emeritus Zipp Newman covered southern football for 50 years by that point, and nothing, he said, had come close. Maybe that third Saturday in October in the ’20s or ’30s or whenever it was that some people kept bringing up, but Zipp was like no, not really.

I slide down the autograph line and introduce myself. If you just say the year, they may have to think for a second. But say the word “mud,” and the eyes widen, the lights dim, the reel starts playing and they’re watching themselves basically just wrestling in a cold bowl of crap, and I don’t even like to use that word.

Richard Cheek, an offensive tackle (who went on to look like this in the pros) puts his Sharpie down and holds his hands a foot apart. “It was this deep. It was over your shoes.”

Funnily enough, Cheek — “He’s an animal!” Roy laughs — was convinced the brief breather was actually a bad thing, a bad omen. And, OK, seeing what he saw, yeah, that might be understandable.

“I remember I came out at halftime the same time Bear did, and it was pouring down rain. And I looked over and and he went like this” — he raises his hands — “and it stopped raining. I swear to God. I swear to God, it stopped raining. I went ‘s***!’ It started back, but it stopped for about 10 minutes, no rain, and I’m going, you gotta be kiddin’ me!”

Of course, things would have still been ridiculous on a dry field. High school teams had completely chopped it up. The Gray Lady on Graymont was practically the Tide’s home turf, but even Bear was throwing shade at the grounds crew. “I expect these were the worst conditions I’ve ever seen a football game played in,” he told reporters after the game. “This late in the season, Legion Field is the worst field in America because of all the traffic it has on it.”

Birmingham’s Park Board made things worse by sprinkling straw everywhere and hosing it down with green paint so everyone could try to pretend it was still grass. They threw a tarp on it and crossed their fingers, but by game time it didn’t matter. Kickoff was at 1:30. It started raining at 1:15. Sheets of the stuff. And there was the wind — 20 mph gusts, 40 mph gusts, some even stronger. It was cold. It was nasty. It was almost hard to tell the teams apart. First the uniforms turned green. Then the rain washed that away and they were all just brown. The players sat in their capes and prayed for anything resembling warmth.

The fans huddled together and committed their soaked spirits to the Lord. Tornadoes tap danced across Dixie. Two people died near Mobile. The entire state was hunkered down save for 71,000 nuts riding it out under a canopy of useless umbrellas inside a 100-yard swamp in Birmingham. It was something.

***

Auburn went into the game confident. Like, really confident. Almost strangely confident. “We are undaunted by Alabama,” Shug told reporters early in the week. “We think we can beat them.”

So far, they were the surprise of the SEC, so why not? The cover of the media guide showed Aubie dodging six bowling balls representing the six bowl teams Auburn had on the ‘67 schedule. The copy next to the illustration reads: “When you add 1966 ACC Champion Clemson and Kentucky (which beat the Tigers last year), it’s like Coach Shug Jordan says: ‘We face the biggest challenge since my first year at Auburn.’”

People said they’d be bad. Like, 3-7 bad. All things considered, the season wound up pretty solid.

Bama, meanwhile, was a mystery. They were 7-1-1. That was technically the same record they’d brought into the ‘65 Iron Bowl before somehow going on to repeat as national champs. In August, Bear had insisted his ‘67 squad — or at least his defense — might be his best ever. He was wrong. They would look good, then not so good, then good again. The Tide started the season ranked No. 2, but tied the opener with Florida State. That snapped a 17-game win streak. A month later, they lost to Tennessee for the first time in seven years. That snapped a 25-game undefeated streak. Of course, Kenny Stabler, reinstated party boy, was having a great senior year. He finished the regular season with 1,327 total yards. But hell’s bells, guess who was having an even better season? Auburn quarterback Loran Carter, who finished with 1,373 total yards, an SEC best. He even topped Stabler in the air, and against what Shug — he was just coming out with it — insisted was stiffer competition.

“We have played stronger, rougher and more proficient teams than Alabama,” The Man said.

Common opponents? Advantage Auburn. Both teams had lost to the Vols, and by nearly the same margin, but it was the wins that made you smile. Auburn beat Clemson by three touchdowns; two weeks later, Bama squeaked by with a field goal. Bama beat Mississippi State 13-0 in Denny Stadium. A week later, Auburn beat the Bulldogs 36-0 in Cliff Hare.

Shug didn’t care that Bama had shut out South Carolina 17-0 in their last game, while Auburn was coming off a 17-0 loss to Georgia. He was convinced Georgia was the strongest team in the conference, even stronger than Tennessee.

He didn’t dance around it — he predicted a win.

“Before the season we were picked to be 3-6 at this time, but after Saturday’s game we will be 7-3.”

Shug had taken the missus to Ireland that summer and kissed the Blarney Stone not once, but four times, and even hugged it a little, and there was just a feeling.

Auburn hadn’t beaten Bama since Jimmy Sidle helped upset the No. 6 Tide 10-8 in 1963. They’d lost by seven in ‘64. Since then — don’t tell anyone — they hadn’t even scored a touchdown. The ‘67 seniors —don’t tell anyone, Roy couldn’t even believe it himself — had never even crossed Bama’s goal line, and that’s including the freshmen game.

Bucky Ayers, defensive back, doesn’t like talking about it.

“They beat us all four years. It was brutal.”

This was going to be the year, though. This was it. The streak was as good as over. They had watched the film and tested the fleece and Bama, by God, was beatable.

“The big thing for us,” Shug said, “ is stopping Stabler on the quarterback keeper.”

Tennessee had done it. Auburn thought they could, too.

“Auburn,” the Plainsman wrote, “with two fine tackles in Charlie Collins and Roy Tatum, and a sharp set of deep backs led by safety Buddy McClinton, is capable of the same type of play.”

Stop Stabler. Win the game.

I’m too worn out to break the whole thing down, but it started out great. It looked good. It was almost like the mud was Auburn’s 12th Man. Bama quickly realized it was simply not going to happen in the air. Ma Nature and Buddy McClinton had neutralized the deep bomb threat from All-American Dennis Homan. The best weapon Bama had — and Bryant admitted as much — was their punter. Read the articles and you lose count of how many times they punted on 3rd down just to keep the Tigers at bay. Because Auburn was somehow actually moving it. Sure, they punted a lot, too, and occasionally on 3rd down themselves. It was field position football, absolutely, but the point is that Auburn was winning it, on the ground, but mostly in the air. Bama got four first downs — four; Auburn had 13. Loran Carter was lighting it up, at least lighting it up as much you could light it up in a monsoon. He finished with 117 yards passing; Stabler had 12. He lobbed six to the great Tim Christian, two to the great Freddie Hyatt, one to running back Richard Plagge. He and Hyatt, the original No. 88, finished the game and the season as the most prolific passing combo in Auburn history. (The record didn’t last too long, but still.)

Carter’s 10 completions broke Travis Tidwell’s single-season record. Hyatt came into the game needing two catches to break his own record (33) for Auburn receptions in a season. And that’s what he got.

Auburn was punting better. They were returning punts better. They had fewer penalties. Fewer fumbles. It was still 0-0 when they changed uniforms at halftime (as if that would really help), but they were winning the game. Which is to say, on the field, they were winning. They just had to get on the scoreboard.

Why couldn’t they get on the scoreboard?

***

John Riley — “Rat,” for some wacky reason — didn’t make it. I tracked him down in Hawaii, about to give one of his speeches. There’d been a mix-up. He hadn’t gotten the invitation. But they wanted Rat Riley there bad. He’s a great guy. One of those great Auburn walk-on kicker turned motivational speaker types. Salt of the earth. The kind of guy who says “good gracious.”

Rat isn’t being critical. It’s not in his nature. He’s just curious. Because it was curious. He pretty much stood at attention beside Shug the whole game waiting for active duty, and he just didn’t see much of it. He looked at him, and it was like Conservative Shug had turned Riverboat Gambler. You lose count of how many times Bama punted on 3rd down, yes, but you also almost lose count of how many times Auburn went for it on 4th down, not out of desperation — out of starvation, out of vengeance. Shug was loaded for bear, LOL. But seriously, he was. To a fault? Maybe. But you gotta understand… no touchdowns in what was about to be three years? The Man wanted it bad. If Auburn was fourth and goal, war damn the torpedos.

“Good gracious, what a memorable game,” Rat says. “In a storm, in the mud… good gracious. We felt like we could win, Jeremy. Of course you always feel like you could beat anybody, but that day we really did. The way we moved the ball and stopped them. We were stopping them every time. But I guess we needed a touchdown instead of a field goal.”

But what about three field goals? Or four?

Maybe it was because he had already missed one — it went wide, really wide — but there were, in Rat’s mind, at least four other opportunities to get easy points through the uprights, and Shug said no, no, no, no…

“I’m not being critical. We might have missed all four. But we got inside Bama’s 10-yard line four times and went for it every time.”

Again, punching it in for an actual, real-life football touchdown didn’t seem like some desperate pipe dream. It’s just that the defense Bryant had bragged on early in the season would finally show up on fourth downs.

Bama held. And they held. And they held again.

And then they held again, if you know what I mean. (We’re almost there.)

Rat finally got another chance, from the 21, and delivered. I read somewhere that Bama fans, some of them, actually began to leave. It was the third quarter and the Tide still hadn’t even crossed midfield! Combine offensive ineptitude with man’s desire to be dry, and that’ll apparently even happen when your team is down just three points in the third quarter in an Iron Bowl. A series or two later, Riley lined up again. I’ve decided to let the Montgomery Advertiser take it from there.

By this time the rain was so bad that accurate snaps were virtually impossible. The first snap rolled back to holder Buddy McClinton, kneeling at the 29, and went right on by kicker Riley. McClinton retrieved the ball but was belted down back at the 38 as he looked for someone to throw a pass to.

McClinton gave the Tigers another golden chance minutes later when he intercepted a Stabler pass and ran a 22 yards to the Tide 41. Alabama helped turn this into a threat by jumping offsides on a fourth down, producing an Auburn first down at the 27. Carter, fumbling the snap on almost every play by now, almost turned one of the botched plays into a gem as he picked it up and ran 12 yards to the 14, only to have it called back by a procedure penalty. The net result was that Auburn wound up back at the 31. Lunceford came into kick, got the bad snap, and turned the tide to the Tide.

It happened three plays later.

Rat sighs. Half a century later, in Hawaii, he sighs.

“It was one of those games, Jeremy, that after it was over, to say it was a let down would certainly be an honest comment. Anger? No, just a real disappointment. We knew, everybody knew, that we could have won that ballgame, and should have. Nothing against Alabama, but we should have won it. That’s the main thing I remember — just the deep disappointment when you know you can do something, and you don’t. When you’re completely outgunned and you say ‘we just had an old-fashioned butt-whipping today’ — that’s one thing. But the disappointment of thinking back on that game… that’s one that just…”

***

According to practice reports, the Bear had really been emphasizing protecting the quarterback all week, and boy, Dennis Dixon really took it to heart.

Dixon was a junior college transfer tight end from California. It was his first year at Bama. Despite altering the course of Iron Bowl history, there’s not a lot of stuff about him. Turns out he was a great guy. But he wasn’t exactly a great player or anything — Gusty Yearout was.

Gutsy Gusty — All-SEC Ball-Hawk, the Tigers’ first two-year team captain, undisputed star of an underrated Auburn team

Now, Roy’s not saying the guy did it on purpose. But hey — maybe. I mean, it’s football. Maybe you plan something like that, you roll the dice. If it works, it works, and maybe you get a touchdown and win the game. The other side may go ballistic if they see it, but if the refs don’t see it, or at least don’t call it, then Roll Tide. If it doesn’t work, you punt and live for another day of downs. And, well, OK, that’s what Roy thinks probably happened. Partly because of the way it looked, but there was also just something in their faces.

“Let me interrupt you real quick. There was a show on ESPN I saw when Stabler was still alive. It was Stabler and about three or four other guys from Alabama, I think one was named Mike Hall, and the interviewer asked him about it. He said ‘we keep hearing about this, and I just want to ask you guys since you were in the game — did somebody really go down and tackle Gusty Yearout?’ And they just kind of looked at one another and grinned and said ‘well, we won the game.’ That’s all they said. And I thought, you low-rate gutless slug. You ain’t got the guts to say it.”

Now understand that Roy is laughing when he’s saying that last bit, and he’s not cussing because he’s not that guy any more, and it’s… it’s… just a game… and Roy is over it, as much as you can be over something that made grown men sob and punch people out at the Cascade Plunge.

But yes, for the record, No. 84 Dennis Dixon tackled No. 69 Gusty yearout.

Third down. Stabler takes the ball and rolls right, away from Roy. After the game, he’ll claim he planned on keeping it no matter what, come hell or high water or higher water or Gusty Yearout. And Gusty Yearout is coming, and not for a beer. He has an All-Conference bead on him, he has the Snake in his All-Conference sights. He’s about to snuff it out before it starts and force yet another sloppy punt. Then he’s in the slop.

It’s like that jungle scene in “The Swiss Family Robinson,” where Fritz and Ernst ambush that big bald pirate, only Dennis Dixon doesn’t even try to disguise it. He’s in full view of two officials, and he just coils around Gusty’s legs like a python, locks onto his left foot and hangs on. Gusty lunges for freedom, leg fully extended, hip about to dislocate, arms maybe a yard from Stabler.

Mission accomplished.

Stabler keeps going and instead of pitching it out keeps it and shoots inside. Dennis Homan, his roomie, finally gets in on the action. He lays a perfect block on Buddy McClinton. That seals it. Snake slithers down the Bama sideline in slow motion with really just one man to beat, side back Jimmy Carter. He beats him. He beats everybody.

Roy, who’d just been in on the two previous stops, chased him all the way from the other side of the play and into the end zone. He crossed the goal line and hung his head.

Sophomore defensive end Dick Ingwersen watched from the sideline.

“It was never called. That just sticks in your mind. That was something we had a hard time with because [Gusty] was in the position to make the tackle when he got held. I just remember it being a dreary, rainy, cold day and that people had a hard time moving the ball. And I remember the hold.”

What hold? Rat doesn’t remember a hold. He remembers the tackle.

“They scored and Gusty came off the field beside himself,” Rat says. “I was always by Coach Jordan and had to be ready to go in. Gusty came off the field and was like ‘they just tackled me! The ref was right there! I got tackled! I got tackled!’ It was an obvious thing. It wasn’t like, ‘well, maybe.’ It was very, very obvious and Gusty kind of let everybody know it.”

Some remember the sense of injustice dawning only the next day, after seeing the film on the review shows. Others are like, no, we knew we were robbed the moment we were robbed. Roy remembers it that way. Ditto Richard “The Animal” Cheek.

“At the time it happened, we were just ranting and raving, and the official was standing no closer than me to you, and he wrapped his arms around him and took him to the ground,” he says. “If that isn’t a tackle, I don’t know what is. We were irate. We were supposed to win that ballgame. We had it won.”

Afterwards, there was a punt or two. Auburn was driving. Carter threw an interception. Stabler ran out the clock. Bama 7, Auburn 3. The better team lost. It was still raining.

“We had them beat,” Bucky said. “They hadn’t gained any yardage at all. They held him. It should have been a penalty. But the damn flag would have been in the mud. They never would have seen it.”

What’d you do after the game, Bucky?

“Cried. Just sat and cried. Instead of being ‘It’s great to be an Auburn Tiger,’ we just cried. It was sad.”

“Yeah, the dressing room was a real mess,” Roy says. “Throwing headgears and crying and stuff. It was just once again… once again you’re nailed up to the wall.”

***

In 1967, Bear Bryant had just been robbed of what would have been his third national championship in a row — I’ll give him that. Newspapers across the country regularly described him as a deity. Maybe he had made it stop raining. He just had that air about him. It was easy copy.

Stickers depicted him as Christ Jesus along with the words “I Believe.” You’d be blown away by how many stories on Alabama football from 1967 alone include the words “walk on water.” So if Shug had a notion that his arch rival, say, held subconscious sway over SEC officials, you could understand why, right? If he thought that ol’ Bear was perhaps granted a bit more leeway in, say, certain situations and circumstances, that would make sense, right?

You can hear it in Gary Sanders’ voice when they called back what should have been Auburn’s winning touchdown in the 1974 Iron Bowl: When you’re playing Alabama, “a fair shake is all you need,” Sanders said. “That isn’t what you always get.”

“Here comes Coach Bryant out on the field — what’s he want now?”

“There goes a late hit, a man piling on top for Alabama… no flag of course.”

“Gusty, you were involved in one that was talked about for a long time.”

Yes, that would be Gusty Yearout. Gusty was Sanders’ color man. Gusty kept quiet.

Shug stopped being quiet on Sunday, Dec. 3, 1967.

He drove down to Montgomery, shook hands with Cartoon Carl, looked into the WSFA cameras and spoke his mind. The whole “southern gentleman” thing had its place, but this was ridiculous. They rolled the clip.

“I wonder if No. 84 thought he was on defense because he made one of the finest tackles on Yearout I’ve ever seen.”

Yikes. Whoa. What? Hold up. Hang on. Did Shug Jordan — SHUG JORDAN — actually say that? Yes, he said that. Auburn people loved it. The Birmingham News didn’t.

“Best Shug Hadn’t Said It” was the Monday headline. Sports editor Benny Marshall took Shug to task for publicly airing his nothing-to-gain grievances to a state still thrilling to the sights and sounds of Stabler’s “sensational sortie” through the magical mud. Besides, the film Marshall had managed to examine didn’t show anything conclusive as to what exactly happened to “Auburn’s fine captain.” Yes, Dixon did appear to be across the back of Yearout’s legs as he went down, Marshall wrote. But, you know…

Marshall reached out to Bryant for comment. He couldn’t reach him; he was up in New York City. But Marshall was sure the only comment would have been “no comment.” Bear wouldn’t deign to weigh in on something so silly. Classic high road. Classic Bear. Pass the Coke. Let the Auburn folks think what they want.

When Shug’s sass hit the AP wire a few days later, Bear changed his tune.

Shug didn’t care what the Birmingham News thought. He didn’t care what Bryant thought. He didn’t care what the Selma Quarterback Club would think. It was Tuesday night. He talked about the game, of course. And someone asked about the “prettiest tackle,” of course.

Auburn coach Ralph Jordan says he is tired of ‘being good ole Shug’ and is “going to stand up for my team and Auburn no matter what the consequences.”

The Tiger coach, speaking to the Selma quarterback Club Tuesday night, continued: “I’m going to say it as I’ve seen it, and I’m going to have thought about it fully before I say it.”

His remarks came in reference to an earlier statement that Gusty Yearout was illegally blocked by Alabama end Dennis Dixon on quarterback Kenny Stabler’s 47-yard touchdown run in the Tide’s 7-3 football victory.

Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant said he did not see the play described by Jordan, adding “I saw Dennis Homan make a great block, but otherwise I haven’t looked at the blocking assignments.

“‘Course if there was any grabbin’ or holdin’,” Bryant said, “it should have been called, but I wasn’t officiating.”

Bear said the only thing he saw was a team that wouldn’t quit,. He saw the better team just biding its time for the big play. Oh, maybe if he studied the game film he could speak about it more intelligently. But a tackle? No, sir. All he saw, he said four days after the game, was a good block by Dennis Homan, not a tackle by Dennis Dixon.

So… why was he praising Dennis Dixon’s “blocking at the point of attack… that allowed Stabler to score” right after the game, before he realized there’d be a controversy?

Yeah… he saw it.

***

Everybody’s got a story about it. Or two. Or three. Roy’s big one, his go-to, isn’t the Saturday night punch out at the Cascade Plunge. It’s the Sunday morning elevator ride.

Auburn was staying at the Parliament House. Roy bolted after the fight, somehow made it back, and crashed. He woke up in time for breakfast. He threw on his travel clothes: Navy blazer with an Auburn crest, white shirt, orange and blue striped tie, gray slacks. There was a final team meeting before loading the buses. The coaches were going to thank him and all the other seniors for their leadership and their hard work, and congratulate them on overcoming all the obstacles and pathetic expectations, and tell them that never beating Bama, even as freshmen, wasn’t the end of the world. Hey, losing a game you should have won to your arch rival in the most miserable, hellish conditions you’ve ever played in, in your last game ever? You’ll get it over it, son…

The meeting was on the third floor. He was too tired to take the stairs. He walked across the lobby and hit the button. He walked in. The door closed, then it opened back up.

He was groggy. Things were hazy. Was he dreaming? Hallucinating? Or was he really alone in an elevator with Bear Bryant?

“The door opens and in comes Coach Bryant. I thought, wait a minute, our team is staying here — why are you here? He must have been meeting someone.”

It was surreal.

Roy had met him before. Alabama had recruited him, offered him a scholarship. Bryant saw the crest and looked him in the eye.

“I remember he said ‘y’all had a tough day, son, but y’all had a heck of a ball club.’ He said ‘you’ll play us again next year.’ I told him, ‘no sir, I’m a senior, that was my last game.’”

“Oh,” Bryant said.

The door closed. The elevator started moving.

“Then he said this. He said ‘I’m not sure the best team won,'” Roy says. “That’s what he said.”

The elevator stopped. The door opened.

“I said, ‘well, you may be right, Coach.’”

How Mature University Students Approach Sports Betting Responsibly

For mature university students, sports betting is less about chasing wins and much more about balance, analysis and enjoyment. Their life experience and discipline certainly bring a new dimension to campus betting culture.

University life looks really different for mature students. Between classes, careers and family commitments, their approach to recreation is practical and measured. For many, sports betting offers a way to stay engaged with their favourite teams while applying the same analytical mindset that fuels their academic success.

The Changing Face of the Campus Bettor

The image of a university bettor has evolved. Mature students are reshaping perceptions of sports wagering by showing that it can be both structured and responsible. They bring years of experience managing finances, deadlines and personal goals; skills that translate directly into thoughtful betting habits.

Where younger bettors may be driven by excitement, mature learners often view sports betting as a hobby that fits within a broader lifestyle of balance. They understand that entertainment doesn’t have to equal excess. For them, betting is another form of strategy; a mental exercise that rewards patience and discipline as much as passion for sport.

Many rely on mobile technology for convenience, using secure platforms and user-friendly tools to manage their activity. The accessibility of a bet app download means wagering can be done on your own time, with the same focus they apply to your coursework.

Applying Academic Thinking to Sports Betting

Mature students are comfortable with research. They know the value of preparation, an approach that carries over to sports betting. Instead of relying on hunches, they study statistics, player performance and team trends, making decisions based on information rather than impulse.

Their background in study habits helps them spot patterns and evaluate probabilities logically. They gather data, weigh evidence and manage expectations as they would with an academic project. It’s not uncommon for some to track their bets in spreadsheets, much like they do with coursework or budgeting.

This mindset also encourages consistency. The analytical thinking they’ve developed in classrooms or professional environments provides an edge. They’re not just betting on teams; they’re betting on information. The same discipline that drives academic success keeps their gaming smart and sustainable.

Keeping Balance Beyond the Classroom

One of the main differences between mature students and younger bettors is how they manage time and money. Many older learners juggle jobs, family and study, so their approach to leisure, including sports betting, is built around structure.

They set clear limits on time and spending, integrating the activity into their schedule like a gym session or coffee break. For them, sports betting is about focus and rhythm, not impulse or distraction. Downloading a bet app helps you manage wagers efficiently, letting you monitor results, set reminders, and stay within your limits.

This sense of balance turns betting from a potential stressor into a relaxing ritual. Whether placing a small wager on a weekend match or checking live results during study breaks, it becomes a way to stay connected to sport while maintaining control.

Social Circles and Shared Insights

Mature students often bring a social yet supportive approach to betting. Many discuss odds, strategies and match predictions with classmates or colleagues, creating informal communities based on shared interest and respect.

These conversations can resemble study groups: collaborative, focused and friendly. You can share insights, trade lessons from past bets and celebrate wins without exaggeration. This community aspect keeps the experience healthy and fun.

For some, the activity serves as an outlet from academic pressure, offering light competition and camaraderie. When supported by responsible habits and mutual respect, it adds to campus culture rather than detracts from it. Many turn to platforms with responsible gaming tools and straightforward interfaces, made easy through a bet app download that fits neatly into their digital lifestyle.

What Experience Teaches About Risk and Reward

Perhaps the most defining trait of mature university bettors is perspective. They’ve experienced wins and losses, on and off the field and they understand that both are part of the process. Sports betting reinforces familiar life lessons: know your limits, think long-term and don’t let short-term results define success.

Many view betting as a reflection of bigger principles: preparation pays off, emotions cloud judgment and patience beats haste. These lessons, learned in classrooms and careers alike, give them the steadiness to enjoy sports betting without pressure.

The connection between analysis and entertainment keeps the experience rewarding. Every wager becomes a chance to apply strategy, test intuition and sharpen focus. That same maturity that helps them handle academic challenges makes them more thoughtful participants in a growing global pastime.

The presence of mature students on university campuses enriches more than classroom discussions; it’s redefining how sports betting is perceived. They bring balance, thoughtfulness and structure to an activity often associated with risk-taking.

For these learners, sport betting is not about chasing fortune but enjoying a challenge that mirrors their academic and personal discipline. Through careful time management, community interaction and practical use of tools like a bet app download, they’ve turned betting into a controlled, engaging form of recreation.

Their approach highlights a valuable lesson for all bettors: with focus, respect for boundaries and an eye for strategy, it’s possible to combine entertainment and intelligence. In that balance, mature university students prove that success, like study, comes from preparation, patience and perspective.

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You can listen to this article here.

There were a couple of madmen trying to take over the world, so, obviously, the handwriting was on the wall. But no one wanted to read it. And they definitely didn’t want to believe it, not after a season like 1942. 

Sure, with a 6-4-1 record, there had been a few hiccups — all on the road, all in the rain, let it be known. But get’em on a dry field and, Lord, were the Auburn Tigers ever better than that final No. 16 ranking! Those final three games? The blowout vs. Clemson in the only game at home? The upset over LSU? But most especially, forever and always, that upset win over No. 1 Georgia? We’re not talking some last-second miracle. It wasn’t a Hail Mary. It wasn’t some fluke field goal. No, it was a beating — a beating you were going to tell your grandkids about, the biggest upset of a generation, a coach’s film no one would ever lose. 

Georgia pretty much had the Rose Bowl locked up, the conference championship locked up, the national championship locked up if they won out — and maybe even if they didn’t — and they owed it all to their soon-to-be Heisman-winning halfback, Frankie Sinkwich, the best football player in the world… 

… not named Monk Gafford. 

All hail Mighty Monk! Let the national press be late to the party! Let some poor fool in Philadelphia who’d never seen him put him as a second-teamer, let some poor fool in Los Angeles who’d never heard of him leave him off his list completely! The Fort Deposit Express didn’t care about kudos in the papers. He cared about “hallelujahs” in the stands. 

During his All-American senior season, you could see pure joy on the faces of all the peanut-poppin’ Auburn old-timers as he made another cut toward a thousand-yard season. George Petrie had been there that November day in Columbus, the golden anniversary game. He’d felt reborn watching that kid. Monk Gafford was Dutch Dorsey and Moon Ducote and Jimmy Hitchcock rolled into one — a god. 149 yards on 20 carries. 

Sinkwich? Six yards on 23 carries. 

Georgia coach Wally Butts had done the whole “Auburn had a better team today” routine. Screw that, said Jack Meagher — Auburn had the better team, period… the best team he’d ever coached with the best man he’d ever coached. Meagher hadn’t even voted in the SEC coach’s MVP poll that year, and Gafford still beat out Sinkwich by one vote. It was the same margin in the SEC referee poll. 

Translation: The men who saw both boys in action, who knew the game better than anyone, thought Monk Gafford was better than the guy who was supposed to be the best player in the country. So, with all due respect to Butts, and to the Ohio Buckeyes, who were also claiming the crown, soft-spoken Jack Meagher had no problem with shouting it from the rooftops: for the month of November, he’d been in charge of the best damn football squad in America. Gafford and the gang had embarrassed the No. 1 teams in the nation, 27-13, right at the end of the season, right before the Bulldogs blanked No. 2 Georgia Tech 34-0 and shut out No. 13 UCLA in the Rose Bowl. 

Georgia had a great team. Auburn blew them out of the water. 

***

The 200 reservations were snapped up faster than ever. And it wasn’t for the steak. It was to “War Eagle” till midnight in the ballroom of the Jefferson Davis Hotel with the men who had smacked Georgia all over the field and embarrassed the little Yankee Heisman Trophy winner with the damn gall to tell New York City reporters that, no, the Tigers that beat them by two touchdowns weren’t nearly as tough as the Crimson Tide team that the Bulldogs beat by 11. The Atlanta Alumni Club had already done it up big for the boys, and there had just been a big congratulatory banquet down in Auburn a week or so back. Now it was the Montgomery Alumni Club’s turn. Word was that Meagher was bringing the reels with him, same as he’d done at other dinners and meetings and banquets over the past month — that he was going to narrate the whole game! They’d be clinking glasses to every Gafford gallup, every sack of Sinkwich. 

Ol’ George Penton, the granddaddy of the old Montgomery Auburn men, one of Heisman’s boys, was going to surprise the Little General with an inscribed wristwatch…  “Jack Meagher, Our All-America Coach — Montgomery Auburn Alumni.” Everyone would cheer and then Genial Jack would hit the podium and hold up some “Gafford Sinks Sinkwich” headlines and introduce Monk, and then Monk would probably say something about how the Memorial Stadium goal post was still up at Toomer’s Corner. Then they would dim the lights and flip the switch and Whispering Jack would stand at the mic with his low tenor voice and relive it right there in front of them. 

And, of course, after all that, Meagher would probably point out new captain elect Jimmy Pharr, who would probably stand up and say something great, and then Meagher would finally get around to talking about the upcoming season and about how, sure, it might get interesting because of the war, and that they might be down a few practice balls because of the leather rationing, but that plenty of the current boys probably wouldn’t be called up for a couple of semesters, and that even if they were, there’d probably be some decent new material coming in through the Army Specialized Training Program.

He’d already said as much to the Birmingham News a few days earlier when he was in the Magic City on some business. No, he’d said, despite all the Chicken Litttles, he just didn’t see the Army or the Navy saying no to the benefits of football. Want the men to have two hours of physical activity each day? Couldn’t find a better gymnasium than the gridiron. Again, it would be interesting, absolutely, but not to worry ol’ Jack would surely say — they would find a way to do America proud and still beat the hell out of Georgia again. That’s what was supposed to happen that Wednesday night. It was going to be great. 

***

Dr. Duncan stood up. He called for everyone’s attention. The room got quiet. Duncan wasn’t smiling. After a few seconds, neither was anyone else. Everyone loved Dr. Duncan and all, but they weren’t there for the college president. Was he supposed to introduce Coach Meagher or something? Wait, where was Coach Meagher? 

Coach Meagher, Duncan said, wasn’t there. He wouldn’t be coming. 

Lt. Commander Meagher, Duncan said, was on his way to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Right then. At that very moment. Uncle Sam had called that morning. Meagher had said yes. He was reporting for active duty. For the past 12 hours, Auburn hadn’t had a football coach.  

Damn. 

After a few seconds, Assistant U.S. Attorney Hartwell Davis, Class of ‘28, broke the silence. They were Auburn men, he reminded the room, they were Auburn women. He motioned that the club immediately wire Meagher a message: “Good luck in the big game.”  

***

For the past year or so, Meagher hadn’t exactly been shy about wanting to return to the service. He’d been telling people he’d wanted to come off the bench since Dec. 7, 1941. Great football coach, greater patriot. He’d withdrawn from Notre Dame to enlist in the Marines in 1917, finished the Great War as a captain, and still had connections with top Navy brass, including former Navy head coach Tom Hamilton, executive officer of the USS Enterprise.

Few knew, but as a favor to Hamilton, Meagher had actually taken charge of scheduling the 1942 season for Navy service elevens. Now Hamilton wanted him in charge of the Navy’s physical training division. Made sense. If you can whip boys into shape for football, you can get’em fit enough for a Flying Fortress. So, no, it wasn’t exactly a surprise, but damn, it was still a shock. People looked at each other. This did not bode well. It wasn’t just a feeling. Duncan was saying as much. 

“I don’t know whether we will have intercollegiate football this fall or not.”

Everyone tried to go on and have a good time; the Montgomery chapter always had a good time. And Mighty Monk was still there and everything. And Pharr. And they still watched the game. But it was the strangest invite-the-coach-and-star-player banquet ever. Instead of hearing about the upcoming season, there’s the school’s president telling everyone that there might not even be one.  

***

Meagher’s departure — and Duncan’s quote — hit the papers hard and fast, regionally and nationally. Every major paper in the country was eager to tease the To Play or Not To Play narrative with whatever they could get their hands on. That the football fate of the team that had spoiled a perfect season for mighty Georgia might now be decided not just by possible lack of material, which everyone would be dealing with, but lack of a head coach? And not just any head coach, but one Esquire Magazine had two years back called one of the top 10 in the country? 

Love of Country Trumps School Spirit! It was too good to pass up. 

It was natural to think an assistant could just step up and handle things for as long as necessary. Only thing is that there weren’t any assistants. Most had already shipped off themselves. Porter Grant, Boots Chambless, Jimmy Hitchcock, some guy named Shug Jordan… 

Suddenly, minus Meagher, Auburn’s athletics department was down to just two coaches — Jeff Beard and Wilbur Hutsell, both track men. And now, suddenly, minus Meagher, they were also without an athletics director; Gentleman Jack had pulled double duty. 

But still, Lord… surely it was still premature to say something as drastic as no football. It wasn’t just Meagher’s reassurances… SEC bigwigs had been promising business as usual not two months earlier, promising that perpetual pigskin was totally aligned with the war effort in every possible way — good for morale, good for fitness. And Auburn had kept the gridiron going during the last conflict, even when some other schools hadn’t. Why not now? Did Duncan know something he wasn’t saying? 1943 might look a lot different than 1942, and maybe they’d have to bring some old men out of the woodwork to coach the boys… and who the hell knew what they’d do about spring practice…  but couldn’t it work out if there were still boys to coach, like the January 27th War Department directive made it sound like there might be?

Almost certainly not, said the February 12th War Department directive. 

***

Two days… after that Wednesday night news out of Montgomery, Auburn folks had been able to hold out hope for just two days. 

The news broke that morning. That evening, President Roosevelt took to the airwaves to promise an expedited annihilation of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. 

In the Loveliest Village, word spread fast. Forget the “in a couple of semesters” talk — it was time to kiss your sweethearts. And to probably try to get excited about another sport. 

Because for Auburn and the 270 other colleges under the authority of the Army Specialized Training Program, as opposed to the less strict V-12 Navy College Training Program, the issue wasn’t just the new timetable… it was the new rules.

Any soldiers-in-waiting on campus might be able to play baseball, maybe basketball, track, tennis, table tennis, stuff like that; the details hadn’t been entirely ironed out. But one thing was clear as crystal. Risking life and limb for the fate of a football game rather than the fate of the free world was out of the question.

The decision to officially cancel the game would still be up to individual schools. They could still throw shoulder pads on some civilians, schedule as many games as they could with whatever teams were left and call it a football season if they wanted. If they could get people to pay to watch 17-year-olds, or any 18-year-olds who hadn’t been processed, or any of the 4-F boys classified as physically, mentally or morally unfit to defend the God-blessed United States of America, more power to them. But any man good enough for a fall roster was Uncle Sam’s, and Uncle Sam was no longer screwing around. 

“Football,” read a common headline, “is Doomed.” 

***

Everyone in town was, of course, on board with smashing the Axis anyway they could, students especially. Bonds were bought. Stamps were bought. Pearl Harbor was remembered. Chests swelled. You weren’t just doing right by yourself by studying for that test. You were doing right by your country. The forces of freedom needed minds and hands that worked wisely and skillfully. Patriotism meant work — hard work.

But it was not a fun spring for football fans, in Auburn or anywhere. Rumors reigned. Uncertainty loomed. Monk shipped off to Fort Macpherson. So did 10 current players, including Pharr, the captain without a team. Macpherson’s officers praised the “outfit from Auburn” as “quite a relief from the regular run of draftees.”

Meagher came back in March to check on his family, and to get his watch. He’d dropped several pounds. He told reporters he was happy with his decision, that physical training was more crucial for pilots than he’d realized, that his duty to country superseded his duty to Auburn. But he promised that he planned to return to football after the war, if the job was still there. 

In the meantime, despite the growing chorus of death knells (including the one from the bell he’d rung himself) he was privately encouraging Duncan to keep the game going, seemingly under the impression that lack of a competent coach (rather than competent players) was still the biggest obstacle to whatever miracle Duncan might be able to work. And along those lines, he had a suggestion.

Early on, even before the Navy officially reached out, Meagher had talked up former Texas Tech head coach Pete Cawthon as a possible (temporary) replacement were he to resign. Meagher had known Cawthon for 20 years. They were about the same age. There were some connections there. Meagher’s former line coach Dell Morgan had replaced Cawthon in Lubbock when Pete left to assist Frank Thomas at Alabama. Might be a good fit. As spring progressed, some boosters bought in. Informal feelers were put out. 

Cawthon had only been in Tuscaloosa for a year. He’d planned to stay a while. But, obviously, things had changed. Other than still having a head coach, and despite Thomas’ annoyed early insistence to reporters that, nope, the Army Specialized Training Program hadn’t factored into his plans for fall at all, the Crimson Tide was pretty much in the same predicament as Auburn and most everyone else. Even so, Thomas said he would go ahead with spring practice with whatever men he had. Plenty of other coaches said the same. But even if the Tide managed to field a team, most of the Auburn alumni pulling for Pete told Duncan that Thomas surely wouldn’t stand in Cawthon’s way to become a head coach again, especially under the circumstances. 

Duncan agreed, but pumped the brakes. He publicly praised Cawthon’s record. But that was it. He wasn’t going to be pressured. He didn’t care how many Auburn people knew the man, he wasn’t going to offer him a contract with the Army sending out new orders every few weeks. A team needed a coach — they could always get a coach — but a coach needed a team. That had become the primary problem. And so far, it didn’t have a solution, at least not one that any Auburn folks would want to get behind. 

Take the Tulane game. Auburn had just tied the series. But what would happen if Auburn sent out eleven men who hadn’t gone through spring training — men who might even still legally be children! — against the Green Wave on the first Saturday in October? Sure, Tulane wouldn’t have as many varsity men as they’d had in 1942, but the ones they did have could still play football — they’d be Navy trainees. You could actually say the same for plenty of team’s on Auburn’s tentative 1943 schedule. Georgia Tech had Navy men. LSU had Marines. Georgia thought they’d be allowed to tap into the university’s Naval Pre-Flight Program team, a veritable all-star squad stocked with professional players from across the country. The Skycrackers (thanks to Meagher’s scheduling services) had hung 41 on Auburn in ‘42 on the way to a 7-1-1 record. If Auburn lined up against its main rivals under current conditions, it wouldn’t matter how good of a pep talk Pete Cawthon could give. 

Patience, Duncan urged — patience. If things changed, Auburn would go after the best man for the job. There was even talk of possibly asking to borrow a helmsman from any SEC school that paused football for the duration, but still had a head coach who hadn’t gone into service. It sounded crazy. But these were crazy times. You never knew… 

And plenty of folks across the conference thought the Army might ultimately reverse course. Duncan doubted it. Highly. But September was still a little ways off. There was still a month or two to decide. Until there wasn’t.

***

It was Saturday, July 3. Duncan walked up the stairs to Samford Hall. He could hear the yellow J-3 Cubs off in the distance. Seemed like there were never fewer than five overhead at any given moment. The 100 cadet pilots who’d taken up residence for training at the airport — the Navy had taken over the tiny facility — averaged 100 hours in the air each day. No one minded. Maybe one of the boys would be in the Auburn plane by year’s end. The local Kiwanis had helped sell $175,000 in war bonds to bankroll a Billy Mitchell bomber, which bought them the right to paint “The Auburn Tiger” on the nose. They were already $25,000 toward naming another one “War Eagle.” It was exciting. 

The Loveliest Village hadn’t slowed down much for the summer. Plenty of men were already at Fort Macpherson, but plenty were still around, hoping to get in one last Saturday night street dance behind Samford Hall before reporting Monday for 12 weeks at Officer Candidate School. The party was set to start at 8:15 p.m. It was going to be a good one, doubling as a special Independence Day celebration. The khaki and white were joining forces for a big variety salute to the people of Auburn. Around the corner, boys from the Naval Radio Training School were rigging Ross Square to blast swing music, and a yankee private with a great set of pipes was going to be belting out “America the Beautiful.” 

If dancing wasn’t your thing, plenty of people were talking about catching the newest “March of Time” news film detailing the probable course of the Allied assault against the Nazis. It was debuting that night. The title had just gone up on the Tiger Theater marquee: “Invasion!” 

Duncan just wanted to be done with the afternoon. He wasn’t looking forward to the meeting. But it would be nice for the whole thing to finally be behind him. He didn’t know how long it would take. But he was pretty sure what the recently formed faculty committee on athletics was going to say.

At the beginning of the month, five SEC teams had already thrown in the towel. And then, just yesterday, Friday afternoon, the news from Knoxville hit the wire. That was six, half the conference.. 

They handed him the piece of paper. 

“It is recommended to the president that intercollegiate athletics at Alabama Polytechnic Institute be suspended for the present due to the insurmountable difficulties arising from the war.”

***

The Plainsman wasn’t happy. They understood, they accepted it. But still, Shirley Smith, the first woman to edit the paper, the Rosie the Riveter of the Ribbon, insisted that there would be students to cheer on any 97-lb weakling willing to strap on a helmet for the glory of ol’ Auburn. If they had to find some 17-year-olds, they’d find them. Hell, if the team needed underwire, so be it. 

But, no, she acknowledged — the kids didn’t have all the facts. So, for the July 9 issue, Robert Allen, dean of the school of science and literature, and chairman of the faculty athletic committee, sent them over. 

The recent decision to drop intercollegiate football at API for the duration was reluctantly made by Pres. Duncan upon the unanimous recommendation of the faculty athletic commission, the executive council, and prominent alumni, long been associated with Auburn Athletics, who urged similar action.

Some of the factors influencing the decision follow:

The entire football coaching staff is in the Army. Only one member of last year’s football squad is on hand. The Army shows no disposition to modify its decision that college trainees are not eligible for intercollegiate competition. Auburn’s 1943 squad would have to be composed of 17 to 18-year-old boys and those classified into 4F or 2A.

Without the advantage of spring or summer practice under the direction of an able coaching staff it would be impossible to build a team in the fall that could offer reasonable competition to those having the services of Navy trainees or those still retaining their coaching staffs. Unsuccessful efforts were made to borrow the services of head coaches from other Southeastern Conference colleges that have suspended athletics.

The majority of the SEC members have been faced with similar considerations and have elected to drop football. Those fortunate enough to have coaching facilities and eligible players are in the minority.

Under the circumstances, it did not seem possible to field a team that could acquit itself creditably. Every consideration dictated the wisdom of setting aside our intercollegiate sports until the bigger game is won.

***

It was Nov. 12, 1943, the Friday before what should have been the Auburn-LSU game in Birmingham. Physically, George Petrie, 77, was doing better than he had a year earlier when, for health reasons, he’d handed over the reins of Auburn’s history department after more than half a century. Emotionally, he may have been worse. 

His wife had passed a couple of months before he’d retired. A part of him had, too. His academic writing had almost completely dried up. These days, he barely had it in him to reply to letters. And now, thanks to Japan and Germany, he couldn’t even look forward to football.

Back in July, a week before Petrie mustered the strength to speak on Auburn tradition to a group of 400 soldiers enrolled in a crash course in engineering, his former student, Dr. Luther N. Duncan, believing it to be a practical world, announced that for the first time in more than half a century — and for who knew how long after that — the great game that Petrie had helped bring to Auburn would not be played on the Plains. 

And, yet, curiously, there on the front page of that day’s Plainsman, two words: “PEP RALLY!” 

“Next Thursday night the ‘Plains’ will once again echo with ‘War Eagles’ and the strains of ‘Tiger Rag’ as all the students, soldiers, sailors and naval air cadets are invited to take part in an ‘All Out For Victory’ Pep Rally.” 

Petrie kept reading.

It was supposed to be the Burn the Bulldogs rally, the biggest of the year. They couldn’t play Georgia. But there was no reason they couldn’t still burn things. 

They’d hold it at the stadium, then move to the parking lot for the bonfire. The cheerleaders would be out in full force. Even football players! Former ones, at least. The great Gafford boy would be there. So would plenty of the others from that great ‘42 team, back from Fort Macpherson, still with the Army Specialized Training Program, yet to ship overseas. Instead of Coach Meagher — instead of Lt. Commander Meagher — talking about the upcoming game, Col. John J. Waterman would talk on “Football Players at War.” Instead of orange and blue… red, white and blue. 

“No, there won’t be any football game anytime soon,” the Plainsman wrote. “We’re having the rally to show that Auburn Spirit is still very much alive.”

Amen. 

“On every fighting front in this war, you’ll find Auburn men in there with the best fighting for American democracy and the standards taught at API,” one soldier had written to the paper a few weeks earlier. “… even though we are some 4,000 miles from the Auburn campus, that ol’ Auburn Spirit is still strong in our hearts.” 

Strong on the way to class. Strong on the way to the dance. Strong on the way to the front. Strong when the team won. Strong when the team lost. Strong when there wasn’t even a damn team. 

Lord, Petrie loved his country. Lord, he loved his school. 

He got out a pencil and a blank piece of paper and began writing something he decided to call the Auburn Creed.  

***

People were still talking about the pep rally a week later. Ears were still ringing. Voices had gone hoarse. The Plainsman always called every pep rally the biggest and best ever, every bonfire one for the ages. This time they meant it. 

“This time we were not yelling for the Auburn football team because there is no Auburn football team this year. We were all down there yelling for a bigger and better team. The U. S. Army team! We were yelling for that team to march on to victory as our football team won victory over those Georgia Bulldogs last year.”

They’d saved the best part for last. 

Instead of papier-mâché bulldogs, they burned effigies of Hitler and Hirohito.

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