22
Fifty years ago, the Tigers unleashed a roar heard ’round the South By Paul Hemphill ’59
Fall 2007
www. aualum .org
Though we didn’t know it at the time, a cultural revolution was brewing in 1957 that would affect the nation’s social and political fabric for the next five decades: That year, the Soviets fired the starting pistol for the space race with the launch of its Sputnik 1 satellite; President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent federal troops to Arkansas’ Central High School; and two British teenagers who shared a love of music—John Lennon and Paul McCartney—met for the first time at a parish church in Liverpool. But the biggest news at Alabama Polytechnic Institute that year was the Tigers’ first undefeated football season, which clinched the 1957 national championship. Early in the season, though, the idea that the Tigers would top every other college team in the nation amounted to little more than a sublime sports fantasy. , given the team’s inexperience and a schedule that began in Knoxville with mighty Tennessee, picked by most to win the SEC that year after finishing second in the nation in ’56, the idea of an undefeated season appeared to be a stretch; wishful thinking. AU head football coach Ralph “Shug” Jordan—worried about a lack of offensive punch—had dispatched several of his coaches to Norman, Okla., to observe Bud Wilkinson’s flashy Oklahoma Sooners during their spring practices. Behind the running of sensational halfback Tommy McDonald out of the smoothly synchronized quarterbackoption offense, Oklahoma had won 40 straight games while taking back-to-back national championships. Auburn was in good shape at halfback, with returnees Tommy Lorino and Bobby Hoppe, and the hope was that maybe the coaches could pick up some tips to help quarterback Jimmy Cook and fullback Donnie May add spunk to the Tigers’ offense. The A-Day game, after all, had turned out to be a sluggish affair: a 12-9 score revealing hard-nosed defense, lots of punting and a skittish offense. Then, just as the ’57 team was gathering to begin fall practice, they learned that more trouble had arrived to pile on top of an NCAA probation that already prevented them from playing in a bowl game: Both Cook and May—the hopes for the offense—had been kicked off the squad for “scholastic and disciplinary” reasons. They had been skating on thin ice before—cutting classes, breaking rules, generally messing around, testing Jordan’s patience—but this did it. In the lull between spring and fall practices, they had broken into a women’s dorm, drinking beer and having themselves a good old time, much to the coaches’ chagrin. For Jordan, enough was enough. “Gentlemen,” he told the team at its first meeting, “down through the years we here at Auburn have learned to live with adversity. But adversity, as we know, tends to draw men together.” The players were dumbstruck to learn of the dismissals, wondering now who the hell was going to play quarterback. Jordan and his staff had figured that out. “The quarterback will be Lloyd Nix.” Huh? Nix was a knuckle-balling lefthander who had run the ball 30 times and thrown exactly one pass the year before
Auburn Magazine For Alumni & Friends of Auburn University
23
24
as a third-string halfback. He had been a split-T quarterback at tiny Carbon Hill High School, a level-headed kid from the village of Kansas in west Alabama, seemingly destined to pick up a football letter for his troubles before graduating and becoming a dentist. He was anything but flashy on the field or off—conservative, a good guy, the sort other men can trust—and the coaches had determined that maybe he was just what this team needed. Filling the other hole left in the offense, Jordan named as fullback the senior Billy “Ace” Atkins: a superb blocker, defender, punter and placekicker, the punishing runner this new offensive scheme demanded. Along with the dazzling halfbacks Lorino and Hoppe, they would comprise a sure-handed offensive backfield
we’d run 100-yard sprints. I’ve seen other players, plus myself, take sweaty towels and squeeze ’em to try and get moisture in our mouths, and all we could spit out was cotton.” Young local boys often showed up just to watch, and, when caught taking bribes to sneak players a piece of ice or a cup of water, even they, mere spectators, were forced by defensive coach Gene Lorendo to run laps. By the end of the day, when darkness was falling on the mess hall beneath the pines in Graves Center, the players were very nearly too tired to eat. The emphasis was on the basics: blocking, tackling, endurance, no mistakes. Jordan and offensive coach Buck Bradberry were adding the “belly series” to their simple, no-frills, T-formation offense, a variation of Tennessee’s
Jimmy “Red” Phillips was a sure-handed receiver, a preseason All-American pick at end, although not many passes were likely to come his way from the knuckle-balling Nix, whose mandate was to keep the offense moving with zero mistakes. An old football adage was at play: Three things can happen when you pass, and two of them are bad. The departed Jimmy Cook wasn’t missed, as it turned out, when Nix’s performance in the first game-like scrimmage was held 10 days into the fall: He completed 10 of 11 passes for 125 yards and ran for a 69-yard touchdown. The offense just might work if the halfbacks continued to produce as they had in 1956, when junior Lorino scooted for 692 yards, leading the nation with 8.4 yards per carry, and the
on rookies—eight seniors, 14 juniors, 18 sophomores—but a couple of the first-year players were destined to become two of the best linemen in Auburn history: starters Zeke Smith at guard and Jackie Burkett at center. It was that depth that drew the attention of pollsters on the eve of the new season. Sports Illustrated wasn’t even picking Auburn to finish in the top 20 teams in the nation, but nevertheless its “experts” saw much promise: “The Tigers are the conference giant, but unless Coach Ralph ‘Shug’ Jordan can come up with a smart quarterback, his giant may be slow-moving and dim-witted … This team has championship material at every position except quarterback, and herein may lie Tennessee’s claim to the SEC crown.” The Saturday Evening Post was picking the
“Gentlemen,” Ralph “Shug” Jordan told the team at its first meeting, “down through the years we here at Auburn have learned to live with adversity. But adversity, as we know, tends to draw men together.” to complement a steady defense that, in spite of its youth, had the capability of becoming one of the best in Auburn history. Fall practice began with 64 players in camp. It was Spartan and relentless, as usual. “We worked the hell out of ’em,” said George Atkins, a former guard, now on staff as offensive line coach after playing one year in the NFL. Remembered Tim Baker, a senior guard who had been named that year’s captain: “We didn’t get any water or ice at practice. We’d go out in pads in that afternoon heat, then Fall 2007
www. aualum .org
“single wing” and the soonto-be-popular “wishbone,” all of it counting on perfect execution by Nix and Atkins. Over and over they practiced their moves—Nix sticking the ball in Atkins’s belly, either leaving it there or, depending on the defensive end’s reaction, keeping it to pass or run or pitch to one of the halfbacks. Quarterback coach Vince Dooley saw Nix as the right man for the job, a “perfect fit, the missing piece of the puzzle. He was smart. He was a winner.”
slashing senior Hoppe—bigger, faster, meaner and a devastating blocker—added 542 yards for a 6.5 average. There was no “X & Y” system of substitution anymore, something that had outrun its course, but this team appeared to have as much depth as any in the nation. Consequently, Jordan’s plan was to substitute 11 players at a time to give the starters a rest whenever game conditions allowed. The 40-man roster selected to open the season against Tennessee was heavy
Tigers to finish ninth in the nation; Look magazine, 18th. In the Associated Press poll, Auburn was nowhere in sight. The people who knew the conference best, a dozen writers whose beat was SEC football, were picking Tennessee to repeat as champions, followed by Auburn, with Alabama dead last. Shug Jordan himself, before heading off to open with the Volunteers in Knoxville, said at the time: “I don’t believe a team in the nation with a schedule as tough as ours will go through the year undefeated.”
Auburn vs. Tennessee, 7-0 Showtime. At the 44,000-seat ShieldsWatkins Stadium, the Tigers were a onetouchdown underdog. It was a gloomy, overcast day, and an all-day rain was forecast—just the sort of weather made for the ball-hugging Vols’ offense. If Shug Jordan’s young Tigers were intimidated by all of this, they didn’t show it: Headed toward the locker room after completing their pre-game warm-ups, the Tigers chose not to walk around the host Volunteers on the other side of the field but to calmly stroll through the midst of them. Then came Auburn’s second surprise of the afternoon. With an untested offense, and on a foreign field already turned sloppy from the rain, they won the coin toss and chose to … receive. The gauntlet had been thrown. Nearing halftime, Auburn shook loose to score the only points that would be scored that day. It began when Jerry Wilson partially blocked a punt that enabled the Tigers to take over on their own 43. They had been moving the ball almost at will all day, only to see Tennessee’s defense tighten in critical moments, and now was the time to cash in. Driving in the rain, Lorino and Hoppe, and then Atkins, pounded away for first downs. On third and six from the UT 40, Nix tossed a knuckleball to Wilson for a first down at the 30, his one and only completed pass of the game. A junior halfback named Lamar Rawson came in to relieve Hoppe, aching from two ribs broken during the week’s practices, and he picked up crucial yardage as Auburn drew closer to the goal line. The moment of truth came with third and six on the UT 10, time about to expire on the second quarter. If the Tigers could manage to reach the four yard line, they would have four more cracks at the end zone. In the huddle, Nix coolly called for a play that wasn’t even in the playbook for the Tennessee game: “37 H Belly,” the one they had practiced relentlessly during the fall to be sure nobody would fail on the intricate exchanges involved. Nix went under center, took the snap from Burkett and stepped toward Atkins. He stuck it in his fullback’s belly, then pulled it out and turned downfield on a keeper through the hole between the end and the tackle. Just as a linebacker was zeroing in on him Nix tossed the ball back to Rawson, who was trailing him on the play. The linebacker nailed Nix, and his pitch of the slippery ball was bad, a one-hopper Nix would describe as “a skinner,” but Rawson managed to scoop it up and plow into the onrushing defenders. When the mass of muddy players was separated, far short of the goal, the young halfback was found on the four-yard line. First and goal. It took four shots, but on fourth down Atkins cracked over the goal line for the touchdown. His extra-point kick made it Auburn, 7-0, and that’s how it ended. Twice in the second half, UT made it deep into Auburn territory, but both times the Vols were pushed back by the Tigers’ ferocious defense. Auburn announced it was more or less over late in the game when Tennessee returned a punt to the Auburn 29 but after four plays had lost 23 yards, back to its own side of the field, where Nix sat on the ball and ran out the clock. The final statistics showed Auburn’s thorough dominance: total rushing yardage 297 to 79, first downs 11 to 6, three fumbles lost by UT and none by Auburn. When the first national rankings of the long season were revealed the next day, Auburn was No. 7. The Tigers were on their way.
One of the single most dramatic photographs in Auburn football history adorned sports pages throughout the nation the following Sunday: the 11 starting Tigers, in muddy white uniforms, leaping in jubilation at the moment the game ended.
Auburn Magazine For Alumni & Friends of Auburn University
25
26
Auburn vs. Chattanooga, 40-7 One of the few soft spots in the schedule came on the second Saturday when little Chattanooga rode into town for what was less a game than a controlled scrimmage. “I’ll come here to take a beating just for the payday,” admitted the Moccasins’ coach, Scrappy Moore. Only 17,000 fans showed up for what amounted to an open house at Cliff Hare Stadium—50 high school football teams and 20 marching bands—with the game never in doubt. Auburn won in a romp, intercepting five passes and holding Chattanooga to a grand total of 31 yards rushing. All 43 Auburn players in uniform got into the game, generally having a ball, and it was a fine day for the coaches to check out the team’s depth. The only downside was that the Tigers let a Moc get free in the secondary for a 25-yard touchdown pass, one of only three scores from scrimmage they would allow in the entire season. The voters around the country weren’t fooled. Auburn was even bumped back a couple of notches to No. 9 after the exercise was over.
Auburn vs. Kentucky, 6-0 Kentucky was another matter. Gone from the Wildcats were Vito “Babe” Parilli and Paul “Bear” Bryant, the quarterback to the NFL and the coach to Texas A&M, but they had left behind a handful for opponents to worry about: a giant mountain of a man named Lou Michaels, probably the best college lineman in America. A tackle from the Pennsylvania coal country, with the demeanor to terrorize anybody in his path, Michaels’ place-kicking and work on offense and defense made him a rare thing: one of the few middle linemen who could turn around the fortunes of an entire football team. Indeed, when Kentucky arrived at Cliff Hare on Friday and went through a light workout, many of the Auburn players lingered just to gawk at him. (“We saw ’em feed this … this animal they’ve got,” Tigers captain Tim Baker told the students at a pep rally that night, eliciting thunderous ‘boos’ without mentioning Michaels’s name.) A packed house of 33,000 showed up the next day for a gander. The game featured more of what Auburn fans were learning to expect from this bunch: brutal defense forcing fumbles and interceptions, controlled offense hanging onto the ball, lots of punting out of trouble, no mistakes, wholesale substitution by units to keep fresh troops in the game. Back and forth the two teams hammered at each other, tit for tat, with nothing to show on the scoreboard in the first half. Even double-teaming couldn’t contain Michaels, who was being booed continuously as the Fall 2007
www. aualum .org
afternoon wore on. Kentucky reached the Auburn 17 once, and the 32. Four times the Tigers got to the Wildcats’ 25, but went no farther. Finally the big break came in the third quarter when Atkins deflected a pitchout tossed by the UK quarterback and fell on it at the Wildcats’ 36. Hoppe ran for six, Lorino for four, setting up a first down, but then Michaels mugged Nix for a sack. Here came Lorino again, off on a 7-yard romp, but then it happened—Michaels, in his overzealousness, clotheslined the little Auburn scatback out of bounds to draw a
15-yard penalty for unnecessary roughness. It was Auburn’s ball, first down and goal from the six. The crowd was still in an uproar as Atkins bulled into the end zone on the next play. He missed wide on the kick, but it didn’t matter. The Tiger defense held, again, and it was Auburn, 6-0. That performance still wasn’t enough to convince sportswriters around the country that Auburn’s defense was for real; the Tigers remained ranked No. 9 as they boarded the train for Atlanta to meet Georgia Tech the next weekend.
Auburn vs. Georgia Tech, 3-0 Despite having won three in a row over Alabama since resuming the series against its bitter intrastate rival, Auburn wanted to beat Tech as much as anyone on the schedule during the ’50s. The Tigers had managed to do it only once in 15 tries since 1940—that stirring 1412 battle in ’55—and their fans were feeling downright spooked every time they set foot on Grant Field in view of the skyscrapers beginning to dot the skyline of the South’s biggest city. In their bright gold “tear-away” jerseys, designed to fall away in a tackler’s hands if he grabbed ahold, one of the Yellow Jackets’ skittery little scatbacks would suddenly be standing alone in the end zone, celebrating another touchdown: on a reverse, an interception, a punt return, maybe even a double reverse. They quick-kicked if in trouble or punted out of bounds at the one-foot line or came up with a flashy new trick whenever they needed it. It was uncanny and frustrating how “Dodd’s Luck” got you in the end—a nod to Tech’s dapper coach, Bobby Dodd, a former Tennessee tailback—but it wasn’t luck so much as superior speed, quickness, brains and chicanery that had the Yellow Jackets finishing high in the rankings and going to bowl games most years. Dodd liked to say his boys played volleyball in practice during the week to rest up for the games on Saturday, but nobody believed it—especially teams like Auburn, that had been slaving away in the pits all week. Dodd even saw to it that the seats nearest the visitors’ bench were filled with raucous Tech freshman wearing “rat cap” beanies: a bunch notorious for once prompting Paul “Bear” Bryant to enter the field wearing a football helmet and, on another occasion, welcoming the Notre Dame team to Atlanta with a rain of dead fish. Just being there was enough to get the Tigers riled up. They were leading the nation in total defense now, starting to feel their muscle. Tech was ranked in the top 10 again, but a tough loss the week before to LSU had installed Auburn as a one-point favorite for the first time in years at Grant Field. With Tech winning the toss and choosing to kick off, hoping to force an early mistake or lure Auburn into a kicking duel that usually proved fatal, the two began by feeling each other out like heavyweights in the opening rounds of a fight. Little was settled in the early going—discovering that Auburn’s rushing defense was too much, the Yellow Jackets began throwing—and Jordan brought in his second unit to
relieve the starters without losing any ground. There was an exchange of punts toward the beginning of the second quarter, netting a big advance for Auburn, and soon the starters were back on the field and beginning to make their move toward the Tech end zone. Hammering away between the tackles, making no errors, the Tigers got close enough to chance a field goal by Billy Atkins from the 31 after having driven 48 yards. “It was all I could do to watch him try it,” said Jordan. It would be the first one Atkins had ever made and he “never saw a more beautiful sight” when it split the uprights for the only points of the game. Auburn had won the latest big one, 3-0, in a season that was looming scarier by the week.
Auburn wanted to beat Tech as much as anyone on the schedule during the ’50s. They had done it again with their defense, of course. Tech had gained 61 yards passing, only 89 running, and lost four critical fumbles. Staying on the ground, Auburn had rushed for 130 yards while completing three of just six passes. The Yellow Jackets had reached Auburn’s 12 and 14 on separate occasions, but were pushed back both times before they could try a tying field goal. The next week, Auburn jumped to fifth place in the national rankings, and, for the first time, the players themselves began to believe that an unbeaten season and a conference championship were within their grasp. Said Jordan: “These were no longer just things to talk about and think about. Here they were for the taking.” Auburn Magazine For Alumni & Friends of Auburn University
27
28
Auburn vs. Houston, 48-7
“I don’t believe a team in the nation with a schedule as tough as ours will go through the year undefeated.”
In drawing up the schedule for the ’57 season, Jeff Beard had carefully chosen three nonconference opponents: independents Chattanooga, Houston and Florida State. The working word here is “carefully.” Both Beard and Jordan were aware of the hidden dangers lurking when a team takes what is presumed to be a “break” from its conference schedule to play an outsider: a lesser opponent, generally given little chance to win, and thus in a position of feeling it has nothing to lose and everything to gain. Compounding the situation, the players on the stronger team are likely to approach such a game as a breather—an off day between do-or-die appointments with heated natural rivals during the long march toward a conference championship—and that certainly was the case here. No amount of cajoling had been necessary to get the young Tigers “up” for the Chattanooga game, but the dates against Houston and Florida State were enough to cause concern. Unlike, say, Notre Dame, an independent by choice and proud of it, both Houston and FSU could flat play football and for years had been trying hard to gain membership in the Southwest and Southeastern conferences, respectively. An upset win over Auburn would greatly enhance their chances. Consequently, Jordan put his players through the usual wringer at practice on the Wednesday before they got on a plane headed for Houston and that Saturday night’s game against the Cougars. He would have preferred to remind them that Houston was a dangerous offensive team that would be playing before a packed house on its Homecoming, but Nix & Co. wouldn’t have bought it. They were a 13-point favorite, ranked fifth in the nation thanks to their steel-curtain defense, and they played like it from beginning to end. They jumped ahead with a Nix-to-Phillips touchdown pass to end a 71-yard drive, added a safety when Wilson tackled the Houston quarterback in the end zone, and led 22-0 before a Cougar reserve intercepted a Nix pass and returned it 89 yards for a score (only the second touchdown given up by Auburn all season). Pouring it on in every way imaginable—on fumble recoveries and interceptions, by land and by air, by veterans and by rookies—the Tigers won in a blowout, 48-7.
– Ralph “Shug” Jordan
Auburn vs. Florida, 13-0 The Tigers were ranked fourth in the country when Florida came to town for Homecoming, the final game at Cliff Hare Stadium for a dozen seniors (now known as The Dirty Dozen), none of whom had ever lost a game at home. It was the big game in the SEC that week, Florida being ranked in the top 20 after having shut down LSU’s tandem of Billy Cannon and Jim Taylor the week before. “I would say anybody who bottles up (those two) must have something on the ball,” said scout and freshman coach Vince Dooley. As athletic director, Jeff Beard was more concerned about where he was going to seat everybody: “We’ll not turn anyone away,” he said. The little 34,000-seat stadium was prepared to hold an additional 2,000 in standing-room-only, the largest home crowd in Auburn history. As it turned out, Auburn’s defense wrought the same old story; it just got started earlier and made its case stronger, and against what had been a very good football team. Right off the bat Auburn drove 70 yards, most of that on a Lorino run, but bogged down at the Gators’ two. Forcing a punt that traveled only 20 yards, the Tigers took over again on the Florida 26 and scored two plays later when Hoppe ran a reverse and Atkins dived in for the touchdown. They were back again, before the crowd and the Gators knew it, when Nix threw complete to Phillips, who turned in a scintillating run of 63 yards to score. Florida had been expected to make something of quarterback Jimmy Dunn’s passing (best in the conference) and running back Bernie Parrish (averaging 6.7 yards per carry), but the Tiger defense wouldn’t give them breathing room; the Gators gained 37 yards rushing and 46 passing, and made only four first downs all day. There was only a slight variation in Auburn’s recipe this day: When the defense wasn’t shutting the door by taking over on downs or forcing a turnover, the offense was chewing up the clock for 16 first downs with a grinding ground game that produced 301 yards, just short of the total against Chattanooga. It was simply the same tune in a different key. The Tigers won handily, 13-0. Fall 2007
www. aualum .org
Auburn vs. Mississippi State, 15-7 With a 6-0 record earned by what was clearly the best defense in the nation, having never been behind for a single moment in the season, the Tigers saw only one obstacle in the way of an unbeaten season when Week Seven arrived: old rival Mississippi State, ranked 17th nationally, whom they would meet at Legion Field in Birmingham on the second Saturday of November. Jordan ordered extra time spent on pass defense to prepare for Mississippi State’s all-SEC quarterback Billy Stacy, the best passer Auburn had seen all year. The road seemed clear enough if they could get past this one—Georgia had won only two games so far, Florida State was Florida State and Alabama was in the midst of a 4-24-4 run that would cost J.B. “Ears” Whitworth his job—but Auburn fans dared not jinx matters by dreaming of a national championship until the chips were cashed. The margins of victory had been so slim that anything could happen: broken pass coverage, an inopportune fumble, an unlikely interception, a fluke of any kind. On the eve of the game, in fact, the regional sportswriter for the Associated Press was picking Mississippi State to beat Auburn. Sure enough, the unspeakable happened late in the first half when a receiver got behind the Auburn secondary and hauled in a pass for a 56-yard touchdown. Mississippi State led at the half, 7-0, an unfamiliar situation for Auburn to find itself in, but if there were any histrionics expressed in the locker room they went unrecorded. Stay the course, was Jordan’s calm advice; you’re the best. Lloyd Nix remembered what happened in the first huddle after intermission: “Bobby Hoppe said, ‘Give me the damned ball and I’ll score.’” Everybody wanted it, and in due time they got it. A 24-yard run by Lorino set up a plunge by Atkins, which he followed with an extra-point kick to tie the score; a blocked punt by Jackie Burkett led to a safety by a secondteam end named John Whatley for the lead; and shortly after that Auburn put the game away in typical fashion: Zeke Smith recovered a fumble at the Mississippi State 10, enabling Atkins to run it in to make the score 15-7 Auburn.
Auburn vs. Georgia, 6-0 On the very next weekend, down the road in Columbus, Ga., the Tigers very nearly lost everything they had been working toward since the dog days of August. The game was against the Georgia Bulldogs, who were in a decline that would culminate in the firing of coach Wally Butts and the eventual hiring of Auburn assistant Vince Dooley to replace him. The ’Dogs had a dangerous passing game and played the same hard-nosed SEC defense as Auburn—but not much else—and weren’t favored to cause any trouble. Early in the game, Lorino twice lost fumbles deep in Auburn territory, but he redeemed himself by carrying the ball 10 times for 61 yards. Moving on the ground and through the air just well enough, Auburn scored the only points of the game on a four-yard pass from Nix to Phillips in the second quarter to cap a 52-yard drive and then held on to win 6-0, holding Georgia’s passing game to 23 yards on only two completions.
Auburn vs. Florida State, 29-7 Favored to beat pass-happy Florida State in Tallahassee by four touchdowns, the Tigers won 29-7 by intercepting five passes and holding the Seminoles to minus-27 yards rushing, FSU’s touchdown coming on a pass from Joe Majors. The Tigers were 9-0 and only one game away from a perfect season and, with a win in the final game against pitiful Alabama, quite possibly their first national championship. Auburn Magazine For Alumni & Friends of Auburn University
29
30
Auburn vs. Alabama, 40-0 The fever had been building steadily all year long in the “Loveliest Village of the Plain” for a No. 1 trophy—especially since the win over Georgia Tech in Atlanta had put them in the top five at mid-season—but still the Tigers were tempering it with caution. The national rankings had been fluctuating from week to week. (There were two polls, actually: the Associated Press by sports writers and broadcasters, and the United Press International by NCAA coaches; it was generally felt the AP was broader and more accountable.) At one time or another the top spot was held by various traditional powers in different corners of the country—Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Texas A&M, Michigan State, Ohio State—while relatively unknown Auburn had steadily climbed to second behind Ohio State on the week before the Auburn-Alabama game. The Tigers had done it not with blind tradition on their side (as with, say, Notre Dame) or from running up eye-popping scores (like Oklahoma’s point-a-minute offense) or from a position in a more populous part of the country (as in the Big 10 Conference of the crowded Midwestern states), but as a relatively dull bunch of smalltown Southern boys who could stop anybody cold in its tracks with mind-numbing defense. There was nothing glamorous about this Auburn team. Auburn’s sports publicist, Bill Beckwith, was pondering the situation on the days leading up to the Alabama game in league with Sam Adams of the little Alabama Journal in Montgomery, a sports editor friendly to Auburn’s cause. Were there any voters he didn’t know about? Beckwith asked, just in case. In fact, yes, Adams responded. There might be hundreds, they discovered—small-market sports editors and radio broadcasters who weren’t even aware they were eligible to cast a vote—and the two got on the phones. “Look,” Beckwith told them, “we don’t want Woody Hayes (Ohio State’s voluble coach) to find out ahead of time, but the minute we’ve killed Alabama, I want you to call this number (at the AP) and vote for Auburn.” It was too easy, one of Auburn’s most convincing wins of the season. The Tigers creamed Alabama in that final game, 40-0, scoring their first touchdown with only two minutes gone and proceeding to pour it on. Chants of “Fifty-six! Fifty-six!” rained down from the Auburn side of Legion Field in the second half, cries of vengeance for the 55-0 haymaker ’Bama had laid on the Tigers in 1948, but, like a wise coach, Jordan showed mercy; there would be many other days against the hated Tide and he would be there to coach in them. Every single player in an Auburn uniform got into the game, the Tigers’ fourth straight win in the series, an almost leisurely way to finish off a difficult but triumphal year. Seldom had college football seen such a display of bone-crushing defense: six shutouts in 10 games; 28 points allowed, none on the ground; leading the SEC in forcing fumbles and interceptions; giving up only 133 yards per game in total offense.
And the winner is …
Fall 2007
www. aualum .org
Back at his office in Auburn the next day, nothing to do on a sleepy Sunday but sit by the phone and wait for the votes to come in, Beckwith got the call he wanted from Ted Smits, sports editor of the Associated Press in New York.
“Call ’em off, Bill,” he said. “You’ve won.” The teams that had ranked ahead of Auburn in previous weeks had fallen by the wayside, leaving the Tigers alone at the top in the final AP poll. (“Yes, but whom have they played?” squawked Woody Hayes, failing to mention that Ohio State had lost to Texas Christian.) The final first-place votes made it clear that Auburn hadn’t needed those extra uncounted voters discovered by Beckwith: In the end, it was Auburn 210, Ohio State 71. When it was announced on Monday that Auburn had won the national championship, fans ran amok, screaming “War Eagle!” into the night at Toomer’s Corner, until—it would please the city-slickers to know—well, until the cows came home.
Paul Hemphill ’59 is the author of A Tiger Walk Through History: The Complete Story of Auburn Football from 1892-The Tuberville Era, which is slated to be published under the Pebble Hill imprint in August 2008.
Fall 2007
www. aualum .org
Auburn Magazine
For Alumni & Friends of Auburn University
33
34
Fall 2007
www. aualum .org
Jean Williams recalls the day she was driving through her Valley neighborhood and looked up to find her former Girl Scout hut had been destroyed. “It was such a shock. I remember driving around the corner, and my Girl Scout house was gone. It had been completely demolished, and the lot was cleaned off,” says the 81year-old lifelong Valley resident (pictured left). “And I just stopped the car and cried, because I was so heartbroken that it was gone.” That hut, along with many of Valley’s other buildings, had been built by West Point Manufacturing Co., which brought large textile mills to this small eastern Alabama town following the Civil War. For the next century, life centered around the area’s four prominent mill villages—Langdale, Riverview, Fairfax and Shawmut—each with its own “picture show,” post office, general store, churches, schools and parks, all built and maintained by the mill. Like spokes on a wheel, bungalow-style homes formed neighborhoods radiating from the factories, and, over time, residents traded their agricultural roots for shift work and spinning machines.
program of AU’s College of Architecture, Design and Construction that teams fifth-year students with citizens hoping to reinvent their communities. The Urban Studio has helped more than 40 small towns across Alabama. “It is unusual for architectural students to work beyond the scale of a building and think about how their architectural work is part of the larger ensemble of a place,” says Urban Studio director Cheryl Morgan ’74, an AU architecture professor. “One of the things that we think is important is the potential for students to not only understand how to make great buildings, but also how to make great places.” A few years ago, Morgan led a team of students, volunteer professionals and Valley residents through a design charrette, an architectural term describing an intense group study of a problem that requires a design solution. Completed in 1999, the charrette has served as a roadmap for Valley’s growth, driving such actions as the planting of willow trees to enhance the town’s appearance and the purchase of a pair of abandoned textile mills for future commercial and residential development. “The charrette process has been important to the lifeblood of our city,” says Valley Mayor Arnold Leak ’74. “The Urban Studio has been extremely helpful to us, because (it) provided us with another point of view that we needed to progress. It’s the secret of us being able to see a future, where one time all we saw was a half-empty glass.”
“Through the years our mother company took good care of us,” says Valley city clerk Martha Cato. But the exodus of the textile industry nearly 40 years ago set many of the town’s structures on a path to abandonment, disrepair and destruction. The villages’ commercial businesses dried up faster than a drop of water on a hot August afternoon, and in 1980 the mill towns were incorporated into the city of Valley. The little hamlet fought for economic footing and an opportunity to redefine itself.
The team identified Valley’s advantages, which included 14 miles of the Chattahoochee River snaking through town as well as the abandoned Langdale and Riverdale textile mills at the river’s edge.
prompted Williams and other local residents to form a historical commission that would save the rest of the city’s old buildings; civic leaders wanted to prevent Valley from becoming a ghost town. They sought the assistance of Auburn University’s Urban Studio, an outreach
“They didn’t think of the river as an asset and an economic tool, and after our visit they began to recognize things that they could build on in their community
Auburn Magazine
For Alumni & Friends of Auburn University
35
36
Fall 2007
www. aualum .org
that were inherent,” Morgan says. “And unlike the textile mills that were part of the economy for years, the river can’t be outsourced.”
pine floors and beams alone. But Cato (pictured left) and Leak, buoyed by the Urban Studio’s ideas, placed the winning bid and have preserved a vital piece of their town’s textile heritage.
Before AU students got involved, Valley officials had viewed the river as little more than a line of demarcation between Alabama and its neighboring state.
Two years ago, Morgan helped Valley’s citizens and civic leaders complete a second design charrette, this time focusing solely on the Langdale mill. Meanwhile the city has purchased the Riverdale mill and plans to obtain other mills as they become available. The town also intends to promote the Chattahoochee River as a draw for boaters, kayakers and fishermen, says Jones. There are plans to establish a walking trail using an old railroad bed along the river bank between the two mills, a project known as “Rails to Trails.”
“The river was there, and we always knew it was there, but it took somebody else to tell us how important it was,” Leak says. “We used to call it ‘the big dirty ditch in the backyard.’ It’s amazing how different something looks when you put on differentcolored glasses, and the design charrette was able to give us a new set of glasses.”
have rekindled hope and excitement for new things to come. At more than 500,000 square feet, the Langdale mill complex sits on 24 acres at the end of Fob James Boulevard, the gateway to Valley. Its central location makes the mill a prime piece of real estate with endless possibilities.
Valley’s citizens have worked hard to have 1,200 of their community’s structures and the four mill villages added to the National Register of Historic Places. A textile museum is another possibility. So, as Kia Motors prepares to build a new plant in nearby West Point, Ga., could Valley become a boom town once again? The city is already preparing for a population increase: There are 1,500 new housing units under construction in a town of 9,200. The charrette outlines standards for new neighborhoods as well as businesses opening in the area. And now, when Leak goes to the grocery store or to a local restaurant, he hears good things from his constituents.
“We see the Langdale mill as having the potential to be a very vibrant part of our long-term goals for the city— economic development, historical preservation, eco-tourism,” says Jim Jones ’83, a member of Valley’s City Council. “With plans to convert the mill into a hotel and conference center with retail stores and other mixed-use development, we feel it has the potential to be a thriving part of our economy.”
“They come up and say, ‘Hey, we like what you’re doing,’” he says. “If your people are behind you, then you’re doing the right thing. That is why I think the design charrette was so important. It drew from the people what was important to them, not necessarily what was important to the council.”
Just like the old Girl Scout hut, the Langdale mill was slated for the demolition ball when, in 2004, it was auctioned to the highest bidder. Investors circled like vultures, hoping to buy the property and sell it piecemeal, aiming to make a fortune off the facility’s original heart
“In many places like Valley, for years they have worked with problems instead of opportunity,” says Morgan, “and that simple shift in paradigm—that new perspective—has changed many communities’ sense of what is possible. That’s very exciting to see.”
AU’s Urban Studio is also helping other citizens who hope to rewrite their towns’ histories.
Auburn Magazine
For Alumni & Friends of Auburn University
37
view
64
George Petrie: Father of Auburn football and more By Mike Jernigan ’80
Dawn had come late to Atlanta’s Piedmont Park on Feb. 20, 1892—the product of gray, leaden skies and an intermittent, drizzling rain. It was an inauspicious start to a Saturday that much of the city’s society, along with the entire student bodies of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama at Auburn and the University of Georgia in Athens, had been awaiting with great excitement for several weeks. Caught up in the excitement, the telegrapher sent his breathless account back to the Atlanta Journal’s downtown offices, where an unprecedented special edition was being prepared ...
3:20 p.m.
“The grandstand has been nearly filled. Fully 5,000 people are already on the grounds. A line of carriages, some hundred in all, are lined up opposite the field.”
3:25 p.m.
“The toss is made, and Auburn wins and takes the ball.”
3:30 p.m.
“The game starts …” It was a moment, unrealized but no less profound, of momentous sociological change. Big-time college football had at last come to the Deep South. And it was all started by the efforts of an unlikely alliance of Atlanta journalists, civic promoters and two college professors: George Petrie of Auburn and Charles Herty at UGA. Petrie’s association as the father of football on the Plains gave him lasting fame to succeeding generations of Auburn faithful ... But in another way, it is unfortunate, for it has overshadowed his many other contributions to the modern Auburn University. Though Petrie is almost as equally well known for authoring “The Auburn Creed,” which defines the very essence of what it means to be an Auburn man or woman, his list of accomplishments and contributions is much longer still. For 55 years—from his arrival on campus as a newly minted Fall 2007
www. aualum .org
University of Virginia graduate and history and language professor in 1887 until his retireAuburn’s first football team, organized by George Petrie, defeated UGA ment as dean of the 10-0 in the rivals’ first showdown in February 1892. graduate school and head of the history department in university opponent, played in Montgomery 1942—George Petrie and Auburn were one in 1892, against UGA. ... An ardent sportsand the same to thousands of Alabamians man, the wiry professor was also behind the and hundreds of alumni and academic colconstruction of the college’s first tennis leagues throughout the nation. ... The first courts and cycling path, and played a key Alabamian to receive a Ph.D. and the first role, along with fellow enthusiast and chemfaculty member to hold an earned doctorate istry professor Cliff Hare, in the establishat Auburn, he developed and maintained ment of Auburn’s first golf course. warm personal relationships with numerous Petrie was also one of the first professors other acclaimed historians across the counoutside the area of agriculture and the metry, greatly enhancing the academic reputachanical arts to recognize and become an tion of the A&M College and, later, enthusiastic advocate of the value of univerAlabama Polytechnic Institute. sity extension. At a time when travel of any Encouraged and aided by Petrie, many of distance involved long, arduous trips by rail his graduate students went on to study at top and automobile on largely unpaved and universities such as Harvard, Columbia, poorly maintained roads, he nevertheless Johns Hopkins, Stanford and the University traveled with missionary zeal across ... the of Chicago, then became professors or deans South, speaking to civic and school groups, themselves, further spreading the word alumni, and association gatherings. His about the quality of scholarship at Auburn. talks on educational and historical topics His doctoral training at Johns Hopkins fowere almost always made to packed houses, cused around the then-somewhat revoluand, through them, Petrie served as a goodtionary idea of using original documents in will ambassador and recruiter for the colthe study of history, and he insisted that his lege. At a time when the college library’s colstudents employ the same methods. As such, lection consisted of only a few thousand Petrie became an early supporter and ally of books, Petrie assembled and maintained a Thomas M. Owen in the founding of the personal library many times that size and Alabama Department of Archives and made it accessible to his students. ... It is still History, the first state archives of its kind to the largest single collection ever donated to combine collections of artifacts and docuthe Auburn library. ments in one facility. In short, Petrie was nothing so much as a Closer to home, Petrie’s contributions true Renaissance man. His story, and that of were equally important. In addition to arthe university he served and the community ranging the first intercollegiate football he lived in, will always be inextricably engame between AU and UGA and serving as twined. Auburn’s first football coach, Petrie played a pivotal role in the selection of Auburn’s beMike Jernigan ’80 is the author of Auburn loved orange and blue colors. He set up the Man: The Life and Times of George Petrie college’s first baseball game against another (The Donnell Group, 2007).