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Auburn Alumni Center 317 South College Street Auburn University, AL 36849-5150 www.aualum.org
12 Issue 3
BURTON HALL, AUBURN UNIVERSITY
Fall 2005
Call or come by for a visit 334-844-4580
For Alumni & Friends of Auburn University
Community
AUBURN MAGAZINE
A Commitment to
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HOME-GROWN AU
Auburn basketball’s greatest moments
You tell us
Was it the time in the ’60 season when the Tigers whipped the Kentucky Wildcats in a dramatic 6160 finish during AU’s first nationally televised game? Or the ’91 game in which the Tigers racked up 141 points against hapless Troy State, or the 1970 Valentine’s Day game against Alabama when John Mengelt got 60 all by himself? Or the quadruple overtime 95-91 victory over the University of Georgia for the ’99 conference championship, which still ranks as the longest SEC tournament game? How about the stylings of the “round mound of rebound” Charles Barkley as he proved that 300-plus pounds on a basketball court may not be graceful, but can work? Share your best Auburn basketball memories with us by e-mail at aubmag@auburn.edu, fax at (334) 844-1477, or mail to Basketball Memories, Auburn Magazine, 317 South College St., Auburn, AL 36849-5150.
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MEN ’S BASKET
Bill Gregory remembers that day half a century ago like it was yesterday. The Auburn Tigers drove up the winding Florida Short Route to Birmingham’s Municipal Auditorium to face the University of Kentucky, a perennial national powerhouse, and the Wildcats’ legendary coach, Adolph Rupp. The Tigers had never beaten either. Gregory, a bench-warming 6-foot-6-inch center whose Auburn high school didn’t even have a gym, much less a basketball team, until his sophomore year, entered the game late, scored nine quick points, then watched as the Tigers held on to win the game 64-63. That victory on Feb. 24, 1958, and a two-point victory over Alabama a week later, capped an 11-game streak that continued in the ’58-’59 season with 19 straight wins—a 30-game record that still stands. Longtime AU athletics trainer Kenny Howard insists the two-season streak, particularly the win over Kentucky, represents Auburn’s defining moment in intercollegiate basketball. In fact, Howard conservatively opines, “the only moment.” But for a program that celebrates its 100th year this season by getting together fans and former players, the point probably will be debatable. At least John Searby hopes so. Auburn’s director of basketball operations and other athletics staffers began the season-long centennial celebration by contacting as many as possible of AU’s more than 370 living basketball lettermen and inviting them back to campus. Festivities begin with a tip-off program Dec. 1 at the home game against McNeese State and culminate in a blowout celebration during the Arkansas contest on Jan. 21. Throughout the season, current players will doff uniforms from the Charles Barkley era from time to time. The celebration also will include special ticket pricing for home games, giveaways, a “legends” game and post-game social, and, hopefully, a memory-stuffing season from second-year coach Jeff Lebo and his team. Some of the players, such as Lee DeFore, top scorer from 1963-66, and Rex Frederick, the top rebounder in the 1956-59 seasons, already have committed to attend. Mal Morgan, one of the oldest living Auburn basketball letterman, went on to a distinguished high-school coaching career in Lanett. He probably won’t be make the game, but will be recognized in a special video, Searby says. The roundup effort also has netted other former players who contributed splendidly iconic moments to the Tigers’ basketball history. Mike Mitchell, the all-time rebound leader and the first Auburn player to break the 2,000-point mark from a time before the three-point shot came into the college game, plans to show up Jan. 21 with other Auburn greats, including Barkley, John Mengelt (pictured right) Marquis Daniels, Stan Pietkiewicz, Chris Morris, and Chuck and Wesley Persons.
Dribbling through the decades Auburn basketball began in 1905, just 14 years after James Naismith invented the game. The university’s first basketball coach, “Iron Mike” Donahue, steered his team to a 27-7 victory over Tulane in its first intercollegiate game. Although Donahue’s overall record, statistically speaking, wasn’t nearly as impressive as his football record, the two were enough to get a street named after him. The Auburn player who led the league that year with 111 points went on to become one of the topwinning Auburn basketball coaches—Ralph “Shug” Jordan (pictured left). But the best basketball record belongs to Joel Eaves, whose teams won nearly 70 percent of their games during his 14 seasons. With his silvery locks and penchant for using faster, shorter players in a screen-and-run “shuffle” offense, Eaves
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HOOPS
100 YEARS
BALL TEAM CLOCKS and the Tigers’ 1960 SEC championship team came to be known as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Some of Eaves’ teams were all the more remarkable because they were home-grown, such as Gregory’s team from the late ’50s: Frederick from Corner; McGriff from Pisgah; Bobby Tucker from New Market; Terry Chandler from Cullman; and Henry “Po’ Devil” Hart from Eufaula. Illustrious Atlanta sports columnist Furman Bisher says he and others took note of the AU team’s rural mail route beginnings by calling them “the RFD Five,” a take-off on the “Fabulous Five” nickname for Kentucky’s nationally recruited team. Eaves’ Alabama men weren’t cowed by their taller and more geographically diverse competitors, though. The 1956-57 team ended the season 16-6 and gained the Tigers’ first ranking in national top 20 polls. The 1958-59 team wound up third in the nation with a 20-2 record. Hart was later drafted by the New York Knicks. Kenny Howard, whose Tiger basketball memories date to Jordan’s days as head basketball coach, says another pivotal event in moving Auburn into NCAA basketball prominence was the opening of the 10,500seat Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum 34 years ago. From 1942-69 Auburn played home games in the 2,500-seat Auburn Sports Arena, known as “the barn,” where players and coaches actually sat on the first row of spectator seats. “I saw some great basketball played in that old wood pile,” recalls Bisher. “Those boys from rural Alabama were so good and so well coached. Joel Eaves was truly one of the great coaches to ever pass this way.”
by David Morrison
AU’s barn was infamous, described by Vanderbilt University sports historian Howell Peiser as “a shoebox [that] was death to visiting teams,” and a place Rupp for years refused to visit with his Kentucky teams. The Wildcats lost four of the six times they were forced to play there, including in 1960 the first nationally televised Auburn basketball game.
The best and worst of times Rupp’s aversion to the barn compelled Gregory and the Tigers to make their way to Birmingham in 1958 for that seminal “home” game against Kentucky. Very late in the game, with the Tigers down by four points and the starting center in foul trouble, Eaves sent in Gregory, his backup center. “It was just one of those games where I did everything right,” recalls Gregory. He scored nine quick points. With a minute left, the Tigers led by five. Then, a nail-biter. The Tigers committed three turnovers, and the highly ranked Wildcats scored twice. On the third shot, Kentucky’s Johnny Cox launched a shot right into the rim, but a little backspin spit it out. Auburn got the rebound and won 64-63. The next season, armed with 30 straight wins, the Tigers traveled to Wildcat territory for a rematch. During the pre-game
warmup at the Kentucky arena, more than 12,000 fans packed the place, sitting in funereal silence amidst the echoes of thumping Auburn practice balls and squeaking soles on hardwood. Then the man in the brown suit, Rupp, emerged and gave a signal to the band. The music served as the soundtrack to the Tigers’ 75-56 loss that day. “They put the psyche on us country boys,” says Gregory. “We were behind by 10 points before we knew what hit us.” Auburn Magazine
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By Katie McCormack Wilder ’00
Photography by Jamie Williams
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In this life, the reward is the journey “What’s new in Las Vegas?” Tony Hammonds ’73 chats up the driver as he slides into a cab at the Westin Casuarina Hotel just off the city’s Strip. It’s a balmy Thursday in August, and Hammonds has the night off from his usual position behind a steering wheel. Tonight, the designated passenger seeks familiarity in a voice that is not his own as he heads for Treasure Island Hotel and Casino to watch Cirque Du Soleil’s production of “Mystére.” At 55, Hammonds often finds himself on the road again, like Willie Nelson without the name recognition. You might catch him in the background of photos as Janet Jackson, Martina McBride or Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler disembark from a Silver Eagle or a Prevost Lemirage “rolling motel.” Hammonds relates to lonesome on-theroad songs; the people he drives for probably wrote some of them.
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That’s why Hammonds, a bus driver, finds a sort of instant kinship with the cabbie. Both men are in the business of getting people where they need to go. They speculate on the weather and the traffic, but the truth is those things won’t matter to Hammonds after tomorrow. He will be back at work, leaving Las Vegas, winding through the reddish, barren rocks, past Hoover Dam and down that straight stretch of U.S. 93 into Phoenix for a couple of days. From Phoenix, it’s 300 miles of I-8 to San Diego, listening—as Bob Seger put it—“to the engine moaning out its one lone song,” from San Diego to Los Angeles, then on to Oakland and beyond. It’s still early for Vegas—10:30 p.m.—but late for Hammonds, who hopes he won’t fall asleep like the time he went to see Siegfried and Roy at the nearby Mirage. The cab driver navigates past unconscionable feats of architecture and the “it” nightclubs of the millisecond, cruising past Bally’s, famous for its showgirls, and the Bellagio, famous for its fountains. Bugsy Siegel’s Flamingo Hotel passes in a blur, as does Caesar’s Palace, the joint where Celine Dion is headlining. But Hammonds is oblivious to Sin City’s psychedelics and the thousands of faces frozen in time by f lashing lights, ringing bells and greed. These things are nothing new—he’s been to Vegas before, and FALL 2005
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he’ll be back, and the people and the sights here still won’t measure up to the fishing holes and slightly scorched summer fescue of northeastern Alabama.
The road to success For a dozen years now, the Auburn accounting major and former insurance salesman has worked as a bus-driver-to-the-stars: in entertainment industry jargon, an “independent custom coach operator.” The custom coaches he drives are highly polished 500horsepower diesels with blackedout windows that can easily cost $500,000 or more because of such luxurious life-on-the-road support systems as functioning barbecue grills and f lat-screen T Vs. T hese days Hammonds tours with one of the hottest R&B groups ever, Destiny’s Child, on a “farewell” appearance for Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams. Hammonds steers one of seven buses in the
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women’s entourage. His passengers are the 10 dancers that perform on stage with “the girls,” as Hammonds calls them. You have to forgive that sort of familiarity, because through the years Hammonds has driven for dozens of marquee names: pop and rock superstars Britney Spears, ’N Sync, Matchbox Twenty, Lenny Kravitz, Enrique Iglesias, Justin Timberlake, Sarah McLachlan and Ashlee Simpson; count ry art ists Montgomery Gentry, Lonestar, Lorrie Morgan, Trace Adkins, Martina McBride, Lee Ann Womack and Gary Allan; and Christian singers Amy Grant, Point of Grace, Audio Adrenaline and Twila Paris. The list also includes jazz musician Diana Krall, banjo player Béla Fleck and new-age holiday-CD favorite Mannheim Steamroller.
weight around when it suits his purposes. Earlier in the day, he got a craving for a Double-Double with grilled onions and extra pickles from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s favorite eatery, In-NOut Burger. Hammonds stretched the Prevost across three spaces directly in front of a 30-minute parking sign, took his time in the crowded restaurant and displayed a marked nonchalance about getting towed. “There are not a lot of vehicles that can move this bus.”
Mostly, he drives at night because, as Jackson Browne reminds audiences, “when that morning sun comes beating down, you’re gonna wake up in your town, but we’re scheduled to appear a thousand miles away from here.” Hammonds knows “that little sleep bug can creep up on you,” and he didn’t win his Rolex by sloughing off his responsibility. The hardest part, he says, is tricking his body into sleeping at all hours of the day. He wears ear plugs and uses a variety of breathing and stretching exercises to help him Hammonds proudly sports a Rolex settle in. watch he won on a previous job for going 12 months with no accidents. Be- From there to here hind the wheel, he maneuvers the 45Hammonds’ career path is as winding as many foot behemoth like a bass boat, easy of the roads he drives for his clients. In college, he and smooth, although he’ll throw its did not study transportation, or logistics, or any-
thing else remotely related to his current occupation, but prepared for the 9-to-5 life of a certified public accountant. “I envisioned that, by the time I was 30, I’d have a lovely wife, 1.7 kids, a Volvo station wagon and a Labrador retriever,” he says. “But my life took a divergence.” In fact, Hammonds’ life has been defined by divergence. Hammonds hails (appropriately) from Hammondville, population 402, an Alabama hamlet at the base of Lookout Mountain. In 1968, when his classmates at Valley Head High School were deciding between AU, the University of Alabama or nearby Jacksonville State University, Hammonds had one goal—to play college football. His only scholarship offer came from the University of Wyoming, so his family “packed up the car and drove me 1,600 miles to school.” It was quite a culture shock for a kid who’d rarely left DeKalb County. The smell of diesel fumes from the highway reminded him of his truck-driving father and home. A year later, when his old high school coach got a job at Jacksonville State, Hammonds returned to play for him.
That didn’t last, either. Plagued with injuries—first shoulder, then knee—Hammonds
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gave up football. He says he was “within a frog’s hair of going to Alabama,” but visited Auburn, loved it and moved into a trailer off Wire Road with two guys from home. To fill the football void, Hammonds sampled other activities. He joined the AU Sport Parachute Team and made 24 jumps, which he describes as “the ultimate thrill.” That kindled an interest in flying, and he started taking lessons. “I just really like a challenge,” he says. “I like to do things I haven’t done before, and I like learning new things.” A few years later, life in the insurance game didn’t suit him. He split to work on an offshore oil rig in the Gulf. “I got away to find myself. I thought it was a good way to get back to basics and decide what I wanted in life by doing some hard labor. I wanted to get back to a zero base.” Like most of Hammonds’ disjointed bio, his introduction to the bus-driving business was mostly happenstance. A hometown buddy was driving for one of country music’s biggest acts, Alabama, which operated out of nearby Ft. Payne. “I asked him, ‘What is that business like?’ He said, ‘Aw, man, you won’t like it,’” Hammonds recalls. “But he invited me to go out with them, and I took right to it.” Hammonds went to work for Hemphill Brothers Coach Co. in Nashville, Tenn., and now spends 300-plus days a year on the road. From eating fresh lobster every time he’s in Boston to seeing Broadway plays in New York, from enjoying pizza in Chicago to seeing stars in Los Angeles, Hammonds’ job feels like a permanent vacation. “I guess you just have a little of it in you,” he says. “Not everybody is built for this type of work, to be gone all the time. I guess I get it from my dad. He’s logged more than five million miles. I told him that’s like 10 times to the moon and back.”
Travelin’ man Hammonds is full of stories about life on the road. He talks about the time he played golf with Deana Carter, noting that “she’s actually pretty good.” And the time Dan Seals made him a banana sandwich. And how he had to drive around for an hour in California to find the elusive In-N-Out Burger for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band because no other fast-food emporium would do. And the time FALL 2005
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he drove for Stephen Curtis Chapman’s tour, then drove the artist and his family on a three-week vacation. “I thought I’d get to see all these great sights, but they went out during the day when I had to sleep,” he recalls. A few years ago, Hammonds drove Lynyrd Skynyrd to the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally, cyclists’ Mecca. The venue was unlike any he had ever visited—a simple wooden stage in a small field. When the group was ready to leave, Hammonds realized the bus was blocked by a parked car. Lead singer Johnny
Van Zant solved the problem. “He and some other motorcycle guys literally picked that car up and moved it out of the way.” Some celebrities are just like that. The people whose lives we follow vicariously, Hammonds gets to know. But he maintains a strict policy when it comes to befriending entertainers. “I never approach any of these people. They have to talk to me first,” he says. “In this business, you can’t force yourself on people, or act like a fan. They won’t take you seriously. If you are going to be successful with (driving), you can’t be awed by their stardom.” He admits to only one exception, and it’s a moot point anyway. He’ll never get to drive the King. “I saw Elvis at Auburn in 1974, and it was the first time I heard the phrase, ‘Elvis has left the building.’
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glimpse of another life—the one that involves sleeping in the same bed every night and waking to the same view every morning. The one he left years ago. Sidelined from driving last summer by gall bladder surgery, he enjoyed a month off, running errands and cutting grass. “I also got to go fishing and spend time at the lake with my nieces and nephews. It was great.” Still, after every illness, every vacation, the road beckons—a weird life of serving strangers, making acquaintances and never really arriving. But for Hammonds, that’s the point. The drifting makes things interesting, and when the journey finally ends, the fish will still be waiting.
“I know if he were alive, I would act like a crazed fanatic.”
In sickness and life The mileage wears on a person. It’s lonesome, too. All of which makes Hammonds’ small talk with the Las Vegas cabbie something valuable, an interaction that, for the length of a few blocks, reminds him that he’s not alone. “Every conversation you have in life is a blessing because it helps mold who you are, so it’s nice to go out on tour and acquire new friendships all over the country, whether they’re high-prof ile people or locals,” he says. On his off time, Hammonds plays golf avidly with other roadies on courses around the country. He knows there are things to envy about his job. Every once in awhile, though, he gets a Auburn Magazine
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When we think of what shaped us, most would be hard-
P PHOTOGRAPHY HOTOGRAPHY BY BY J JEFF EFF E ETHERIDGE THERIDGE
pressed to define it in a physical sense—our exposure to bricks and mortar, to broad avenues or tree-hooded walkways. But as Auburn prepares to celebrate the 150th year of its existence in 2006, much of what we do remember about it will be sensory recollections of the people, locales and circumstances that make us who we are today and who we will become. Sometimes heartrending and elegiac, sometimes whimsical or flat-out funny, images from the past have a way of fanning the passion first kindled when the eagle glided into our view across the face of the flag in the stadium, when a professor first touched our souls or when we first realized we were part of something that has been special and unique generation after generation. The images on the following pages were selected from ’Neath the Sun-Kissed Sky, a photographic anthology published to celebrate the Auburn sesquicentennial and available at area bookstores. What do the pictures have in common? Whether they’re monochromatic transferals from a previous century or flow in full color, they’re evocative of what Auburn means to our lives—not just a place, but a presence.
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Auburn is intellectual discovery and enterprise‌
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intensity, structure…
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history, tradition and spirit.
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Lifetime Achievement 2 0 0 5 Edmund C. Dyas IV Class of 1961
Award Winners AT
WORK: Orthopedic surgeon.
AT
HOME : Lives in Mobile with wife Diane. Four children, seven grandchildren.
AT AUBURN :
Received a bachelor of science in pre-medicine, maintaining an “A” average while serving as a starting fullback and linebacker for three years. Led the AU team in rushing and scoring in 1960 and selected the Southeastern Conference’s “Most Outstanding Back” the same year. Member of Phi Kappa Phi and Alpha Epsilon Delta national honor societies. Selected one of eight Earl “Red” Blake fellows for post-graduate study among college football players nationwide. Served on the Auburn Alumni Association board of directors from 2000 to 2004, and on the advisory boards of both the athletics department and the College of Sciences and Mathmematics. Featured on Auburn’s “Tiger Trail” walk of fame.
AFTER
GRADUATION : Considered a professional football career, but got sidelined by injuries. Chose instead to attend medical school at Tulane University in New Orleans.
FAVORITE AUBURN
MEMORY: Debuting as a starter at Auburn in 1958. During his first game, he gained 60 yards but narrowly escaped losing some cartilage in a match against the University of Tennessee. “I came out to see my mother at the end of the game,” he recalls, “and she saw a big ol’ bruise on my nose and started crying.”
THE
MEANING OF SUCCESS : “I always just wanted to be a doctor to help people, and I’ve done that. I’ve done lots of good for a lot of folks, and I think that’s the measure of a doctor’s success.”
ADVICE
TO STUDENTS : “Don’t drink so much beer, stick to the books, and do your job. Don’t embarrass your parents, and you’ll be fine.”
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AT WORK: Commercial architect.
Batey M. Gresham Jr. Class of 1957
AT HOME : Lives in Nashville, Tenn., with wife Ann. AT AUBURN : Enrolled at AU specifically to learn how to be an architect. Decided on his career path as a teenager and was so passionate about architecture that he attempted to skew the results of a high-school career assessment test. “I had already made up my mind, so when I took the test, on every question I’d think, ‘How would an architect answer this question?,’ even though I’d never met one. But I came out with a remarkably high score indicating that I should be an architect. I always liked solving three dimensional problems… it just seemed to fit. ” AFTER GRADUATION : Worked with a couple of Tennessee firms and on his own before hanging his shingle in 1967 with one partner, a draftsman and his wife as office manager. Gresham, Smith and Partners now employs more than 700 people in 14 cities. Its projects have included the Nashville International Airport and AU’s Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts. FAVORITE AUBURN MEMORY: “I met my wife the first week (at church) during freshman orientation. The first time I saw her, I had one of those experiences I can’t explain. I knew I had to see her again. As it turned out, one of my classmates lived across the street from her, so he quickly became a friend.” BIGGEST REGRET: Pursuing business for his firm at the expense of volunteering service to professional organizations. He now spends time “giving back” by serving as president of the Middle Tennessee chapter of the American Institute of Architects and will serve as president of the statewide chapter next year.
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Lifetime Achievement 2 0 0 5
Award Winners
AT
WORK: Investor, philanthropist and pioneer in the development of privately owned utilities.
Albert J. Smith Jr. Class of 1947
AT
HOME : Lives in Houston with wife Jule. Three children. Seven grandchildren, five stepgrandchildren.
AT AUBURN :
Entered the university in 1943, left to serve in the U.S. Navy during World War II, returned to school and majored in mechanical engineering. “One of the things that impressed me, and has continued to impress me, is the friendliness on campus. Everybody you saw on the street, you were obligated to say, ‘hey’ to, and if you didn’t say, ‘hey’ there were some upperclassmen who would make sure you remembered it the next time around!”
AFTER
GRADUATION : Worked for Westinghouse Electric Corp. in Houston for more than 20 years, then founded and ran his own power company, Power Systems Engineering Inc., from 1969 to 1989. Sold the business to Dow Chemical Co. in 1990.
UPON
RETIREMENT: Has emerged as one of the most significant benefactors in Auburn’s history. As a golden anniversary tribute to his wife in 1998, Smith donated $3 million in her name toward the construction of a campus art museum. Auburn University’s Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art opened in 2003. The couple gave another $4 million this year to help the university expand its collections. “There aren’t many museums in the country that have developed as fast, with such a high level of quality, as this one. We want to be sure the resources are there for it to continue growing and getting better.”
SECRET
OF HIS SUCCESS : Cites marrying Auburn native Julia “Jule” Collins as his single proudest accomplishment. The two met during their student years at Auburn. “She saw me walking by her house in my band uniform and picked me out…Without her, I don’t know what I’d be doing. We’ve had a wonderful life together.”
WHAT
LIFE TEACHES THAT ISN ’T IN TEXTBOOKS : “Have confidence in your ideas, and be prepared.”
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AT WORK: Chancellor emeritus of the State University System of Florida.
E.T. York Jr. Class of 1942
AT HOME : Lives in Gainesville, Fla., with wife Vam. Two children. AT AUBURN : Originally aspired to become a vocational agriculture teacher. Majored in agricultural sciences and went on to obtain master’s and doctoral degrees in soil science from Auburn and Cornell universities, respectively. AFTER GRADUATION : Faculty and administrative positions with universities, and state and federal governments. Directed the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service at AU and served as an administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture before landing at the University of Florida as provost for agriculture and, eventually, the state university system chancellor. UPON RETIREMENT: Left the Florida university system in 1980 to pursue his interests in the issues of global hunger and economic development in Third World countries. Worked in various capacities promoting global agricultural development under six U.S. presidents. Helped establish 13 wheat and rice production centers around the world and a blueprint for Egyptian agriculture that is still in use. FAVORITE AUBURN MEMORY: “I have millions of them. My best memory is the fact that I met my wife there. She was president of the women’s student government. She’s been the joy of my life for 58 years.” LESSON LEARNED: “The greatest satisfaction I ever had was when my dad gave me the opportunity to plow a one-acre field with a one-horse plow. That would normally take a day to finish, and it took me three-quarters of a day. He bragged on me. The advice I received, and the advice I would give (today’s students), would be to do well at whatever you undertake; be proud of doing a good job.”
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