Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Auburn Pride

You may have been able to tell in past posts that I LOVE Auburn. Not only do I love Auburn, but I LOVE Auburn football. To me, football games at Auburn are the threads to bind my love for Auburn. I grew up in SC and never once cheered for the Auburn Tigers until 1995 when I visited the campus for a college tour and attended my first Auburn football game...which happened to be the Iron Bowl (Auburn vs. Alabama...which is the best rivalry game in college football...that's the one thing both Auburn and Alabama fans can both agree on). I may have arrived on the Plains with little knowledge of Auburn but I left an Auburn fan for life. Later as a student I would eagerly look forward to home football games and the explosion in population that each home game would bring. Auburn's average city population is around 57,000, but on game day that number goes up...way up. You see our stadium holds 87,451 so the population of Auburn swells to around 140,000 to accomodate the entire Auburn family. Friday nights before home games offered many different options for a fun time and Saturday's were all about tailgating. It didn't matter if the game was at 11:30am or 7:30pm...tailgating started with breakfast and continued until 2 hours before kick off when Tiger Walk would begin and the Auburn family gathered around our football team to cheer them on as they entered Jordan-Hare. Then you needed to head to the stadium yourself to get a seat in the student section...unless you had someone kind enough to save a seat for you. Now Auburn football games are a time for me to see old friends who live too far away and I don't get to see often enough, to introduce my little Auburn Tigers to the school I love and to remind myself of the 6 years (4 years undergrad, 2 years grad...I didn't waste my time & money) of fun times I had on The Plains. Don't get me wrong, I love my life now and enjoy every minute with the family Arch and I have created...but I also love the family of friends I created while I was a student at Auburn. I love being a member of the Auburn family...I love that when I wear an Auburn t-shirt another member of the Auburn family will greet me with a heartfelt "War Eagle", I love that I can go months without seeing friends from Auburn and we always pick right back up where we left off, I love to see my children playing with the children of my friends from Auburn and I really LOVE to hear Ruth Ann say "War Eagle, Hey!" and think about how much she is going to enjoy her time as an Auburn student...if I have my way. When I'm in Auburn now I have to fight the urge to shake every student I see and lecture them on the importance of enjoying every last minute of their time at Auburn. Those 6 years went by in the blink of an eye and there are times that I wish I could turn back time...just for a little bit...and be a student at Auburn once again.

So what prompted this essay on my love of Auburn?? After doing a little catching up on some of my favorite blogs I stumbled across the following video...thanks Tara Roney. I watched it and got chills and a few tears when I started thinking about all the fun times I had at Auburn football games. In 2004 we were denied...or rather robbed...of the opportunity to play for the national championship. But the taste of an undefeated season with the hope of a national championship was still fresh in the mouths of all members of the Auburn family. Although this season did have some "low-lights"...that many are all too eager to point out...I choose to post about the high-lights. I have some Carolina friends who follow my blog and I want you guys to know that Cocky & the Gamecocks do make an appearance in the video so you may enjoy watching too :)

Enjoy!!! War Eagle friends....WAR EAGLE!!




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