Gone, but not forgotten

Gone, but not forgottenGone, but not forgotten

Oct. 20, 2017

Each Friday during the 2017 football season, AuburnTigers.com will feature a column from Auburn historian and Athletic Director Emeritus David Housel to commemorate the 125 year history of Auburn football. We hope you enjoy!

By David Housel

Gone, but not forgotten.

At least not quite yet...

We can still remember:

  • When Auburn wore white jerseys at home in early season games.
  • Fishnet jerseys and tear away jerseys.
  • The Wreck Tech Parade and Burn the Bulldog Bonfire.
  • Pep rallies in the old Student Activities Building, Coach Jordan shaking that left hand up and down, and shouting, "We're going to Birmingham with one thought in mind: Beat hell out of the University of Alabama."
  • Pep rallies in general.
  • When men, students included, wore coats and ties to football games, and women wore their Sunday best. Going to a football game was like going to church. For some, it still is.
  • When women and coeds going to football games were given mum corsages by their husband or date. Bright yellow or white mum corsages streamed with orange and blue ribbons were sold on every corner in Auburn.
  • Scores being painted on 18-wheelers and busses when they stopped at the Toomer's Corner traffic light, then U.S.29, the main route between Montgomery and Atlanta.
  • Alumni would call to report seeing a truck with an orange and blue score and pins were placed on a map in Toomer's Drugs to record sightings from New York to California, and points in between. All of this was long before the days of "Rollin' Toomer's Corner."
  • When freshmen were required to wear rat caps and those who didn't were unceremoniously thrown into the Hog Pond.
  • When freshmen weren't supposed to walk through the main gate. Those who did and got caught were thrown in the Hog Pond, too. The Hog Pond was a busy place in those days.
  • The last time the lathe turned.
  • The War Eagle Supper Club, The Casino, The Plainsman Club, later to be known as the Shepherd's Purse, Pop Raines' Beverage Shack, the Blocked Punt, and Harry's, all favorite spots for pre-game and post-game celebration.
  • The days when Boarding Houses outnumbered restaurants in Auburn.
  • When reporters referred to the football team as "the Plainsmen."
  • Compulsory ROTC
  • When "War Eagle" was a new fight song in 1955 and wasn't very popular. Many fans preferred the older, slower, and more traditional "Auburn Victory March." Fans are never satisfied.
  • The student body "singing" Auburn to a touchdown every time the ball was inside the 20-yard line: "Touch-down, Auburn…Touch-down, Auburn…"
  • When the Field House, now Petrie Hall, housed the entire athletics department.
  • 1939 and 1989 when fans of Florida, then Alabama, did not want to come to Auburn because Auburn, in their opinion, didn't have enough restrooms to handle a big game.
  • When Georgia Tech was Auburn's biggest rival and Georgia a bigger rival than Alabama.

All of this seems like a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

But we remember.

Some of us remember.