Fly down the field, girl, fly down the field

By Jeremy Henderson

At a recent commencement ceremony at George Washington University there were cries of “War Eagle.”

On her name card, Auburn alumna Sara Elisabeth Burson (class of ‘07) slipped our school’s illustrious battle cry in between her middle and last name.

She handed it to the announcer.

The announcer looked at it. A gag? Native American? Are you sure?

So sure.

So sure Sara graduated with a Masters in Tourism Administration from GWU not as Sara Elisabeth Burson, but as Sara Elisabeth War Eagle Burson.

This I discovered after typing “War Eagle” into Twitter’s search engine, just for kicks.

And it got me thinking about the girl whose middle name really is War Eagle.

I went to high school with her, in Birmingham no less. She was beautiful. So was her little sister – her name (her first name) was Tiger. Their last name was White. They were two of the prettiest girls in school, duh.

Alabama fans brag on their houndstoothed army of Bryant namesakes but with the single, feminized semi-exception of Tyde (you remember him – Saban’s brother?), have any of them ever had the passion or cojones to name a child after their actual battle cry?

War Eagle ended up going to Georgia. It hurt us all.

Jeremy Henderson is the editor of The War Eagle Reader. Write to him at jeremy@thewareaglereader.com.