“Dameyune Craig is dead to me.” Someone actually wrote that. No, not just someone. An Auburn fan actually wrote that. Several of them. Dead. Really.
So get out your media guides and your black markers and draw a thick line over the 5th all-time leading passer in Auburn history (6,026 yards). Cross out the record holder for most yards passing in a single season (3,277). Better just tear out any page that makes reference to the 1997 season, when Dameyune Craig almost single-handedly led his team to 10 wins and came within a point of winning an SEC Championship. While you’re at it, best to just erase your memory banks altogether of one of the single most electrifying players to ever play quarterback on The Plains.
Why? Because he has apparently been too good at his job as the quarterback coach and, more importantly, recruiting coordinator at Florida State. He beat his alma mater head to head for the signatures of a few highly recruited high school kids this year. Oh, and he did a little celebratory dance that many in orange and blue took as a slap in the face after one such recruit chose the Seminoles.
Message boards flared up after National Signing Day this year with quotes like the one above (and some less suitable for mixed company) that spewed venom at the former Auburn star. Rumors proliferated that he has been negatively recruiting his former program and a video circulated of him doing the aforementioned dance complete with a backwards cap and faux towel wave, a not so subtle imitation of Auburn’s own recruiting guru Trooper Taylor.
That’s the extent of Craig’s alleged crimes against Auburn. Is any of it enough to bury a former Auburn great? If he’s negatively recruiting the school he played for to land a recruit at the school that currently pays his salary, is that unforgivable? Sure, you would like to think that he wouldn’t go there–he told Auburn Undercover’s Phillip Marshall that he didn’t, in fact, go there in a report last week– but it happens all the time everywhere.
Is mocking one of Auburn’s coaches–and it’s doubtful Taylor cared half as much about Craig’s shenanigans as some fans do– enough to hop on a message board or Twitter and proclaim that he is no longer an Auburn man?
More importantly, does it serve any purpose at all to air these grievances publicly? Future recruits will surely want to sign with a school whose fanbase will throw a past great under the bus like some have Craig, right? (Or Stephen Davis for not forcing Marcus Lattimore to sign with Auburn, or Karlos Dansby for claiming his high school instead of Auburn in his Monday Night Football into – this is a disturbing trend).
This is not Stanley McClover going on HBO to falsely accuse the program of wrongdoing. This is not Eric Ramsey. This is Dameyune Craig. Even if all these rumors are true. Even if all of these people cursing his name know juicy details about him that are far worse. Even if he really has burned his bridges at Auburn and will never be publicly welcomed back to Jordan-Hare (unless it is on the visiting sideline).
Maybe it’s the personal bias of someone who was in school for the DC Era, but it will take much more than what has been put out there to this point–much more–to erase the great things Craig did on the football field for Auburn. For some, maybe the idea of the Auburn Family began when they started printing T-shirts last season, but for many others it is something that extends back just a bit longer.
To those people, Dameyune Craig lives on.
Photo via.
Riley Downing graduated from Auburn in 1999 and moved to the Washington, D.C. area, where he has been stuck ever since. He makes the most of his long daily commute and forfeits sleep in an attempt to keep up with everything Auburn and cling to his brief moment on The Plains. Follow him on Twitter—@FearlessandTrue.
Related: The Mysterious Auburn Man.
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Agree 100 percent.
I love Trooper, but Trooper will be gone in a few years like any coach. He is employed by Auburn and represents Auburn to the best of his ability.
In the Auburn Man category, he couldn’t hold Dameyune Craig’s jock. That some fans are too dense to realize this speaks very poorly of them.
I have dreams of Dameyune returning to The Plains one day. I hope he’s not negative recruiting Auburn, and I’ll take his word from him that he’s not. I do have to say one thing, though… wow I had forgotten how ugly those “orange shadowed numbers” on the unis were.
Dameyune is an Auburn Man through and through. The fact that guys like him, Rodney Garner, Kevin Greene, and countless others are doing an excellent job in their vocation makes me proud of our university.
Dameyune is a competitor. Period. Nothing wrong with that. I hope one day he can return to Auburn. Recruitniks are sometimes a little crazy…
” For some, maybe the idea of the Auburn Family began when they started printing T-shirts last season, but for many others it is something that extends back just a bit longer.
To those people, Dameyune Craig lives on.”
^ big fat honkin’ WORD
Dameyune will always be an Auburn man. Even if he one day coaches for Alabam… No, no. I can’t say it.
WFE!
I know Dameyunes family he comes from some prideful hard working folks and I LOVED him at Auburn and he will ALWAYS be an AUBurn MAN!!
Well, It is hard to stomach…I had a DC jersey (with the sewn on numbers circa 1996) – it was my lucky BIG game attire until I retired it in 2005. I do feel every player from the Bowden Era (not named Takeo Spikes) has a strained relationship with AU. I mean who can blame Stephen Davis…that guy should have won the hiesman in 1995 – but Bowden wanted to run a 4 WR set and throw the ball 40 times a game. It was a wilderness in the 90’s – plenty of good teams but they really under achieved & they rarely pulled those magical Auburn Overdog wins post 1994. It’s like after the Dye players graduated, the classic AU mojo left with them. How did we not go to ATL in 1995 with a future All-Pro RB in the back field – two words: Terry, Bowden. Love him & HATE him. As sweet as the 95 and 97 Iron Bowl wins were – AU should have won those games by 2 or 3 TD’s (especially the 97 game – that Bama team was 3-8). BUT – how amzing was that 1993 season and the Nix to Sanders come back versus Bama, and the celebration after with Bowden pulling Dye out of the stands…it felt like the beginning of something special – it was more the true end of the Dye Era.
TROOPER > Craig
Was in college when Craig was QB…he was a Heisman contender the year we won those 10 games. Lost his bid when we lost to Florida, I believe. He was sacked 10 times. Line couldn’t stop a child from breaking through.
We were so close to beating Tennesse in the championship game too…
DC is the man. He has every right to recruit hard for Florida State. It’s his job to do that. And if he does his job anything like he did his QB job at Auburn he’s gonna bring FSU a lot more recruits.
To the person who said DC is ‘dead to them’.
Ron White says it best: “You can’t fix stupid.”
Dameyune Craig will always, always, always be one of my most favorite Auburn quarterbacks. In the same group as Pat, Jason, and Cam.
Agree. There is no evidence DC bad-mouthed AU, only conjecture. As for the impersonation, lighten up. DC obviously felt he beat a strong, respected competitor, and I bet Troop got a laugh out of the impersonation.
until I hear it from DC himself, I’ll never believe he bad mouthed Auburn. I love me some DC!
I heard from people who know, that he was interested in the Auburn OC job. So you are going to have a hard time telling me he doesn’t love Auburn. He is just kicking butt at what he does. Can’t fault him for that.
Really enjoyed all the comments, everyone. Glad to know I’m not alone in supporting DC.
My all time favorite AU player. My jersey has a 16 on it and that ain’t for Greg Taylor or Daniel Cobb. I’m proud of what a good recruiter he’s turned out to be. Lots of former players are doing great jobs for other teams. That’s their JOB. It’s how they feed their families. It means there are some great coaches out there waiting to coach at Auburn one day who are already Auburn men.
I want all Auburn men and women to have success in whatever field that they are in. (as long as they are not football coaches at bama). I want him to be the best recruiter, coach, and person that he can be. None of that takes away from Auburn or hurts Auburn.
There are a lot of recruiters out there bad-mouthing Auburn. I doubt he is doing that.
FSU has always gotten great recruits and will always get great recruits. Everything is not a zero-sum game. Auburn can have success and D. Craig can have success at FSU.
Riley,
I get the point of your article, but you might want to dig a little deeper. DC is certainly not dead to me, as I remember the 97 season vividly and was in attendance in ATL when we should have beaten Peyton Manning. I didn’t like his impersonation of Trooper, at the same time it isn’t really a big deal. Also, negative recruiting is part of the business (although an uneccessary part as most kids don’t really like hearing a coach dog another school anyway). If that was all we were talking about then I would be in 100% agreement with what you wrote. DC’s negative recruiting against AU goes beyond par for the course in the act that is negative recruiting. Fans of UA have long since tried to paint AU and Auburn as a racist University and town, and DC has used his time as a player at AU to legitimize rumors that he knows to be blatantly false. That is not right. He has said these things to recruits and recruits have passed on the info to Trooper Taylor. If you don’t think DC has said any of those things that is your opinion, but to do so would be calling Trooper a liar. I would still welcome him as part of the staff, but would be very surprised if it ever happens with AU’s current staff in place.
Wes,
If he is in fact telling recruits that AU is a racist institution then that is unfortunate, but I can’t speak to his experiences here as a player. What might seem like a very welcoming and accepting environment to us now may not have always been that way for an African-American quarterback in the mid to late ’90s. I’d like to think his time at Auburn was all great, and from his quotes to Phillip Marshall he still loves Auburn, but I don’t know.
I trust Trooper, the rest of our coaching staff and current players to show recruits that any such claims made today are baseless. I hope Auburn students, faculty, residents, alumni and fans ensure that they remain that way.
Either way, I don’t see any good coming from the public condemnation he has received in places. I would prefer to see whatever is going on dealt with by the people Auburn is paying to deal with it. I hope Trooper and company beat him for every recruit next year, but I was tired of seeing a past Auburn great get trashed every time he was mentioned and felt like writing about it.
There are probably several points I failed to make properly and I will fully admit my bias towards DC after watching him as a student. I very much appreciate your comment and your point of view. Thanks for reading.
War Eagle.
At some point you have to forget about childhood memories and realize that things change when you grow up. Dameyune has never been back to Auburn for any celebration or recognition or anything. Now there’s this video of him taking extra delight in beating Auburn in recruiting. I understand doing his job, but it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t like Auburn for some reason. It may be tough to accept, but not every player is what you think they were when you watched them play.
The only thing wrong with Dameyune is he is not coaching for AU. The man is doing his job and I have zero problems with how he does it.
Wanting his new team to win a ballgame against AU by doing his job well is not a reason to be mad at him. When you are a coach your loyalty is with your paycheck, that’s just a fact and you can’t blame him for that. I hope he is working for AU one day, but until then he’s doing his job. You think when Tracey Rocker was coaching at Arkansas he went around telling everyone how much he loved AU? Grow up people. If you ever watched Dameyune play his days at AU when he was pretty much all we had, and if we were going to win it was going to have to come from him, you would never doubt him. Do you job however you need to Dameyune, we will be here when you are ready to come back home. Makes me want to dig the old #16 jersey out of the closet!
One thing Auburn fans (and all CFB fans, really) need to realize is that YOU love your school more than the coaches and players do. Players haven’t shared in all the rich traditions you have, and can’t yet wax nostalgic about it. Coaches can’t afford to love it that much. It might pay their bills this month, and turn against them the very next.
Didn’t like DC doing the Trooper Taylor Dance? GOOD! You weren’t supposed to like it. But if Trooper was recruiting for the Tide and DC was recruiting for AU and did the dance, we Auburn fans would think it was the funniest thing we had ever seen, and would be sending all our Tide fan friends links to the youtube video.
I hope DC hasn’t been lying to recruits about his time at Auburn, but if he has been honestly relaying his experiences at AU to FSU recruits, then more power to him. I do appreciate what he did while he was at AU, and I personally would love to see him come back.