We’ve written about former Auburn football and basketball star Howard Hill before. We’re writing about him again. He deserves it. Dude remains the greatest archer to ever draw bow and breath. And on those breaths road the mild satisfying smoke of Chesterfield Cigarettes, for as long as they paid him at least. Yes, so big [...]

More praise for Shug the basketballer. Sure, you have to take Elmer Salter’s 1937 sketch of Auburn freshman football coach Ralph Jordan with a grain of Salter–he was Auburn’s publicist, and he was writing it for the Plainsman. But still, you don’t just call someone “one of the leading sharp-shooters in basket-ball ever to play [...]

Happy Auburn Football Father’s Day. Here’s George Petrie and his Dad, Presbyterian minister George Laurens Petrie, in 1920, when Petrie was serving as Dean of Auburn’s Academic Faculty in addition to his history professin’. Photo: AU Archives. Related: The first publication of the Auburn Creed. … Keep Reading: * Auburn’s barbers were super-patriotic during World [...]

Auburn coach Gus Malzahn spent part of his week filming a Ford commercial on Auburn’s campus. So it’s obviously high time to check out some car ads featuring former Auburn coaches. And while Gene Chizik’s final Ford commercial was indeed memorable (for being so depressingly ironic)… … this is TWER—you know where we’re heading: The [...]

Old Auburn “yells and songs” from 100 years ago. They helped Auburn win a national championship in 1913, maybe they’ll mix some magic into 2013. Learn them. Love them. Skyrocket. Boom. Auburn. From the Oct. 13, 1913 issue of the Orange and Blue… soup’s on:   This post sponsored by Toomer’s Drugs, sole agents for [...]

Freshmen in pajamas technically reenacting the deliberate possible crashing of a passenger train—what wasn’t to love?! What’s not to miss?! Yes, sadly, save for a brief appearance in the mid-2000s, the cherished Wreck Tech parade disappeared from Auburn’s streets and yearbooks when Auburn and Georgia Tech discontinued their annual rivalry in the late 80s. Let [...]

There’s new talk of bowl games going international. Wouldn’t be anything new for Auburn. Auburn (7-2-1). Villanova (7-2). Tropical Stadium. Havana, Cuba. New Year’s Day, 1937, the second to last day of the week-long first “Cuban National Sports Festival.” They called it the Bacardi Bowl. Or the Rhumba Bowl. Or the Cigar Bowl. (The New [...]

As good was they were (because they were made by “Crow” the Smiler), the fanciest drinks ever served in Auburn weren’t the only reason you went to the Drug Store on the Corner. You went there for cigars, you went there for cigarettes. And if you wanted some Hernsheimers, which sound fancy as all get [...]

From a forthcoming treatise on the Auburn Creed by Ben Bartley, excerpted here on the occasion of the 69th anniversary of D-Day. George Petrie wrote The Auburn Creed on November 12, 1943. He was 77. The Plainsman published the “Auburn Student’s Creed” on January 21, 1944. Shug Jordan arrived at Normandy on June 6, 1944 [...]

The War seeped into every aspect of American life in 1943. Auburn was no exception. Haircuts were no exception. In fact, any civilian who walked into one of Auburn’s four barbershops on the weekend deserved to walk out with a swastika shaved into your head, you Nazi. From the Sept. 10, 1943 issue of the [...]