Tonight, fans are kicking back with their laptops and reading almost real-time reports of Gene Chizik’s speech about Curtis Luper and Gus Malzahn’s $20,000 flight out to Brenham, Texas to recruit our third Heisman Trophy winner this time last year, and downloading photos of the dessert served to the digital cameras of the distinguished guests gathered at the banquet in his honor.
Our first time was a different time.
People weren’t iPhoning photos of Cartoon Carl smoking a stogie or of Sullivan posing a hand-off not to Terry Terrific but to someone we know not who in 1971, they weren’t retweeting overheard jokes between Shug and John Wayne (who was there… somewhere). One of the only persons there with a camera, in fact, was former OA-News photographer Brad Ashmore. It’s from his stockpile of scratched 1970s negatives, donated to the TWERchives several years back, that we pulled these photos of the night 39 years ago that a guy named Pat Sullivan enjoyed a drink from football’s fanciest cup. And we’d like to think it’s kind of neat that as folks take a break from clicking through twitpics of twitpics of HD video of Cam Newton living it up in The Big Apple, that even in the age of The Blessed Individual there’s still enough voyeuristic rah rah for the good old days for people to still care to click through some now imminently tweetable, never-before-seen scenes not of that Bo guy, but of Super Sully, Auburn’s first Heisman winner… Auburn’s once greatest quarterback.
Enjoy.
Help us out with names: so far we see Pat, his wife Jean, Terry, Shug, Dr. Philpott, Gene Lorendo (we think), and Cartoon Carl.
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umm… I don’t think that’s a “scratch” on the second photo. Whoever had that photo also used to draw pictures in the Haley Center bathrooms!
“Dessert” is sweet and has two s’s. “Desert” is dry and has only one.
Of course. Corrected. Thanks.
scott, the mysterious and feared “Heisman Ghost Wang” strikes again!
In the last photo of the people at the table, the first man to the left with the cigar is Bill Lumpkin writer for the Birmingham News at the time.
Also, across from Lumpkin that looks to be Gary Sanders the voice of the Auburn Tigers at the time.
Second from last picture is Pat’s parents, Jerry and Lorraine.
Thanks for doing a piece on Pat’s Heisman. With Cam’s win & the celebration of Bo’s silver anniversary, it felt like Pat was just left out of the celebration in New York. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting both Pat & his wife. & they’re fantastic people. It’s nice to see them both in the feature.
Thanks for doing a piece on Pat’s Heisman. With Cam’s win & the celebration of Bo’s silver anniversary, it felt like Pat was just left out of the celebration in New York. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting both Pat & his wife, & they’re fantastic people. It’s nice to see them both in the feature.
Apologies for the double post, as I’m not sure how that happened.
I think he emailed you, but if not, the “someone we know not who” receiving the handoff in picture 9 (and seated 2nd from right in pictures 2 and 6) is my father-in-law, Tommy Yearout ’72.
Dad (you’re so right Carl) emailed me tonight and identified Bill Lumpkin sitting across from him in the ruffled white shirt, but I see someone beat us to the punch!
Bill Lumpkin was with the Post-Herald in 1973 when I worked there. Perhaps he was with the News when Pat won.
There is a picture in one of the old Auburn books (70s era) of John Wayne and Pat Sullivan at the banquet. It’s either in War Eagle by Clyde Bolton or Saturdays to Remember by David Housel.
I am glad that you did an article on Pat Sullivan winning the Heisman’s trophy. As a child, he and Terry Beasley were my heroes. I was so excited when Pat won the Heisman’s. We had a party at our house. We also went to all the games back then to watch the “Dynamic Duo”. It brought back alot of memories for me.