The magic of YouTube has alacazam’ed another Iron Bowl home movie for us, this time the 1963 edition. It was Auburn’s first win since 1958, our last until song-worthy 1969 (we were robbed during the ’67 Mud Bowl, but I digress). All hail Jimmy Sidle. It was also Auburn’s second game after John F. Kennedy […]
Vintage
The 1937 Bacardi Bowl: Auburn football’s first bowl game was the first, real bowl game played overseas
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 York Times called it a the “battle of the palms.”) But mostly the Bacardi […]
An Auburn grad was personal vet for Ham the Astro-Chimp, the first ‘American’ in space
It wasn’t just Auburn engineers and physicists carrying NASA on their backs. Turns out, even Auburn vets were lending a hand in America’s space program—literally. Dr. Richard Benson, class of ’49, was the main veterinarian (and even roommate or suitemate or something) of the immortal Ham the Space Chimp, the first chimp in space. Ham […]
Bill Holbrook’s ‘The Thing That Ate Auburn’
The Plainsman has had some great cartoonists over the college years. But there was this stretch from the early 70s through the early 80s where there was some real, like, graphic novel quality stuff happening in the editorial pages. Case in pointiest: “Kevin and Kell,” “Safe Havens,” and “On The Fastrack” creator Bill Holbrook‘s copyrighted […]
Remembering the 1957 Houston Cougars’ 41-point homecoming loss to Auburn
There are four teams that will tell you that all that low-hanging retrospective fruit about the 1957 Auburn Tigers knowing only how to tackle doesn’t really reflect their personal experience — and none more loudly than the Houston Cougars.