Update: This appeared on The War Eagle Reader, with extra pictures and a different title.

Aubie bragged about the university’s medals after the 2008 Olympics. Why not? People who bleed orange and blue won more bling than many of the countries nations that showed up in Beijing, tying Spain and Canada at 14th among nations with 18 trips to the podium.

And though Aubie’s petition to have the fight song played during the awards ceremonies was turned down by the IOC, he’ll likely be counting medals again this year. Auburn sent 27 athletes and four coaches to the United Kingdom. That’s a larger contingent than 126 countries.

Historically the Tigers have brought home plenty of hardware, 46 medals going into the London Games. A family among nations, Auburn is the 44th most prolific winner of all time on the international stage.

But who started it?

Famed Tiger Euil “Snitz” Snider was the first Auburn Olympian. Legendary track coach Wilbur Hutsell took him to Amsterdam in 1928. Snider’s Alabama Sports Hall of Fame bio says he qualified by setting a national record of 48 seconds flat in the 400 meter race. He was beaten out in the second round of heat races, but if Snider had pulled that run of his life again … he would have medaled …

Snider would go on to become a high school coaching icon in Bessemer, Ala. for three decades, where a football stadium is today named in his honor. He died in 1975 and was posthumously inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1977 and the AHSAA Hall of Fame in 1991.

Four years later Auburn returned to the Olympics on the legs of Pearcy Beard, a Kentucky native who became a world-class hurdler during his tenure at Auburn.

Beard carried high hopes into the 1932 games in Los Angeles, where he ran preliminary times of 14.7 and 14.6 in the 110 meter hurdles. He raced to the silver, finishing one-tenth of a second behind George Saling, another American, who happened to set the world record that day.

We like to think he was telling Saling, an Iowa boy, got by him only because Beard was telling him about the loveliest village.

Beard ultimately set records in hurdles races for almost a decade before becoming a coach for 27 years at the University of Florida, where the track and field facility still bears his name.

Auburn’s first medalist died in 1990, at the age of 82, living long enough to be inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, the USA Track & Field Hall of Fame and the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame. He was posthumously inducted into the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1995 and added to the Auburn Tiger Trail in 1996.

And now the medal count begins once again again. Print out this list, put War Eagle on your MP3 player, and get ready for Olympic vict’ry.

AUBURN’S 2012 OLYMPIANS
George Bovell Trinidad & Tobago Swimming 50m Free / 100m Free	Adam Brown Great Britain Swimming 50m Free / 400m Free Relay
Marc Burns Trinidad & Tobago Track & Field 400m Relay	Mark Carroll Ireland Track & Field Assistant Coach
Marcelo Chierighini Brazil Swimming 400m Free Relay	Cesar Cielo Brazil Swimming 50m Free/ 100m Free/ 400FreeRelay
Kirsty Coventry Zimbabwe Swimming 100m Back/200m Back/200m IM	James Disney-May Great Britain Swimming 400m Free Relay
Glenn Eller United States Shooting Double Trap	Sheniqua Ferguson Bahamas Track & Field 100m / 200m / 400m Relay
Megan Fonteno American Samoa Swimming 100m Free	Brett Hawke Bahamas Swimming Head Coach
Stephanie Horner Canada Swimming 400m IM	Micah Lawrence United States Swimming 200m Breast
Gideon Louw South Africa Swimming 50m Free/100m Free/400FreeRelay	Josanne Lucas Trinidad & Tobago Track & Field 100m Hurdles
David Marsh United States Swimming Assistant Coach	Tyler McGill United States Swimming 100m Fly / 400m Free Relay
Avard Moncur Bahamas Track & Field 400m Relay	V’alonee Robinson Bahamas Track & Field 400m Relay
Henry Rolle Bahamas Track & Field Assistant Coach	Stephen Saenz Mexico Track & Field Shot Put
Leevan Sands Bahamas Track & Field Triple Jump	Shamar Sands Bahamas Track & Field 110m Hurdles
Kai Selvon Trinidad & Tobago Track & Field 100m / 200m / 400m Relay	Eric Shanteau United States Swimming 100m Breast / 400m Medley Relay
Maurice Smith Jamaica Track & Field Decathlon	Kerron Stewart Jamaica Track & Field 100m / 400m Relay
Matt Targett Australia Swimming 400m Free Relay	Donald Thomas Bahamas Track & Field High Jump
Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace Bahamas Swimming 50m Free / 100m Free	2012 Paralympic Games Dave Denniston United States Swimming Assistant coach

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2012 at 11:02 pm and is filed under Auburn, history, links, Thursday. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.