Auburn « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Auburn

Better than perfection

The thing about the football bowl system is that it gives you time to dream and fret and be exposed to endless amounts of hype. It also lets you reflect. I wrote most of the list below at about this time in 2011, the last time Auburn was set to play for a national championship. It was to be their first appearance since 1957. There are people in Jordan-Hare Stadium who waited all that time to watch their beloved team achieve that kind of success. And now we’re going to see them try again for the second time in four years, which is remarkable.

Football is an important part of the culture here, but Auburn is not a football team. Auburn is a community, a history, and sharing in a common experience. Auburn’s biggest dream is realizing her potential and Auburn’s greatest potential has always been her people.

And we’ve got a lot of people.

I want Auburn to win for:

A teacher – One of my favorite high school teachers, an Auburn grad.
A girl – She was a big part of the reason I chose to apply to Auburn.
Mr. Ethridge – Who gave me my scholarship. He died in 2009.
Dean William Alverson – He helped raise that scholarship money and was my academic adviser. He retired just a few years ago.
My roommate – He and his family, all Auburn people, and all nicer to me than they had to be during my first two years at Auburn. He’s going to Pasadena, and no, I’m not jealous.
Chadd – A friend of more than 15 years, he gave me my start on air, was always full of advice, helped me build an incredible professional foundation. He’s never asked for a thing in return.
For Jim and Rod and Andy and Bill and Paul – Auburn athletics wouldn’t sound the same without them.
For an old man – I sat next to him during the 2004 season. He said simply, “I went to school here when it was API.” He was impressed by that perfect season, and I’m sure he’s amazed by this season, too.
For my wife – She was undeclared until I brought her to her first game but she’s been an Auburn woman ever since. Now she teaches at Auburn and is the director of the public relations program.
For the family in Section 52 – They adopted us and let them sit in their section for years. They remember the Barfield years.
For the Browns – Another strong, proud, kind Auburn family that have been indescribably good to us over the years.
For Shug and Doug and Pat and Terry and Tommy and Gene and Gus – And for all of their coaches and players and staffers, the people fans really mean when saying “We won.”

New additions to the list:

For the Hallmarks – Adam sat through last year and celebrated through this year. He’ll watch this BCS game shivering in some pub in Alaska, on his way to his new duty station.
For the tailgating crew – War Drunj Eagle.
For The War Eagle Reader – which loves like no other. War Eagle forever.

Mostly, I want this team to win for this team. We’ve seen great years, and this has by far been one of the best and most entertaining in many respects.

I wrote this, one of the few good football things I’ve written, before the 2011 BCS game, when everything those guys played for seemed to be more about everyone else. Now, I’m eager to celebrate a great season — I’ve said for the last three games, that we were going into the stadium to congratulate a team for a great performance this season — for the guys actually in the blue and orange.

Much has been written about this team turning around last year’s 3-9 effort. Less has been said about what these guys have gone through. Some of them are national champions. Some have two SEC championships. They’ve also changed head coaches. Some are playing for their third position coach. Some of them have lost parents. Others have had children. They’ve lost teammates. They’ve battled cancer. They’ve stuck together and demanded so much of themselves.

And still Heisman finalist Tre Mason told reporters: “We owed them that. Putting them through last year, we owed them a season like this.”

But, no, this is about them. They’ve succeeded beyond the wildest expectations of everyone but themselves. They’ve always believed.

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27
Dec 13

Back in Connecticut

We traveled all day yesterday. Up and out of my grandmother’s house, skipping breakfast to her mortification, before 8 a.m. Our route took us across regions both populated and sparse and rural. And also down gravel roads. Not even the good stuff, where the creek rocks have been crushed to dust and spit out to the side by previous generations of tires, but loose gravel roads.

Which might be unfair. It was on a detour. A bridge was out, you see, and the local crew that were in the middle of repairing the structure had helpfully hoisted road closed signs and a detour sign, but no actual detour. So we made our own, on roads that looked very much like what we’d traveled in nearly abandoned portions of Ireland this summer.

And from the gravel roads we made it back to the empty county roads and from there through sleepy southern towns and finally into Atlanta and to the place where we parked our car … just in time to miss the airport shuttle.

No matter, there will be another along in 15 minutes, we are right on schedule and so we are really playing with house money for an hour. So we park, unload the things that are going on the next leg of our holiday travels, leaving behind the first stages of clothes and things. The shuttle comes along, we climb on, meet a new young Auburn fan — he’d just chosen sides before Christmas, apparently, and was very pleased to tell us about the shirt he got for Christmas.

These are golden times, my man, and you’ve chosen wisely.

We got into the airport. I instantly lost track of my wife while fiddling about with a zipper or something on my luggage. That took 17 seconds. At 22 seconds, with my thoughtful, staring face firmly applied, a helpful airline employee asked if I was looking for something.

Turns out she was in the check-in line. (Who knew?) I’d found her myself. We checked. We made it through security, where we probably got ourselves on a watch list by hopping lines. We’d committed to one line before realizing the people there were still trying to reach their spring break destinations. So we changed to something that looked like your typically efficient government operation, rather than a Soviet toilet paper queue.

So down to the terminal train and then we found our gate, grabbed some food, finally and got on the plane. Our flight was uneventful, save for the three year old kid doing a wicked Billie Jean cover off and on.

And I had so hoped that flight would have a talent show.

We arrived in Connecticut, where it is cold, as you would expect. Good thing I brought two jackets! On the one hand, we drove and flew almost a full day. On the other hand, we covered more than 1,000 miles. It was an easy night after that, dinner with the in-laws, hauling luggage upstairs and so on.

This morning, we ventured out into the post-Christmas wilderness, and this:

They had a white Christmas, and there is still a little bit of the stuff lying around. It doesn’t impede anything, but it is cold enough to sit in one spot for four or five days without feeling like it is in anyone’s way.

So today we shopped. A visit to the empty mall here, a quick stop to the reasonably underwhelmed Apple store there. We got in and out of a high end district and hit a big name cosmetics store. We visited a haute couture kind of place for one thing or another — I was dizzy with it all by then — and the lady who worked there spoke with us like we were long-lost nieces and nephews.

She’d heard of Auburn. And it had registered enough that, isn’t there some sort of big game? And some sort of rivalry? It was interesting. People either live it or know of it. Or they are completely oblivious to it. But she had just the most passing knowledge — which, hey, good for her, I guess, a fashion store girl in New England knowing anything about the South and its diversions — and I had to explain how this silly little thing was so much a part of our local culture.

It kind of makes you dizzy.

We hit another place or two and then got our collective acts together. We went, with the in-laws and some family friends, to New York City, tonight, here:

At the Lincoln Center there is a performance of MacBeth, staring Ethan Hawke as the cursed mad king. They play the whole thing for the poetry rather than the emotion. Hawke is a much better mad king than a reluctant and treacherous one. It was a fun show, seeing Shakespeare is always good.

They rushed through a lot of really great stuff — this is Macbeth, so of course it is great — as if they just really wanted to get to the last battle, which felt thin for different reasons. Perhaps if they’d lose the rapid fire delivery, and let the audience think about the spaces in between the lines, the show would feel stronger.

We finally had dinner sometime around midnight, at some cafe on the way back home. My body has no concept of regularly spaced meals any more. We’ll get that fixed tomorrow.

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15
Dec 13

A little dusty in here

When you put time and people together you get a funny, curious thing.

I wrote this story a few years ago on a gray, dank, overcast day not unlike today. I was sitting in my library, talking to this guy on the phone. He was in his office in Texas and I was calling him sir.

He visited later. Lauren and I bought him a lemonade at Toomer’s on a warm, rainy afternoon. He was hoping to enroll in the graduate program at Auburn. First, for him, there was Afghanistan. He came home, and then he finally came home to Auburn. He moved in downtown. We became friends. Time expanded, because no one needed to notice. He helped haul an appliance to our house. He became Lauren’s student. There were ballgames and tailgates and movies and cookouts and all of the other little things you take stock of later.

We met his girlfriend. We were there when he proposed. The four of us took a long trip together. We got invited to the wedding and then I was a part of the wedding and suddenly there was the wedding.

Time contracted, because suddenly one had to count. Now he has graduated. We dined with his proud parents last night. The new grad and his wife stayed with us this weekend because their lives are in boxes. After next week it is back to the Army.

Lauren and I had breakfast with them and then said goodbye this morning. This was harder than we all expected. He joked I had to update this story to reflect that he was a proper Auburn man. He was right, though the update was long overdue. So I have updated it; proudly, because the circumstance warranted it because he’s long been an Auburn man, sadly because that means they are on to their next next chapter, Alaska in January.

I called him sir back then out of courtesy, because we were strangers. I call him sir now, from time to time, in the more truly genuine sense, out of respect.

When you put time and people together you get a funny, curious thing.

We miss our friends, Jessica and Adam, already.

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14
Dec 13

Auburn’s fall commencement

I don’t go to a lot of graduations, but this was a good one.

Stan White — who played quarterback at Auburn from 1989-1993, in the NFL for a few years after that and is now an insurance mogul and the color analyst for the Auburn football radio broadcasts — delivered the keynote speech. He talked to the graduates about what they would do when their “one second” came up.

So, basically, the Iron Bowl wrote his speech for him, altar call and all:

Adam walked as he has completed his master’s degree in public relations. Here he is shaking hands with President Jay Gogue:

Our friend Tim also walked, having completed his bachelor’s in computer engineering:

Chris Davis, he of the 109-yard Iron Bowl kick six, also graduated. He was, as you might imagine, something of a hit:

Dee Ford was the last person across the stage. If you look over his shoulder you can see Ric Smith, who announces the graduates. Smith often calls Ford’s name in his other role as the PA announcer in Jordan-Hare Stadium.

I think Gogue here was asking him to get a few sacks of Jameis Winston in his last game in the blue and orange:

Ford was the last to walk today. We later learned that was because he was late. He was no doubt off somewhere being cool, because that’s what he does. (I can say this because we’re Facebook friends. And the guy is cool.)

Several other people we know in one way or another graduated today. It was a fine ceremony.

Near the end, just before the alma mater and the cap tossing, I was trying to find Adam in the crowd. He wasn’t where I thought, which meant I couldn’t get the shot I wanted. But this one isn’t bad, either. They were telling him to wave so I would see him, and the longer it took the bigger his waves got. And he accidentally smacked the president who was walking by. Hence the look:

After graduation, and meeting up with Adam’s parents, we walked around campus taking pictures. The standard stuff, cap and gown in front of all the right buildings and logos and signs. I like this one the best:

We had dinner with Adam and Jessica and his parents. They’re sweet people. They remind me a lot of my family, which is an easy leap since they’re from about two towns over. They have the same familiar accents and pace of speech and everything. As you might imagine, they are just so proud.

Why wouldn’t they be? Earlier today their son caught a pass from a Heisman winner.

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11
Dec 13

Reporting live, on tape, from my pocket

We went to Momma G’s tonight. The place is rich in history — even if they’ve recently leveled the floors. The walls are littered in posters and old Auburn newspaper clippings. I think they’ve finally done away with the old jukebox. But people still write on everything.

When graffiti is a calling card, your sandwich steamer better have mojo. This is never a problem at Momma G’s.

I like to think this one is a two-part piece. First the cheer and then an autograph by Ricardo Louis:

I wonder if this will be painted over or lost in context first:

I did the thing where I got up and offered to get refills for the table. As I did so I found five bucks on the ground. I wanted to give it back to whomever dropped it, but there was no one around. So, in the pocket it went and that was the most lucrative refill ever.

Adam was upset with this news. He just knew he should have gotten the drinks. Of course, I told him, if he’d topped off our cups he would have found a $100. That’s just the sort of luck he’s had lately. He doesn’t dispute it.

So we all sat there, the last people in the place. The guy trying to close made all the polite “Please get out of here so I can go home” noises. Not to be sentimental about it, but we’re down to counting the days before Adam leaves for his next adventure, so I find I’m trying to drag out conversations when we’re all together.

Things to read … Sign language interpreter at Mandela’s memorial a faker. Maybe you’ve heard about the guy playing knick knack paddy whack alongside world leaders. This is a bizarre story, and a disconcerting one when you consider what could have been. It should be interesting to see where this story goes from here.

More from the It Takes a Village file: Boy, 6, Charged with Sexual Harassment for Kissing Girl on Hand:

A 6-year-old Colorado boy was slapped with the label of sexual harasser and suspended, all because he kissed his classmate on the hand.

ABC News affiliate KRDO-TV spoke with the boy, who in the past kissed the same girl — his “girlfriend” — on the cheek.

[…]

The boy’s mother, Jennifer, is outraged, saying of the female student, “She was fine with it, they are ‘boyfriend and girlfriend.’ The other children saw it and went to the music teacher.

Being a child these days is hard, no doubt. We’re just making it harder.

(Update: A day later all of this nonsense has been happily resolved. Funny how widespread media attention and public scorn can do that.)

Mobile ads forecast to account for more than third of new ad revenue by 2016:

Mobile advertising is forecast to be the most important driver of the global advertising economy over the next three years, accounting for more than a third of the $90bn in new revenue expected by 2016.

Advertising delivered to smartphones and tablets will account for 36% of new global ad spend over the next three years, according to a new forecast by global media buying agency group ZenithOptimedia.

However, the growth in mobile advertising will be in addition to rather than at the expense of traditional media such as TV and newspapers, according to ZenithOptimedia.

If you aren’t planning for this, you’re behind.

Gannett to Add USA Today to Local Papers:

Gannett Company, one of the nation’s largest newspaper chains, will try to expand its advertising and circulation revenue by inserting parts of its flagship newspaper, USA Today, into its local newspapers.

Beginning in January, Gannett will add 12 to 14 pages of USA Today content each day to 35 newspapers in its largest markets.

Good luck to them. Hopefully it doesn’t come off as just trying to pad out the local publication with more wire copy at the expensive of in-house reporting.

If you haven’t seen Videolicious yet, and you make videos, you’ll want to check out this little tutorial on a basic, yet powerful, new tool you should add to your arsenal. It is push-button easy. I downloaded it recently, now I’ll just have to put it to use.

So now you have produced holiday videos to look forward to. This makes two video editing suites sitting in my pocket. Chalk this up to what I’ve been saying for years. Smartphones are just signals of future potential.