Written by Jeff Shearer...
Buddy Davidson, who rose from student manager to sports information director to assistant athletic director in a 50-year career, and attended 700 consecutive Auburn football games, passed away Tuesday after an extended illness at the age of 82.
“Nobody ever loved Auburn more than Buddy,” said David Housel, who succeeded Davidson as Auburn’s sports information director in 1981. “Buddy gave his life to Auburn, and in a certain sense, Auburn gave him his life. It gave him meaning. We all want to be part of something bigger than we are. For Buddy, that something was Auburn.”
By the time Davidson graduated from Auburn University in journalism and began working for Athletics fulltime on Sept. 1, 1964, he’d already worked on campus in various capacities for seven years, first as a football student manager for four seasons and as an assistant in sports information. He also served as the sports editor and managing editor of The Plainsman.
An Auburn freshman in 1965, Housel visited Davidson on June 10 offering to volunteer.
“At that moment he took me in and took me under his wings,” Housel said. “I am what I am today due in large part to Buddy Davidson. I think I’m not the only one who can tell that story.
“He was the finest Auburn man I know. He made a big difference not only in Auburn, but in the lives of the people who came to Auburn. Buddy did whatever Auburn needed done.”
After two decades in media relations, Davidson became an assistant AD in 1981, handling travel for football, administrative duties and assisting the director of athletics on special projects.
“He was Coach Dye’s right-hand guy,” recalled former Auburn women’s golf coach Kim Evans, who remembers visiting Davidson at her father’s suggestion upon arriving at Auburn as a freshman on the golf team in 1977. “He was in the middle of it all. He did it all. He handled everything. He was always that sounding board for all of us.
“He was a special guy. He meant a lot to me and to so many. He held that torch a long time for our athletics. He did it with a lot of grace. There was no gruff with Buddy. He was kind and knew how to talk to people. I loved him.”
Davidson served as a mentor to generations of Auburn coworkers, student-athletes and administrators.
“Buddy treated everybody like they were the most important person he’s ever met,” said Jay Jacobs, Auburn’s director of athletics from 2004-17. “I never knew of him having a cross word with anybody. He always thought about Auburn first. He had a deep respect for everyone.
“It didn’t matter the need or the responsibility, Buddy could do it or find a way to get it done. He knew everything about the department from head to toe. He truly was a special person. He cared about people and he loved Auburn.
“People in the league at opposing schools always held Buddy in the highest regard. He was respectful and well-respected.”
Said Housel, “Whenever Auburn needed something done, team travel or scheduling or whatever, Buddy stepped forward and like Isaiah in the Old Testament, Buddy said, ‘Here am I, send me.’”
Ralph Jordan Jr. was 10 years old in 1957 when Davidson became a student manager for Shug Jordan’s Auburn football team as the Tigers went 10-0 en route to the program’s first national championship.
“Over time, he became like a part of the family,” Jordan Jr. recalled. “Buddy is the personification of what it means to be an Auburn man. He lived, breathed, ate and slept Auburn long before he ever came as a student until long after he left after his retirement. Auburn was on the tip of Buddy’s tongue. He will be sorely missed.”
Davidson's streak, Auburn’s longest and one of the longest in college football history, started in the middle of Auburn's national championship season. He attended every game – home and away – for the next six decades.
"I remember most every play in almost every one of those games better than I do some of them that happened two years ago," said Davidson in September of 2014, two weeks before a stroke impaired his speech and mobility. "We only gave up 28 points that whole year."
Even after the stroke, Buddy continued to attend every game, thanks to his son, Rick, Buddy's wife, Fran, their grandsons and a network of devoted friends.
“There’s a lesson for all of us in that,” Housel said.
"Different people have stepped up and helped and have been incredibly giving of their own time and their efforts to keep this thing going, and have a lot of fun doing it, too," Rick Davidson said in 2017.
From student manager to sports information director to assistant athletics director to fan, The Streak endured for 61 seasons until it reached 700 vs. Ole Miss on Oct. 7, 1017.
For Buddy's family, the effort and expense of extending the streak were a small price to pay.
"There just aren't many big deals when you get to spend time with your dad and both of us get to steal this time we didn't really have when he was working 51 years," Rick said during Buddy’s final round trip, No. 698 at Missouri on Sept. 23, 2017. "He would be out here on Thursday; I wouldn't see him for three or four days. He would go a week ahead of time to the bowl games, and that was a workweek for him, 60, 70, 80 hours, where everybody else was having a great time and enjoying it. Now, it's a privilege for him to come and just be a fan. It's easy."
For Buddy Davidson, the ultimate planner who meticulously plotted every detail of Auburn's road trips for decades, The Streak's irony is that it was unplanned.
"It just worked out," Buddy said in 2014. "I couldn't plan it. Didn't plan it. It just happened."
Auburn honored Davidson before the Ole Miss game in 2017, Davidson’s 700th consecutive Auburn game.
Reba Gulledge, who began working at Auburn in 1966, landed her first full-time job as Davidson’s receptionist.
“I thought he was so smart,” said Gulledge in 2017. “I thought he knew everything about Auburn Athletics.”
Forty-five years after arriving at Auburn, in 2002, Davidson mentored Jeremy Roberts in the complexities involved in team travel.
“A lot of things we’re doing today, Buddy’s fingerprints are still on how we operate,” said Roberts, Auburn associate athletics director, operations.
From setting up plane manifests to requisitioning buses and working with hotels, Roberts learned from Davidson’s attention to detail.
“It’s important to treat people the right way and make sure we give ourselves the best chance to win,” Roberts said. “That’s his legacy with those of us who were able to work him, how he handled his business.
“He’s crossed so many generations of Auburn people, Auburn student-athletes, Auburn coaches, Auburn fans, that when you talk about Auburn, you talk about Buddy Davidson. They’re one and the same.
“His history with Auburn is woven into so many different people that when you think about Buddy, you think about Auburn, you think about Auburn, you think about Buddy. It’s interchangeable. The number of people he’s touched, his 60-plus years of following Auburn is really hard to fathom.”
While an Auburn student, Davidson worked as a correspondent for three daily newspapers, gathering experience and connections that served him well as sports information director.
In 1971, he promoted and publicized Pat Sullivan in the SEC and across the country, resulting in Auburn’s first Heisman trophy.
Throughout the season, Davidson sought to walk a fine line between promoting Sullivan without alienating some media members who felt Ole Miss and other reporters had gone overboard the previous season promoting Archie Manning.
Anti-Archie backlash, Housel contends, cleared the way for Stanford’s Jim Plunkett to win the 1970 Heisman.
“Buddy’s job was to promote Pat, but not overdo it,” Housel said.
Backlash came anyway in 1971 in the form of media who felt players from smaller schools should be considered for the award. They rallied behind Cornell’s Ed Marinaro, who would finish second to Sullivan.
Auburn’s Gator Bowl matchup with Manning and Ole Miss to conclude the previous season, a 35-28 Tigers victory, placed Sullivan in the spotlight leading up to his senior season in 1971.
“That clearly set up Pat as a frontrunner going in,” said Housel, noting that Sullivan did his part early in the ’71 season by leading Auburn on an 89-yard fourth-quarter drive in a 10-9 comeback win at Tennessee.
“One of the greatest drives I’ve ever seen in Auburn football history,” Housel said.
Auburn’s 31-14 victory at Georgia Tech provided ample storylines, with trophy namesake John Heisman having coached at both schools.
Sullivan solidified his case by leading Auburn to a 35-20 win vs. Georgia in the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry, giving the Tigers a 9-0 record.
“That was the big one,” Housel said.
Davidson was with Sullivan and his wife, Jean, on Thanksgiving evening in 1971, when ABC announced Pat’s Heisman win during halftime of the Georgia-Georgia Tech game, procuring a room for the Sullivans at the Heart of Auburn Motel to watch the ceremony after the TV signal at their apartment was lost.
When Downtown Athletic Club president John Ott announced that Pat Sullivan from Auburn University was the most outstanding player in college football, Davidson suggested the Sullivans go from the motel to the coliseum, at the time the location of Auburn’s football offices.
“It was packed,” Jean recalled a half century later. ‘The whole town and student body had turned out. It just erupted when he got there.
“What was wonderful was that all of his teammates were right there. It was very, very special that they shared in the feeling of their participation in him winning the trophy.”
Davidson is survived by wife, Fran, his son, Rick, and grandsons Walker, Luker and Patrick.
“A lot of people have loved Auburn,” Housel said. “Nobody loved it more than Buddy Davidson.”
Buddy Davidson, who rose from student manager to sports information director to assistant athletic director in a 50-year career, and attended 700 consecutive Auburn football games, passed away Tuesday after an extended illness at the age of 82.
“Nobody ever loved Auburn more than Buddy,” said David Housel, who succeeded Davidson as Auburn’s sports information director in 1981. “Buddy gave his life to Auburn, and in a certain sense, Auburn gave him his life. It gave him meaning. We all want to be part of something bigger than we are. For Buddy, that something was Auburn.”
By the time Davidson graduated from Auburn University in journalism and began working for Athletics fulltime on Sept. 1, 1964, he’d already worked on campus in various capacities for seven years, first as a football student manager for four seasons and as an assistant in sports information. He also served as the sports editor and managing editor of The Plainsman.
An Auburn freshman in 1965, Housel visited Davidson on June 10 offering to volunteer.
“At that moment he took me in and took me under his wings,” Housel said. “I am what I am today due in large part to Buddy Davidson. I think I’m not the only one who can tell that story.
“He was the finest Auburn man I know. He made a big difference not only in Auburn, but in the lives of the people who came to Auburn. Buddy did whatever Auburn needed done.”
After two decades in media relations, Davidson became an assistant AD in 1981, handling travel for football, administrative duties and assisting the director of athletics on special projects.
“He was Coach Dye’s right-hand guy,” recalled former Auburn women’s golf coach Kim Evans, who remembers visiting Davidson at her father’s suggestion upon arriving at Auburn as a freshman on the golf team in 1977. “He was in the middle of it all. He did it all. He handled everything. He was always that sounding board for all of us.
“He was a special guy. He meant a lot to me and to so many. He held that torch a long time for our athletics. He did it with a lot of grace. There was no gruff with Buddy. He was kind and knew how to talk to people. I loved him.”
Davidson served as a mentor to generations of Auburn coworkers, student-athletes and administrators.
“Buddy treated everybody like they were the most important person he’s ever met,” said Jay Jacobs, Auburn’s director of athletics from 2004-17. “I never knew of him having a cross word with anybody. He always thought about Auburn first. He had a deep respect for everyone.
“It didn’t matter the need or the responsibility, Buddy could do it or find a way to get it done. He knew everything about the department from head to toe. He truly was a special person. He cared about people and he loved Auburn.
“People in the league at opposing schools always held Buddy in the highest regard. He was respectful and well-respected.”
Said Housel, “Whenever Auburn needed something done, team travel or scheduling or whatever, Buddy stepped forward and like Isaiah in the Old Testament, Buddy said, ‘Here am I, send me.’”
Ralph Jordan Jr. was 10 years old in 1957 when Davidson became a student manager for Shug Jordan’s Auburn football team as the Tigers went 10-0 en route to the program’s first national championship.
“Over time, he became like a part of the family,” Jordan Jr. recalled. “Buddy is the personification of what it means to be an Auburn man. He lived, breathed, ate and slept Auburn long before he ever came as a student until long after he left after his retirement. Auburn was on the tip of Buddy’s tongue. He will be sorely missed.”
Davidson's streak, Auburn’s longest and one of the longest in college football history, started in the middle of Auburn's national championship season. He attended every game – home and away – for the next six decades.
"I remember most every play in almost every one of those games better than I do some of them that happened two years ago," said Davidson in September of 2014, two weeks before a stroke impaired his speech and mobility. "We only gave up 28 points that whole year."
Even after the stroke, Buddy continued to attend every game, thanks to his son, Rick, Buddy's wife, Fran, their grandsons and a network of devoted friends.
“There’s a lesson for all of us in that,” Housel said.
"Different people have stepped up and helped and have been incredibly giving of their own time and their efforts to keep this thing going, and have a lot of fun doing it, too," Rick Davidson said in 2017.
From student manager to sports information director to assistant athletics director to fan, The Streak endured for 61 seasons until it reached 700 vs. Ole Miss on Oct. 7, 1017.
For Buddy's family, the effort and expense of extending the streak were a small price to pay.
"There just aren't many big deals when you get to spend time with your dad and both of us get to steal this time we didn't really have when he was working 51 years," Rick said during Buddy’s final round trip, No. 698 at Missouri on Sept. 23, 2017. "He would be out here on Thursday; I wouldn't see him for three or four days. He would go a week ahead of time to the bowl games, and that was a workweek for him, 60, 70, 80 hours, where everybody else was having a great time and enjoying it. Now, it's a privilege for him to come and just be a fan. It's easy."
For Buddy Davidson, the ultimate planner who meticulously plotted every detail of Auburn's road trips for decades, The Streak's irony is that it was unplanned.
"It just worked out," Buddy said in 2014. "I couldn't plan it. Didn't plan it. It just happened."
Auburn honored Davidson before the Ole Miss game in 2017, Davidson’s 700th consecutive Auburn game.
Reba Gulledge, who began working at Auburn in 1966, landed her first full-time job as Davidson’s receptionist.
“I thought he was so smart,” said Gulledge in 2017. “I thought he knew everything about Auburn Athletics.”
Forty-five years after arriving at Auburn, in 2002, Davidson mentored Jeremy Roberts in the complexities involved in team travel.
“A lot of things we’re doing today, Buddy’s fingerprints are still on how we operate,” said Roberts, Auburn associate athletics director, operations.
From setting up plane manifests to requisitioning buses and working with hotels, Roberts learned from Davidson’s attention to detail.
“It’s important to treat people the right way and make sure we give ourselves the best chance to win,” Roberts said. “That’s his legacy with those of us who were able to work him, how he handled his business.
“He’s crossed so many generations of Auburn people, Auburn student-athletes, Auburn coaches, Auburn fans, that when you talk about Auburn, you talk about Buddy Davidson. They’re one and the same.
“His history with Auburn is woven into so many different people that when you think about Buddy, you think about Auburn, you think about Auburn, you think about Buddy. It’s interchangeable. The number of people he’s touched, his 60-plus years of following Auburn is really hard to fathom.”
While an Auburn student, Davidson worked as a correspondent for three daily newspapers, gathering experience and connections that served him well as sports information director.
In 1971, he promoted and publicized Pat Sullivan in the SEC and across the country, resulting in Auburn’s first Heisman trophy.
Throughout the season, Davidson sought to walk a fine line between promoting Sullivan without alienating some media members who felt Ole Miss and other reporters had gone overboard the previous season promoting Archie Manning.
Anti-Archie backlash, Housel contends, cleared the way for Stanford’s Jim Plunkett to win the 1970 Heisman.
“Buddy’s job was to promote Pat, but not overdo it,” Housel said.
Backlash came anyway in 1971 in the form of media who felt players from smaller schools should be considered for the award. They rallied behind Cornell’s Ed Marinaro, who would finish second to Sullivan.
Auburn’s Gator Bowl matchup with Manning and Ole Miss to conclude the previous season, a 35-28 Tigers victory, placed Sullivan in the spotlight leading up to his senior season in 1971.
“That clearly set up Pat as a frontrunner going in,” said Housel, noting that Sullivan did his part early in the ’71 season by leading Auburn on an 89-yard fourth-quarter drive in a 10-9 comeback win at Tennessee.
“One of the greatest drives I’ve ever seen in Auburn football history,” Housel said.
Auburn’s 31-14 victory at Georgia Tech provided ample storylines, with trophy namesake John Heisman having coached at both schools.
Sullivan solidified his case by leading Auburn to a 35-20 win vs. Georgia in the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry, giving the Tigers a 9-0 record.
“That was the big one,” Housel said.
Davidson was with Sullivan and his wife, Jean, on Thanksgiving evening in 1971, when ABC announced Pat’s Heisman win during halftime of the Georgia-Georgia Tech game, procuring a room for the Sullivans at the Heart of Auburn Motel to watch the ceremony after the TV signal at their apartment was lost.
When Downtown Athletic Club president John Ott announced that Pat Sullivan from Auburn University was the most outstanding player in college football, Davidson suggested the Sullivans go from the motel to the coliseum, at the time the location of Auburn’s football offices.
“It was packed,” Jean recalled a half century later. ‘The whole town and student body had turned out. It just erupted when he got there.
“What was wonderful was that all of his teammates were right there. It was very, very special that they shared in the feeling of their participation in him winning the trophy.”
Davidson is survived by wife, Fran, his son, Rick, and grandsons Walker, Luker and Patrick.
“A lot of people have loved Auburn,” Housel said. “Nobody loved it more than Buddy Davidson.”
