I first posted this back in late November 2017. The reason was obvious: the Auburn base is filled with folks who don't understand the true history between a pair of educational institutions that goes far, far beyond athletics. It's every bit as pertinent now as it was then and on the 30th anniversary of the first Iron Bowl played in Auburn, it's especially appropriate.
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The bitter roots of the Auburn-Alabama rivalry are based in opposing perspectives. All Auburn folks ever wanted was freedom. Alabama wanted Auburn’s eradication.
The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 made Auburn University possible. Public lands were apportioned for the establishment of higher education dedicated toward agriculture and the mechanical arts: architecture, engineering and the like. Most of the modern-day SEC – Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas A&M – sprang from this act as the nation recovered from the Civil War.
The University of Alabama felt sure they should determine the fate of land-grant opportunity. As expected, the state legislature was rife with Bama alumni. They wanted to sell the 240,000 acres of Morrill Act land scripts or have them held in conjunction with the Tuscaloosa college.
Meanwhile Auburn was successful in offering up the remains of the East Alabama Male College (chartered 1856) for the new plan. In 1872, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama was founded but its new board of trustees and the state mismanaged the endowment. The new school was in danger of collapse.
The state legislature’s failure in due diligence seemed beyond coincidental to some. Were the school to go belly up, the University of Alabama would benefit by assuming the remaining land scripts.
Bama continued to vex the land-grant school. They lowered tuition and graduation standards to siphon off students. Auburn President Isaac Tichenor beseeched the state to make his school’s rates comparable so they could compete.
In 1892, the land-grant school became coed and its name soon changed to Alabama Polytechnic Institute. Its struggles remained the same.
In 1907, a proposal arose on Goat Hill to move the land-grant school to Birmingham. In that same session, Auburn finally was awarded its first state appropriation after 35 years of existence. However, they only gained receipt of a third of the $800,000 dollars as it seemed the Bama alum-packed legislature was aided in attempts to “dry out” the east Alabama upstarts.
In 1912, new University of Alabama President George Denny – the same man who openly voiced plans to turn the university into a football factory – penned a piece for newspaper publication. He wrote “choice young men and women” of the state wanted to attend the University of Alabama because it was known throughout the country, not within the “narrow confines” of a single state.
From before World War I through the Great Depression, further Auburn appropriations were regularly withheld. Instead, the state attempted to fund Auburn through a portion of a tax on agricultural equipment and fertilizer. Remaining funding was from federal sources.
In 1922, Auburn weathered an attempt to have the college moved to Montgomery.
In 1932, Bama forces tried having Auburn defunded after a Brookings Institute report showed API had higher per-student expenditure than the Capstone. API countered that scientific courses cost more than liberal arts programs.
Bama’s perceived superiority culminated in a 1945 address to state entities wherein they maintained that the University of Alabama’s responsibilities for higher educations were undercut by the establishment of “the normal schools, higher education for blacks,” the women’s college at Montevallo and the land-grant college at Auburn. Considering the esteem in which African-Americans and women were held in 1945 Dixie, the equation speaks volumes. Tuscaloosa propagandists tried to paint Auburn's founding with endemic hatred for the Reconstruction era, that Auburn's presence was the result of “the illogic inherent in the evolution of a democratic government.”
The report’s haughty tone drew a sharp response from Auburn President Luther Duncan who said he had never seen “a bolder, more deliberate, more vicious, or more deceptive document.” He predicted if the friends of Auburn and Montevallo did not rise up to combat “this evil monster,” it would consume them “just like the doctrine of Hitler.”
With the G.I. Bill at the end of World War II, Auburn’s enrollment doubled between 1944 and 1948. Bama’s hopes of starving the cross-state school and absorbing its resources died.
In the Heart of Dixie, Faulkner’s observation – “the past is never dead; it isn’t even past” – reigns supreme. This historic friction has filtered down to contemporary residents and institutions.
That’s what fueled the gridiron rivalry. It’s what drove the passions of 1989’s “First Time Ever,” when the Crimson Tide’s arrival in the Loveliest Village was their disgruntled admission of equality. It’s what fed David Housel’s oft-scoffed comparisons of Bama to historic villains and dictatorial adversaries.
I have listened as Bama alums admitted their university is “just better” than Auburn, with no logic or reasoning, just a fact of existence like gravity or entropy. To me it comes from a perspective rooted in the Old South and its feudal system, where the womb that fostered you determined your lifelong worth.
It’s the mindset of oligarchs and oppressors. It’s antithetical to the best of America. The only cure for this kind of bullying is well established: rise up and punch it right in the kisser.
And that’s what Bama’s about to find out in less than a week’s time.
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I have to add that I don't feel as confident about Auburn's chances in 2019 as I did in 2017. I think Auburn's defense is fearsome but the offense woeful. I would love to see Auburn squash what we all see unfolding in slow motion -- another Crimson Tide team that will back into a championship process despite failing to even win their conference division -- for the third time in less than a decade.
But more than that, because football remains the raison d'etre for so many associated with the University of Alabama, so many Harvey Updykes both enrolled and not, I want to see them hurt where it matters most.
And feel a little victory for generations of Alabamians who were denigrated for daring to try and better their lives.
---
The bitter roots of the Auburn-Alabama rivalry are based in opposing perspectives. All Auburn folks ever wanted was freedom. Alabama wanted Auburn’s eradication.
The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 made Auburn University possible. Public lands were apportioned for the establishment of higher education dedicated toward agriculture and the mechanical arts: architecture, engineering and the like. Most of the modern-day SEC – Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas A&M – sprang from this act as the nation recovered from the Civil War.
The University of Alabama felt sure they should determine the fate of land-grant opportunity. As expected, the state legislature was rife with Bama alumni. They wanted to sell the 240,000 acres of Morrill Act land scripts or have them held in conjunction with the Tuscaloosa college.
Meanwhile Auburn was successful in offering up the remains of the East Alabama Male College (chartered 1856) for the new plan. In 1872, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama was founded but its new board of trustees and the state mismanaged the endowment. The new school was in danger of collapse.
The state legislature’s failure in due diligence seemed beyond coincidental to some. Were the school to go belly up, the University of Alabama would benefit by assuming the remaining land scripts.
Bama continued to vex the land-grant school. They lowered tuition and graduation standards to siphon off students. Auburn President Isaac Tichenor beseeched the state to make his school’s rates comparable so they could compete.
In 1892, the land-grant school became coed and its name soon changed to Alabama Polytechnic Institute. Its struggles remained the same.
In 1907, a proposal arose on Goat Hill to move the land-grant school to Birmingham. In that same session, Auburn finally was awarded its first state appropriation after 35 years of existence. However, they only gained receipt of a third of the $800,000 dollars as it seemed the Bama alum-packed legislature was aided in attempts to “dry out” the east Alabama upstarts.
In 1912, new University of Alabama President George Denny – the same man who openly voiced plans to turn the university into a football factory – penned a piece for newspaper publication. He wrote “choice young men and women” of the state wanted to attend the University of Alabama because it was known throughout the country, not within the “narrow confines” of a single state.
From before World War I through the Great Depression, further Auburn appropriations were regularly withheld. Instead, the state attempted to fund Auburn through a portion of a tax on agricultural equipment and fertilizer. Remaining funding was from federal sources.
In 1922, Auburn weathered an attempt to have the college moved to Montgomery.
In 1932, Bama forces tried having Auburn defunded after a Brookings Institute report showed API had higher per-student expenditure than the Capstone. API countered that scientific courses cost more than liberal arts programs.
Bama’s perceived superiority culminated in a 1945 address to state entities wherein they maintained that the University of Alabama’s responsibilities for higher educations were undercut by the establishment of “the normal schools, higher education for blacks,” the women’s college at Montevallo and the land-grant college at Auburn. Considering the esteem in which African-Americans and women were held in 1945 Dixie, the equation speaks volumes. Tuscaloosa propagandists tried to paint Auburn's founding with endemic hatred for the Reconstruction era, that Auburn's presence was the result of “the illogic inherent in the evolution of a democratic government.”
The report’s haughty tone drew a sharp response from Auburn President Luther Duncan who said he had never seen “a bolder, more deliberate, more vicious, or more deceptive document.” He predicted if the friends of Auburn and Montevallo did not rise up to combat “this evil monster,” it would consume them “just like the doctrine of Hitler.”
With the G.I. Bill at the end of World War II, Auburn’s enrollment doubled between 1944 and 1948. Bama’s hopes of starving the cross-state school and absorbing its resources died.
In the Heart of Dixie, Faulkner’s observation – “the past is never dead; it isn’t even past” – reigns supreme. This historic friction has filtered down to contemporary residents and institutions.
That’s what fueled the gridiron rivalry. It’s what drove the passions of 1989’s “First Time Ever,” when the Crimson Tide’s arrival in the Loveliest Village was their disgruntled admission of equality. It’s what fed David Housel’s oft-scoffed comparisons of Bama to historic villains and dictatorial adversaries.
I have listened as Bama alums admitted their university is “just better” than Auburn, with no logic or reasoning, just a fact of existence like gravity or entropy. To me it comes from a perspective rooted in the Old South and its feudal system, where the womb that fostered you determined your lifelong worth.
It’s the mindset of oligarchs and oppressors. It’s antithetical to the best of America. The only cure for this kind of bullying is well established: rise up and punch it right in the kisser.
And that’s what Bama’s about to find out in less than a week’s time.
---
I have to add that I don't feel as confident about Auburn's chances in 2019 as I did in 2017. I think Auburn's defense is fearsome but the offense woeful. I would love to see Auburn squash what we all see unfolding in slow motion -- another Crimson Tide team that will back into a championship process despite failing to even win their conference division -- for the third time in less than a decade.
But more than that, because football remains the raison d'etre for so many associated with the University of Alabama, so many Harvey Updykes both enrolled and not, I want to see them hurt where it matters most.
And feel a little victory for generations of Alabamians who were denigrated for daring to try and better their lives.
