Terrible story out of Alabama

[MarkL]

I thought about posting this yesterday, but I decided to give myself a night to gather my thoughts because this story hurts in so many ways.

I'm not sure if everybody has followed the story regarding Toomer's Corner in Auburn or not, so if you've not, here goes:

Toomer's Corner in Auburn, Alabama, is a street corner very close to campus with two old oak trees. After big Auburn football wins, the fans roll the trees. That's where they show up in hordes to the trees and throw rolls of toilet paper up over the branches. And you don't go out to your local supermarket and buy some Charmin TP. You go across the corner to Toomer's Drugstore and buy specific rools of TP with the Auburn logo on it and throw those rolls on the trees. Here's a Youtube video of a sped up rolling after the national championship win this year:



It's a long video, but if you watch a bit of it, you'll get the idea. With how much TP goes up in the trees, you eventually can't see the branches anymore ... all you see is white streams of TP.

This is a tradition that dates back generations. The oaks are around 130 years old. It's a tradition that hundreds of thousands of Auburn students, alums, family members, community members, and fans have enjoyed.

Enter the scene a deranged lunatic. He's an Alabama fan with no relation whatsoever to the university. He's not an alum, he's not a season ticket holder, he's not a booster. He called into a nationwide radio show and complained about Auburn fans. He claimed that Auburn students rolled the oaks at Toomer's Corner back in 1983 after Bear Bryant died to celebrate his death. (This claim is completely unsubstantiated.) He complained that Auburn fans put a jersey of Cam Newton over a statue of Bear Bryant in front of the stadium at the Iron Bowl this year. (No big deal. It's a jersey. It can be removed easily.) So he bragged about his retaliation. He bragged that, a few days after the Iron Bowl, he poisoned the oaks at Toomer's Corner. He detailed the herbicide he used, which is an extremely powerful herbicide and he bragged that the trees are not dead, but they will die.

Auburn University police officers and groundskeeping folks immediately took soil samples from the soil at Toomer's Corner to see if there was any validity to this claim. In fact, there was. There was a great presence of that herbicide. An arrest has been made, and there was a press conference yesterday at the university detailing what they could publicly state about the arrest and about the trees. A professor of horticulture and a professor of soils both spoke, and, rather emotionally, both stated that the trees have little chance of survival. All efforts will be made to save the trees, but given how much poison was in the soil, how far it has spread, and the density of the roots of the oaks, the odds of survival are very thin. Options are being explored currently of how best to handle the situation, but it doesn't look good.

This was not a prank; this was carried about with malicious intent. The man who poisoned the trees has effectively removed a great tradition that has been enjoyed for many generations and should have been available for future generations of students. I am absolutely disgusted by what this lunatic did. There was even concern that there was imminent danger to the water supply, but it seems like that shouldn't be a problem.

So why am I posting this? Rivalries are fun. There are some great traditions between schools. Michigan students try to decorate the Spartan in East Lansing maize and blue the day before the Michigan / Michigan State game, and MSU students try to paint the block M at the diag green. Arizona students try to paint the big A behind the Arizona State football stadium red and blue before the big game, and the Arizona State freshmen are given the responsibility of protecting the A. Heck, BG and UT students used to paint each other's spirit rocks the night before the big game, but I haven't seen that done in a few years now. These traditions are fun, they are not carried out with poor intent, nothing is damaged which can't be fixed with a quick day of work, and the tradition lives on for generations. What this guy did was totally different. And it is part of a trend I've seen recently in the sport. I've been seeing a lack of respect of the other team, the other fans, and the other university. You can see it when drunk Penn State fans throw beer cans at visiting Ohio State fans. You can see it when Ohio State fans across the entire horseshoe boo at the Michigan band during the entirety of their halftime performance. You can see it at the Purdue / IU football game in West Lafayette when the entire student section carries a cheer of "F*** IU!" You can see it when Oregon students yell some rather colorful cheers at the visiting Stanford Cardinal team. I'm not sure what the source of this lack of respect of the opposing school is, but I've been noticing it more recently.

So I guess what I'm trying to get at is I'd like to see greater sportsmanship in the sport of college football. I know Bowling Green is well known as a university full of good, respectful fans, so I'm probably preaching to the choir, but I think it's worth a thought. So please ... if you see fans of Bowling Green or any other university treating it's opponents with a complete lack of respect, consider asking them to correct this behavior. And I would love to see the traditions I'd mentioned earlier continue, so long as they do not escalate to madness.

And that's the end of my rant. Go Falcons!

[kdog27]

"All efforts will be made to save the trees, but given how much poison was in the soil, how far it has spread, and the density of the roots of the oaks, the odds of survival are very thin. Options are being explored currently of how best to handle the situation, but it doesn't look good."

The trees actually have some hope because it was done in the winter when the roots are dormant and not absorbing water. They have a chance to same them still. FWIW they did catch the guy. A similar stunt was done in Texas and the guy who got caught got ten years in a federal pound me in the ass prison

I live right in the heart of this rivalry and being from Ohio where it is Michigan-OSU I can say that rivalry is nothing compared to Alabama-Auburn. It might not be as nationally known but it's all they freakin talk about. I actually listen to the Finebaum radio show daily but I missed that call. I wish I would have been listening then.

I'm glad they caught this idiot and I hope nobody from Auburn does something stupid in return.

[BGFalconfromCincy]

s**t like this makes me hate sports sometimes

I hate people like this, they care way too much, and ruin things for everyone else. I feel bad for Alabama fans right now

[bgsukid]

This story doesn't surprise anyone who's lived in the south, it's par for the course in SEC country. They take this stuff way too seriously.