This past weekend was my favorite of the entire college football season because of one rivalry game. On Black Friday, the Iron Bowl took place, which was the 75th meeting between the Auburn Tigers and the Alabama Crimson Tide.
I am from College Point, Queens County, where there was very little college football interest on my neighborhood block. Instead, there was usually talk of the Yankees, Mets, Knicks and NY Football Giants. How I developed an affinity for Auburn is a Christmas themed story that I will briefly share.
My mother was a once a Radio City Music Hall Rockette, who performed in the Christmas Show for more than a decade. During my regular trips to Radio City, I developed a relationship with a wonderful family from Jasper, Alabama – the Lathems.
A few of the younger members of the Lathem clan, Stacy and Bradley, were cast as children in the show. Stacy and Brad performed in such numbers as: the "Nutcracker", the "Christmas Carole" skit, and the "Nativity" scene. I just loved their Southern accents as well as everything else about them.
The Lathems were always kind enough to hang out with me when I visited. Linda Lathem was my unofficial baby sitter for many a Christmas season and kept me out of a lot of trouble.
The Lathems were almost all big Alabama Crimson Tide fans. However, Bradley Lathem (closest in age to me) liked the Auburn Tigers, likely because of the popularity of Auburn graduate Bo Jackson. By reason of Auburn being more of the “the underdog team,” as part of the Alabama in-state rivalry, I adopted them as my college team and followed them each year. Come to think of it I should have applied to school there!
Years later Bradley actually switched his allegience to the Tide. However, as illustrated below, I have remained quite loyal to the Tigers. My affinity for Auburn actually played out in a funny way quite recently.
One day last week (before the Iron Bowl) I was sitting in on a radio talk show that my good friend Steven Covino hosts on Sirius Satellite radio. As I was leaving, I noticed that Neil Cavuto of Fox News was doing his Thanksgiving themed show in the mid-40 degree weather right from the New York City sidewalk. I hung around where Mr. Cavuto was doing his stand-up broadcast and was in the background of the camera shot. I was actually shown quite a bit on TV and was also interviewed.
During one of the points where Mr. Cavuto was speaking to the bystanders who were next to me, kind of as a goof, I yelled: “Go Auburn,” in the direction of the camera. Other people in the crowd must have been Crimson Tide fans because they started yelling, “Roll Tide.”
Then other people in the throng started yelling “War Eagle,” which is the battle cry for Auburn. Suddenly an Alabama-Auburn shouting contest developed on 6th Avenue and Neil Cavuto appeared quite confused as he went to a break.
The police even came over to see what was the matter. Instead of explaining what I started, I quickly scooted. As you can imagine, I was quite thrilled with how Auburn made their comeback at Alabama this past weekend. Alabama had won 20 straight home games and was the team that I expected to steam roll through this season.
However, Auburn with its Heisman front runner, QB Cam Newtown, staged an incredible comeback to win 28-27 and they are now poised for a long overdue National Championship.
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