50 Fun Facts About Auburn

Under what name was Auburn chartered in 1856?

East Alabama Male College opened in 1859 as a private Methodist liberal arts school; the church handed it to the state in 1872, and it became Alabama's first land-grant college.

Which Auburn text, written by history professor George Petrie in 1943, praises work, hard work?

The Auburn Creed was written in November 1943 by George Petrie, the history professor who half a century earlier had organised and coached the school's first football team.

What was Auburn University officially called from 1899 until 1960?

Alabama Polytechnic Institute replaced Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama once the school's programmes had grown far beyond agriculture and mechanics.

Which federal act made Auburn Alabama's first land-grant university in 1872?

The Morrill Act of 1862 gave each state federal land to sell to fund a college of agriculture and mechanics; Alabama chose the struggling Methodist school at Auburn, which the church handed over in 1872.

Whose alma mater inspired Auburn's orange and blue colours?

George Petrie, Auburn's first football coach, borrowed them from his old school.

Which battle cry doubles as Auburn fans' everyday greeting?

War Eagle is a battle cry, not a mascot; the best-known legend dates it to 1892, when a Civil War veteran's pet eagle is said to have circled the field and fallen dead as Auburn won.

What is the name of Auburn's costumed tiger mascot?

Aubie began as cartoonist Phil Neel's tiger on a 1959 football programme cover and only stepped off the page as a costumed mascot in 1979.

What do Auburn fans do at Toomer's Corner after big wins?

Fans roll the trees with toilet paper, a custom said to go back to Toomer's employees flinging telegraph ticker tape over the power lines whenever word of an away win came in.

What happened to the Toomer's Corner oaks after the 2010 Iron Bowl?

A rival fan poisoned them with a herbicide, then bragged about it on a sports radio call-in show, which led to his arrest; the dying oaks were removed in 2013 and later replaced.

Toomer's Corner takes its name from what kind of business?

A drugstore, Toomer's Drugs, was opened on the corner in 1896 by Sheldon Toomer, who four years earlier had played halfback on Auburn's first football team.

The Iron Bowl takes its name from the industry of which Alabama city, where it was long played?

Birmingham's chief industry was iron and steel, and an Auburn coach is credited with coining the name when he called the yearly Alabama game there his team's own bowl.

What made the 1989 Iron Bowl, an upset of unbeaten Alabama, a first for the rivalry?

It was played on Auburn's campus for the first time in a series dating to 1893; Auburn fans had long complained that the usual big-city venue was neutral in name only.

In which neutral-site stadium was the Iron Bowl played for decades?

Legion Field hosted every Iron Bowl from 1948 to 1988 with tickets split evenly, yet Auburn never accepted it as neutral, since Alabama played several of its own home games there each season.

Which Auburn player caught Alabama's missed field goal and ran it back for the Kick Six touchdown?

Chris Davis caught the 57-yard attempt about nine yards deep in his own end zone and ran it back down the left sideline on the final play for a 34-28 win over No. 1 Alabama.

What put one second back on the clock, giving Alabama the kick that became the Kick Six?

A replay review of T.J. Yeldon's run out of bounds restored one second after the clock had run out, seemingly sending the game to overtime, so Alabama tried a 57-yard kick.

Which Auburn quarterback won the school's first Heisman Trophy, in 1971?

Pat Sullivan edged Cornell running back Ed Marinaro in the voting after a 248-yard, four-touchdown day at Georgia sealed his case.

Which Auburn great was the first athlete named an All-Star in both Major League Baseball and the NFL?

Bo Jackson was a baseball All-Star with the Royals in 1989 and a Pro Bowl pick with the Raiders a year later, while Nike's 'Bo Knows' adverts made him a household name.

Which fellow Tigers did John Heisman leave Auburn to coach in 1900?

Clemson hired John Heisman in 1900 after five Auburn seasons on a salary of only $500, pay so scant that he moved on, decades before the famous trophy carried his name.

Which coach led Auburn to its first AP national championship in 1957?

Shug Jordan won 176 games from 1951 to 1975, and in 1973 Auburn added his name to its stadium while he was still coaching, a first for an active coach in America.

With which school does Auburn share the 1957 national title?

Ohio State topped the coaches' poll while the AP's writers chose Auburn, unbeaten at 10-0 but on NCAA probation and barred from playing in a bowl.

Whom did Auburn beat in the BCS National Championship Game to cap the 2010 season?

Oregon lost 22-19 to a last-second Wes Byrum field goal in Glendale, which finished a perfect 14-0 season under Gene Chizik.

Which quarterback won the Heisman in 2010 and led Auburn to the national title?

Cam Newton had left Florida for Blinn, a Texas junior college, only a year earlier, and went first overall to the Carolina Panthers the following spring.

Unbeaten Auburn was left out of the 2004 season's BCS title game in favour of Oklahoma and which other unbeaten team?

USC beat Oklahoma in the title game while Auburn, shut out of it, won the Sugar Bowl over Virginia Tech to finish 13-0 and second in the final polls.

Which Steve Spurrier-coached team did Auburn rout 56-17 to win the 2010 SEC championship?

South Carolina Gamecocks fans were seeing a first, an SEC East champion not named Florida, Georgia or Tennessee, but the rout in Atlanta sent unbeaten Auburn on to the BCS title game.

Which team beat Auburn 34-31 in the final seconds of the 2014 BCS National Championship Game?

Florida State scored with 13 seconds left, ending a season in which Auburn had twice won on late miracles, the Prayer at Jordan-Hare and the Kick Six.

Which clock-towered Auburn University building rose in 1888 after fire destroyed Old Main, the original college building?

Samford Hall was built partly from bricks salvaged from the burned Old Main, and in 1929 it was named for William J. Samford, who had studied at the college and became governor of Alabama.

What is the Tiger Walk?

Players walking through fans to the stadium began in the 1960s with children seeking autographs along Donahue Drive, and an Auburn athletic director later called it the most copied tradition in college football.

What flies over the field before Auburn home games?

A live eagle has flown before kickoff since 2000, when a golden eagle nicknamed Tiger made the first flight, and golden and bald eagles have both made it since.

Which coach did Auburn hire from Liberty in November 2022 and fire midway through his third season?

Hugh Freeze replaced the fired Bryan Harsin but went 15-19, and a 10-3 home loss to Kentucky in November 2025 ended his time in charge.

Which Auburn basketball star was SEC Player of the Year in 1984 and later a Hall of Famer?

Charles Barkley, nicknamed the Round Mound of Rebound, skipped his final Auburn season for the NBA and entered the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2006.

Which coach took Auburn men's basketball to its first two Final Fours, in 2019 and 2025?

Bruce Pearl arrived in 2014 still under an NCAA penalty from his Tennessee days and stepped down in 2025 as Auburn's winningest coach, handing the job to his son Steven.

Where does Auburn men's basketball play its home games?

It was formerly Auburn Arena, renamed for donor Bill Neville.

Which former Apple chief executive earned an industrial engineering degree at Auburn in 1982?

Tim Cook had been at Compaq only six months when Steve Jobs hired him away in early 1998; he ran Apple from 2011 until John Ternus took over in September 2026.

Which Wikipedia co-founder went to Auburn?

Jimmy Wales, a Huntsville native, took a finance degree at Auburn, then traded options in Chicago before launching the free online encyclopaedia in 2001.

Which Oscar-winning actress is an Auburn alumna?

Octavia Spencer studied English at Auburn and landed a small part in A Time to Kill while working on its casting, years before The Help won her the Oscar.

Which Auburn graduate was pulled from Apollo 13 three days before launch after being exposed to German measles?

Ken Mattingly, an Auburn aeronautical engineering graduate, never caught the measles, helped guide the crippled ship home from the ground, and reached the Moon on Apollo 16.

Which Auburn team won eight NCAA titles between 1997 and 2009?

Men's swimming and diving won seven of those eight titles under David Marsh, an Auburn graduate hired in 1990, who stepped down in 2007 after sweeping the men's and women's titles for the fourth time.

In which unusual sport did Auburn win its first national championship in 2006?

The team has added several titles since, most recently in 2019.

The city of Auburn's nickname, the Loveliest Village on the Plains, comes from The Deserted Village, a poem by whom?

Oliver Goldsmith opened the 1770 poem with 'Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain', and a later line about crouching tigers is credited with naming the teams as well.

Auburn sits in which Alabama county?

Lee County was only created in 1866 and named for Robert E. Lee, so the town of Auburn, settled in 1836 in what was then Macon County, is thirty years older than its county.

Which nickname recalls Auburn's 17-16 comeback win over unbeaten, second-ranked Alabama in the 1972 Iron Bowl?

Punt Bama Punt: trailing 16-3 with under ten minutes left, Bill Newton blocked two Alabama punts and David Langner ran both back for touchdowns.

Which College Football Hall of Fame coach is the playing field inside Auburn's football stadium named for?

Pat Dye learned his trade in nine seasons as Bear Bryant's assistant at Alabama, then won four SEC titles at Auburn, where the field took his name in November 2005.

Which league did Auburn and twelve other schools leave in December 1932 to found the Southeastern Conference?

Southern Conference co-champions that autumn with an unbeaten 9-0-1 team, Auburn joined the twelve other members south and west of the Appalachians in breaking away to form the SEC.

What nickname did Auburn football give its traditional season-ending stretch against Georgia and Alabama?

Amen Corner is the name for holes 11 to 13 at Augusta National, and an Auburn coach from Augusta borrowed it for a closing run that in his day was three games, starting with Florida.

Auburn's first football game, a 10-0 win over Georgia in February 1892, was played at which Atlanta location?

Piedmont Park staged the game, arranged by Auburn's George Petrie and Georgia's Charles Herty, who had met at Johns Hopkins, and it began the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry.

Which Auburn swimmer won three gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics?

Rowdy Gaines set world records in 1980 but the American boycott kept him out of the Moscow Games, so his three golds came four years late, and he went on to be NBC's Olympic swimming analyst.

Auburn's Pajama Parade recalls a legendary 1896 prank played the night before a game against which school?

Georgia Tech's train, legend says, slid miles past the station on rails that pajama-clad Auburn cadets had greased overnight, and the team that walked back lost 45-0.

In which foreign city did Auburn make its first bowl appearance, at the 1937 Bacardi Bowl?

Havana's game was nearly called off when Fulgencio Batista's men found the strongman's picture missing from the programme; it was reprinted, and Auburn and Villanova tied 7-7.

Which coach led Auburn to a perfect season in 1993, his first year on the Plains?

Terry Bowden won his first 20 games at Auburn, but NCAA probation kept his 11-0 team out of the SEC title game and any bowl.

In which arena did Auburn's costumed tiger mascot make his live debut, at the 1979 SEC basketball tournament?

Birmingham–Jefferson Civic Center crowds saw him help first-year coach Sonny Smith's team upset Vanderbilt, then beat Georgia a day later in four overtimes.