My grandsons live in South Carolina. They are Auburn fans !! The 6 year, Alex and I were doing “Knock Knock” jokes by telephone. I said, “Alex, Gammy has to go”.
“Ok, Gammy. RRRROOOOLLLLLLLL EEAAGGLLEE !!

Daddy said, “Alex, why did you say that”?

“Daddy, I’ve got to make Gammy and Grandmomma both happy”.

Yes, I am Gammy, the Auburn fan. His Grandmomma is a Bama fan.

-Donna M.

My husband and I (both Auburn graduates) were returning home from Los Angles from our honeymoon 15 years ago. The Auburn/Georgia game had been on the night before, and we stayed in the hotel watching the Tigers win. Bo Jackson was now playing for the LA Raiders, and we happened to pass the gate at the airport where the Raiders were flying out for their game that weekend. We saw Bo with his teammates across the concourse, and lots of people/photographers were trying to get his attention. My husband and I yelled “Bo, War Eagle.” He looked up, smiled, excused himself from the other players and came over to talk to us. He asked us if we had seen Auburn play the night before, saying that UGA/AU matchup is always a great game. We talked about being there the night he came back to campus after he had won the Heisman Trophy. We said we had given up on studying for finals and went to meet him at Sewell Hall. Unfortunately, we had to get going to catch our plane home. He was great to come and talk to us, knowing that with the phrase “War Eagle”, he was talking to Auburn family even though we were thousands of miles from the plains of Auburn. My husband and I were upset when we got on our plane and realized we didn’t get a picture, autograph or anything, but at the moment, Bo was just part of the Auburn family, not a celebrity.
Deirdre and Edward

My family and I, three generations of Auburn grads, were riding horses through the very remote rainforests in Costa Rica. We hadn’t seen any other Americans for almost a week and a half, and we pass a guy wearing an Auburn hat. I do a double take—I mean what are the odds, the one American we see is wearing an AU hat. WOW. I holler “War Eagle buddy” and he hollers it back to me. How refreshing to both of us.
Justin

I grew up in a mixed family…Auburn fans, Alabama fans, and even some Tennessee fans. It took me a while to figure out which team was my team, but once I did, it was as if I’d been an Auburn Tiger my whole life. My grandmother is for Auburn, my mother is for Auburn, and so I was proud to say I was for Auburn too. My grandfather, however, grew up as an Alabama fan. He always cheered in the opposite colors (and on the opposite side of the room during the Iron Bowl!) No matter how many “War Eagle!”’s we yelled, he never failed to quickly respond with a loud “Roll Tide!” This past Father’s Day, I called him to wish him well and see how he was doing. When we were saying our goodbyes, he said to me, “War Eagle, I’m proud of you.” Those two words had never come out of his mouth in all of his years, and probably never will again, but to hear him say that to me meant more than almost anything he could have said. That’s my War Eagle Moment.
Tara

After graduating (EE’95), I took a job where I did a lot of traveling for a telecommunications vendor. I went around the United States and was in a different airport every week. The first time I went to the Northwest, I flew into Washington. I worked on a site there and went on to Seattle. While in Seattle, I was driving along a main road and noticed a car that seemed to be trying to flag me down. I was not sure but they were pointing to my car and yelling. I was in a rental so I assumed that it was a flat or I was breaking some law or I did not know what. A little apprehensive, I rolled down my windows as they pulled up next to me. Then I understood what they were yelling - “War Eagle!!” My orange AU baseball cap in the back window was a magnet to them across 3 lanes of traffic. Auburn was their adopted school since their local college did not have a football team and the state teams were not very good. We pulled over and I told them I was a graduate. We talked about “Nix to Sanders”, “Bo over the top”, and my experiences while a student. They said that they knew AU was a special place when they watched the Iron Bowl and saw the pre-game atmosphere in our stadium and in Auburn, Alabama. That was a truly unique experience. Our “family” is so special that it shows in everything we do and I imagine others are drawn to our Tigers not necessarily for football greatness as much as “the Auburn experience”….
Charles

I am a ‘65 graduate and my wife is a ‘66. My brother, daughter and son-in-law are all Auburn folks. We call ourselves an Auburn family. This of course extends to the world Auburn family. My moment was on a trip to Peru to visit family living and working there. My wife, Fran and I decided to go off on our own to visit the town of Cusco in the high Andes mountains, above 11,000 feet in elevation, and the discovered Inca lost city of Machu Picchu, also in the high Andes. Keep in mind that we are above ten thousand feet, in the high Andes Mountains of a very remote area of the country of Peru, visiting remains of the lost Incan empire. At that elevation it was cool and damp, and I had on a light tan-colored windbreaker with a “kind of large” AU. As my wife and I were walking through the gateway to the lost city of Machu Picchu, a group was walking out and to my surprise a gentleman in the group called out a loud “War Eagle”! Of course that made the climb and tour of the lost city that much more enjoyable to know that we could be in that remote of an area of the world and find the brotherhood of Auburn there.
War Eagle!!
Mick

My favorite “Auburn Moment” actually happened when I was a student studying abroad with the School of Architecture. At the time, the program was 3 months long, and we traveled all over Western and Eastern Europe studying art and architecture. While in Venice, Italy I got up early one morning and threw on my Auburn t-shirt and went to an Internet cafe to check my e-mail. I entered the Internet cafe, which was flooded with mostly Italians, and sat by the front window. While intently surfing the computer, I heard the cry….”War Eagle!!!” I immediately looked up and saw two older alumni peering their head into the Internet cafe smiling. I responded with a ‘War Eagle’ and got up from my computer and went over and introduced myself to them. The couple, probably in their late 60’s, was from Virginia and traveling Europe with some friends from back home. Apparently, my orange Auburn shirt caught the eye of the husband as they were passing by the Internet cafe window. We stood there and chatted about traveling and the Auburn family all over the world. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the couple’s name. To this day I still get chills when I think about the unique Auburn family and how you can be thousands of miles away in another country and hear those sweet and soothing words….”War Eagle!!!”
That experience had such a huge impact on me that from that day on I have made it a point to go out of my way and shout “War Eagle” when I see another person with Auburn paraphernalia…let others question our greeting to one another, but in the end that is what makes it UNIQUELY AUBURN!!!
Kent