was the 2001 NIT game when Miami came to town. Kyle Davis had something like 73 blocked shots. I owned a little piece of property called “The Beach,” so about 47 of those blocks happened right in front of us. But the 1999 season will always hold a special place in my heart because I quickly realized in that second half of my freshman year that there was more to Auburn than football. Beard-Eaves was rocking EVERY game that year.

Running the stairs inside the arena was a strangely fond memory, too, because my dad walked up and down those same stairs constructing the Coliseum. We will both be sad to see it go.

I attended several games there, the one that sticks out in my mind is against Georgia. They were nationally ranked coming into B/E, but Auburn won easily.
Can’t even remember players names. Getting forgetful in my old age.
Really enjoyed your walk down memory lane.

WAR EAGLE!

…..My first concert at Auburn was the Commodores (with LTD), at the Beave! (No, we didn’t call it that, back in 1978.) I’m not a big RnB fan generally, but back then, concert tix were less than 10 bucks each. Concert on Saturday night? You went. Didn’t matter who it was, it was a live show for cheap. Not like today. A concert or a live sporting event is like an investment. Costs more than a week’s worth of groceries for two tickets!

…..Basketball was JUST AWFUL in my Auburn years. Sonny Smith didn’t get it going till after I left. I attended every game, in the Auburn pep band. There was an occasional surprise win, but mostly we got beat. The only really notable thing was that the students would pick out an opposing player and harass the $*!# out of him. Most of the time it was to no avail, but sometimes a player would get rattled, which would only make it worse!

…..My favorite Beave event ever was the Heart and Pat Travers concert around 1979. Boom-boom, out go the lights! Travers was a great warm-up act! He also had this AMAZING blend of Hammond Organ and Jazz Chorus guitar going on in Crash and Burn. That was the first time I’d heard that sound. Heart was touring in support of the “Be be le Strange” album, and did the most amazing, stretched out rendition of Love Alive ever! That’s one of my favorite acoustic guitar songs to play, even to this day. I warm up on it. The late 1970s live version also had some wacky flute with lots of echoplex effect on it. One of Heart’s encores was a cover of Led Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll. Blew us away! “Been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely, lonely, lonely time!”

……There were other good acts that played at the coliseum. Mother’s Finest was one of my faves. A lot of the concerts were free with your student ID. We saw Karla Bonoff, Joan Jett, Blackfoot (traaaain, train!) Molly Hatchet and a ton of others. Good times!

…..I took fencing (just for fun) in the Spring of 1979 in the old Barn. It was a lot of fun, but WOW, did that place get hot! It was dark in there, too. Dark walls, dark-dark wood floor. (They don’t make floors like that anymore.) Not good for tracking the end of a foil with coke-bottle glasses! Forced me to really learn the fundamentals of parrying, rather than relying on reflexes. Yes, I got jabbed A LOT!

…..We used to sometimes play pickup basketball in the Student Activities building next door, too. Both of those burned down during the 1996 Auburn-LSU game. Those pickup games could get rough. If you aren’t bleeding, it’s not a foul! Sometimes football players would show up. James Brooks was a KICK_ASS basketball player. He could beat guys like us pretty badly. He was ridiculously quick, and had an arsenal of shots, left handed and right. Brooks was listed at 5’8" in the game programs, but I’m only 5’6", and was slightly taller than Brooks in reality. It still amazes me that he played All-SEC football at that size…

Was the first building i visited on campus to see my Stepbrother graduate and was the last building i Visited while a student at Auburn (crossing over from student to graduate) Alot of great memories.

but I really liked the Tommy Joe Eagles era. No, his teams were never very good, but boy he worked to connect with the students. I did a weekly radio show with him at WEGL where he took student calls. Imagine a revenue sport coach doing that now. He was a tremendous person and learned to love Auburn from the moment he got there.

- AU men beating #12 Alabama 81-57 in 2007
- AU men beating Tennessee 78-77 last year - the sequence of events at the end of that game was incredible
- #6 AU women beating #10 Tennessee 82-68 last year in front of a record crowd to move to 20-0… I was in the student section and we were all chanting “UNDEFEATED! ….. UNDEFEATED!”
- AU men beating #22 Tennessee 83-80 in 2007 after a Bruce Pearl technical foul
- Toney Douglas hitting a 26-footer at the regulation buzzer to send it to OT against Florida in 2005 (although we went on to lose 84-78 OT) - it was still incredible to see that shot.
- NIT games last year vs. Tennessee-Martin, Tulsa, and Baylor
— Receiving my diploma on December 18, 2009, and fulfilling my dream of becoming an Auburn University alumnus!

when he explained to the audience that he could no longer do “Gods own drunk and the fearless man” because a man had sued him saying that Buffet had stolen the song…..so instead he sang a song called “the Lawyer and his Asshole”……pardon the french but it’s the name of the song. And watching R.E.M. do “Orange Crush” were two of the best concerts I can remember. As far as best moments at a basketball game…..too many to mention but I can at least narrow it down to the ’85 and ’86 seasons. The games were electric and the the basketball was fantastic……the beave was an exciting place when sold out (and I mean “sold out” before they hung those god awful curtains to eliminate some of the nose bleeds).