James Vann article

[TitanTiger 20,472]

The Huntsville Times

Vann loved Auburn more than new Chevy

07/29/03

By PHILLIP MARSHALL

Times Sports Staff

pmarsh9485@yahoo.com

86-year-old spins tales of recruiting and 1890s football

ABBEVILLE - Today the story can be told of a college football prospect who turned down a new car to follow his heart.

No, this is not story of a recruiting scandal. It is a story of college football long before anyone had even heard of NCAA sanctions. It happened in this small southeast Alabama town in the summer of 1937.

Alabama coach Red Drew had arrived intent on talking Robert Vann, a hard-nosed fullback at Abbeville High School, into playing for the Crimson Tide.

Sitting in his living room, Vann, now 86, remembers how it was.

"Coach Drew came down here with a new Chevrolet, 4-door," Vann said. "He handed me the keys and said 'Come to Alabama.' "

But Vann wasn't going to Alabama. He was going to Auburn, the setting for the stories his father had told him about football when it was new, a brutal game in which only the strong survived.

"I just wanted to go to Auburn because my daddy went to Auburn," Vann said. "He never told me he wanted me to go, but I knew. There wasn't any question about it."

Vann played for Jack Meagher, a coach beloved by his players.

"He was prince of a fellow," Vann said. "He hardly ever raised his voice, but he was in control."

And there was a freshman coach named Shug Jordan, who would become one of the revered names in Auburn football.

"Shug was easygoing," Vann said. "He didn't holler at you. He'd say, 'Son, you have to bow your neck. If you don't block that man, I'm going to run you around this field.' "

Robert Vann never became a star. In fact, he never became a varsity player. He tried for two seasons to play on bad knees, finally going home to help support his family after his father died. But even today, as college football teams across the country near the start of preparation for another season, he paints with his father's words a picture of life for a college athlete more than a century ago.

James Vann was, for the time, a mountain of a man at 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds. He played against Vanderbilt in the first game of Auburn's fourth season of football in 1895. It was the first game he'd ever seen. On the sideline was coach John Heisman, who would become a legendary figure and whose name is on the most prestigious award in college sports.

James Vann would become a beloved man in Henry County, the doctor who would go out in the middle of the night when called. In the dark days of the Great Depression, he was paid in corn, hogs, and crops or not paid at all. He and his cousin saved their money and made the long trip to Auburn in search of education.

"Daddy taught school in Henry County to save the money to go," Robert Vann said. "They got up there and found the cheapest room they could find."

Some varsity football players lived nearby and began to harass the boys from Abbeville. Though he was big and powerful, James Vann tried to avoid a confrontation.

"They finally came and banged on the door," Robert Vann said. "Daddy decided he was going to go jump in the bed and act like he was having convulsions. His roommate begged them to go away, that he was sick. When they came in, he was lying on the bed all wrapped up in a sheet and blanket. They pulled him up, but he got one in the right hand and the other one in the left hand and they couldn't get loose. It went on until they were begging him to let them go."

It wasn't long after they left before Heisman came calling. He'd heard to the story of this giant of a man with seemingly inhuman strength. James Vann had never seen a football game or even a football, but Heisman offered him a scholarship. He would letter in 1895-97 as a guard who is regarded as one of the great players of Auburn's early football years. Later, James Vann would introduce the strange looking ball to the citizens of Abbeville.

"Even when he was in his 50s, he was strong and he could run," Robert Vann said. "It was man eat man in those days. You could crawl, roll, whatever. The linemen wore big belts and the backs would hold on. They would drag them. If somebody got hurt, they'd just drag him over to the side."

It was 40 years later when Robert Vann went to Auburn. He would become friends with some who would become Auburn icons. Dick McGowen and Billy Hitchcock were teammates. Jordan coached freshman football and basketball.

Robert Vann never finished his Auburn education. He went home and became a prominent Abbeville citizen, making his living farming and selling heavy equipment. He was a county commissioner who was instrumental in building the first football field at Abbeville High School.

Years later, when McGowen was an assistant coach, Robert Vann helped him recruit end Dave Edwards from Abbeville. Edwards became an Auburn great and was a star with the Dallas Cowboys.

Today, Vann relishes watching the Tigers play on television. But the memories of his father's stories remain vivid.

From the time Robert Vann was a young child, making the trip to Columbus, Ga., to see Auburn play Georgia was a family tradition. As a freshman not on the travel squad, he sat with his father in 1937.

"I was the commentator there for a group of people because I knew all the Auburn players and knew all the Georgia players by number," Robert Vann said. "I could tell him what we were going to do a lot of times. We had run Georgia plays against them the whole week."

It would be James Vann's final Auburn football game. He died a short time later, leaving his son to relish the stories of another day and another time.