Aubie's Tail

[Guest Tigrinum Major]

Here is another reason to resurrect the rivalry with GA Tech:

Colorful Past

An excerpt:

And Aubie, the now-highly acclaimed Tiger mascot, was in his first year of existence. That seems a little strange. It seems the tradition dated back much further than that.

In reality, Aubie had participated in just five games before that day in Grant Field. Mask, a Robert E. Lee graduate and current Wetumpka resident, was the first to don the costume. The pressure was on him.

Mask said neither the Auburn athletic department nor the AU cheerleaders were particularly crazy about the new mascot. He said he remembers being told, "It's up to you to make this work. I think it had gotten some mixed reviews early in the season, but that Georgia Tech game put Aubie on the map to stay."

It wasn't easy and it couldn't have been planned.

Mask said "tail-gate" started about a week and a half before the Tech game.

A father of one of Mask's fraternity brothers who lived in Atlanta told him that a $400 bounty had been placed on Aubie's tail for that game and to be careful. The plan was for Tech freshmen or "rats" to rip the tail off the costume before, during or after the game.

[80Tiger 903]

I can verify that story is very true. Five of us had left AU that morning going to the ballgame. I remember exactly what Mask was talking about. The AU band and visitors sitting section was on the opposite end of the field where the players came in. I remember looking up and see Aubie running down the field with a horde of people behind him. We helped him hop the fence into the seats and he went into the band. The Atlanta cops were holding off the students at the fence. It was a great AU day. In fact later on that night we found this place that had something to do with animals. It was named after some Cheetahs and I think there were three of them. Any way we stayed there a long time watching these "sleek animals" perform.

[WaReAgLe83 0]

I was at an event a couple of years ago at which that guy, the original Aubie, came to speak, and he told us that story.