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[Tigermike 3,054]

Tuberville shirt helps fan flames of AU-UA rivalry

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Someone gave Tommy Tuberville that shirt.

It was the only long-sleeve T-shirt he had packed in his luggage for this latest in a series of Capital One Bowl trips.

He put it on that day because it was a little cool, and he and his two sons walked across the street from their hotel to spend some time at Sea World.

He didn't know a photographer would be waiting when they got back to the hotel because he had been here for two days without any media coverage, but that just happened to be the day the Auburn football players got here.

That's what Tuberville said Saturday, sitting in the lobby of the Renaissance Orlando Resort. As he said those things, his nose didn't grow like Pinocchio's. So he must've been telling the truth.

Right, coach? "No harm intended," he said.

Maybe not, but some Alabama fans felt the sting when that photo of Tuberville wearing that shirt around here showed up the other day in this paper.

On the front, the shirt said, "Fear the Thumb." On the back, it read, "Gimme Five."

The message? Auburn has won four straight games over Alabama. Smile about it, if you're an Auburn fan. If you're not, deal with it.

"I understand it's created some talk back at home," Tuberville said. "Hey, that's what rivalries are all about."

While we're on the subject, Tuberville would like to remind everyone that Alabama was, is and always will be Auburn's biggest rival. There has been some doubt in recent years about Auburn's place on Alabama's most-wanted list.

"I think we'd lost something," Tuberville said. "I'd heard even their players said, when they played Florida, that was their Super Bowl. When they played Tennessee, that had become their big rivalry. (Now all we hear is whine) 

"I'm not saying this (Iron Bowl) needs to be nasty, but this needs to be the rivalry, between in-state schools. Not anybody else."

Tuberville said he didn't wear that shirt that day for that reason, but because "we were proud we'd won four in a row."

Some Alabama fans, upset now, didn't seem to mind when Dennis Franchione belittled Auburn as "that school down the road."

Or when Paul Bryant insulted the entire university as a "cow college."

"That's just part of the rivalry, taking little jabs at each other," Tuberville said. "I really haven't taken too many. I didn't really mean that (shirt) as one."

But Tuberville remembers where he came from. While head coach at Ole Miss, he didn't beat Alabama. When he left Oxford for Auburn, some doubters suggested nothing would change. (After that first year I remember how the Bammers crowed, "Yall hired Tubbs, he has never beat Alabama, and never will!"  Their story has changed hasn't it!)

"So we're pretty proud that we've won four in a row," he said. "That's not pointing anything at their team. It's a pretty good accomplishment for us knowing where we started in 1999."

From there, Auburn has become the best program in the state, one of the best programs in the league and one of the better programs in the nation.

"Everybody's my rival now," Tuberville joked. "Nobody likes me."

Alabama dislikes him the most. And the real truth is, that's the way the Auburn coach likes it.      

Kevin Scarbinsky's column appears Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Write him at kscarbinsky@bhamnews.com

Birmingham News

[Grumps 3,704]

I just read that article. All of this cracks me up. I love the fact the he wore the shirt. I love that he feels like he can be proud of his and his team's accomplishments. I wish other people (Bammers) would understand that the purpose of the shirts is to celebrate something we are proud of, not to rub their noses in it (that is just a happy, but unintended, consequence).

I ordered myself ('89) and my Dad ('57) one from Tiger Rags yesterday!!

[auwallace 6]

i'm glad he wore the shirt but am i the only one who thinks that tiger rags shirts are ugly. They are fine if you are twelve but they're really cartoony, and they put that stupid badge on the back of all their shirts.

[Jenny AU-92 0]

If you can't take a good natured jab at your rival, especially when you have walked the walk to back up talking the talk, then who CAN you make fun of????

We are RIVALS, people. Get over it...

[eagle76 1]

I really believe the reason the bammars have made so much of this issue (?) is because of how embarassed they are of the whipping we put on the "bamar is back" team on national tv and because they really do not look forward to next years meeting where they will get the THUMB.

[WarEagle_57 0]

My favorite part, is that the bammers actually got SOOO upset about it, that it was big enough news to write an article on it. Who's obsessed with who exactly? Now our own coach can't walk outside w/o the cry babies talking about it.