The Trail of a Tiger: My Days with WEGL and the Auburn Community

I received a phone call in the middle of class one day.  Daniel Burns called me one day, one of my best friends whom I met freshman year when we were both in Air Force ROTC.  He left me a message simply stating, "How would you like to be on radio?"  Of course I immediately called back after class, telling how I would love to be on the air.  And so it began my fellow readers, "The Dream" had come to WEGL 91.1 FM.

At first we were timid, not knowing what world we had jumped into head first.  We soon adapted quite well, and became rather a dynamic duo of sorts.  Daniel was more of the 'after-the-fact' anaylist while I became known as the 'crazy prognosticator.'  We set out to not only have fun for ourselves, but entertain and inform the Auburn/Opelika community.

At first, we were just happy to be on the air talking about what we love so much.  I was co-host to start, giving my large batch of information to the world while Burns carried on the show in clockwork fashion.  We soon started branching out and getting guests on the air. 

We got such guests as Rod Bramblett, voice of the Auburn Tigers, women's head coach Nell Fortner, and Ivan Maisel from ESPN.com just to name a few.  It was amazing how this small college radio station could reach out and get so many amazing people in the world of sports. 

Soon we looked deeper, and realized that this small college radio station could do interviews with coaches face-to-face when it was possible.  It fell through when Daniel and I went to our first face-to-face interviews on a Thursday morning with Coach Tuberville, at the time Offensive Coordinator Al Borges, and many other coaches. 

Now imagine this dear reader, your a college kid, a huge Auburn Football fanatic, and your staring straight across from the man that runs it all.  It gave Burns and me chills thinking that we could do this.  Many, many interviews followed that, and we used them on our show that we had on Friday afternoons.  We tried making the show as professional sounding as possible, but we both knew we were two college kids just talking sports in our spare time from the trials of engineering classes.  Oh, and did I mention that we got press box passes for the football games?  That was an experience I'll never forget, but I did only did it once.  The only time I sat in the press box, Darren McFadden and Arkansas ran over Auburn 27-10.  My superstitious self would not allow Auburn to lose again.

After Burns graduated, I became the host of the show and had two co-hosts along for the ride.  Jay "The Mackdaddy" Mcclain and Colin "Irish Rover" Shannon both brought more to the world of professional sports that I lacked.  Colin was and still is an avid MLB fan and Jay was the NFL guru of the bunch.  Along with the hijinks that we did along the show, it was something to behold and listen. 

The main point though I want to bring across dear reader is all the interaction and reaction of my WEGL experience.  When I did the interviews on Thursday, it was much more than just asking questions.  It was, for a lack of a better word, so awesome to not just ask questions to Coach Tuberville and his assistants about football but just to crack jokes and have fun with it all.  I even got to talk everyday life with the coaches and players. 

I even remember one interview after a men's basketball game when Auburn defeated LSU (which by the way we did a special play-by-play recording of that game).  I asked the question to former LSU head coach John Brady about their rebounding performance and if he thought that gave them a shot to win the game.  He looked at me, which I was wearing one of my Auburn orange polo shirts, and asked, "You from here or did you travel from Baton Rouge?"  The whole placed got a big laugh out of it, but it was great to be in that position. 

If anything at all besides living a dream, it made me realize what college sports and Auburn is all about.  Auburn is a big family.  We look after one another.  We may have disagreements like any family, but we all have that common thing about bleeding orange and blue.  It does not matter where you came from or what you have done.  As long as you support the orange and blue, you are one of us. 

I got to know so many people and get involved with the community in a way I do not think I could have done if I chose another path.  Everywhere I would get, "Hey, your the guy from the radio show right?"  It made me a bit of a local celebrity, but I just enjoyed talking sports with my friends.  I always tried to make it entertaining and engaging.  I made a lot of friends through WEGL, and still hang onto those friendships today.  Those interactions will live with me the rest of my life, and forever anchor me to the Plains.  It is only appropriate that I end this article with two sentences.

Its great to be an Auburn Tiger, and the last line from the Auburn Creed, written by George Petrie, "I believe in Auburn, and love it."