January 27, 2011: The Poisoning of Toomer's Corner

January 27, 2011: The biggest rivalry in American college football takes a dark turn. Literally, a poisonous turn.

Alabama was admitted to the Union as the 22nd State in 1819. (It seceded in 1861, and was readmitted in 1868.) The University of Alabama was founded in 1820. They began playing football in 1892, and are the leading program in the Southeastern Conference, among the greatest programs in the entire country.

The great names are many: Don Hutson, Lee Roy Jordan, Joe Namath, Ken Stabler, John Hannah, Ozzie Newsome,  Dwight Stephenson, Derrick Thomas, Cornelius Bennett, Shaun Alexander.

Tuscaloosa is 56 miles southeast of Birmingham, and 103 miles northwest of the State House in Montgomery. The City of Auburn is 109 miles southeast of Birmingham, and 55 miles northeast of Montgomery. The 'Bama and Auburn campuses are 157 miles apart, separated by U.S. 82 from Tuscaloosa southeast to Montgomery, and then I-85 northeast to Auburn.

East Alabama Male College was founded in 1856. It became Alabama Agricultural & Mechanical College (Alabama A&M) in 1872, became the 1st school in the State to admit women in 1892, became Alabama Polytechnic Institute (Alabama Tech) in 1899, and Auburn University in 1960.

Auburn also began playing football in 1892. They've also had a few legends: Joe Childress, Jimmy Phillies, Tucker Frederickson, Pat Sullivan, Bo Jackson, Tracy Rocker, Takeo Spikes, Cam Newton.

From 1907 to 1948, the two schools didn't play each other. Auburn won 5 straight in the 1950s, then Alabama won 9 of the next 10. In 1973, Alabama started a streak of 9 straight; then Auburn won 6 of the next 8. In 2002, Auburn started a streak of 6 straight. In 2009, Alabama won, 26-21, en route to a National Championship.

Toomer's Corner is the intersection of Magnolia Avenue and College Street, and it marks the transition from downtown Auburn to the University campus to the southwest. Toomer's Drugs, on the northeast corner at 100 N. College Street, is an Auburn institution.

At the southwest corner is a park, which contained Toomer's Oaks. From the 1950s onward, whenever something good happens involving the school, people would go to the trees and throw rolls of toilet paper into them, a tradition known as "rolling the corner."

On the day after Thanksgiving 2010, Auburn came from 24-0 down to beat Alabama 28-27, and the corner was rolled. On January 10, 2011, Auburn won the National Championship, and the corner was rolled again.

On January 27, 2011, a man later identified as Harvey Updyke Jr. of Dadeville, Alabama -- ironically, a former lawman, a retired Texas State Trooper -- enraged by Auburn's championship, and by his alleged memory of Auburn fans rolling the corner upon hearing the news of Bear Bryant's death in 1983 (there is no record of this having happened), called in to the radio show of Birmingham sports-talk host Paul Finebaum, and announced that he'd poisoned Toomer's Oaks with an herbicide.

The soil around the trees was tested, and, at least about his vandalism, Updyke had told the truth. This was beyond anything that a Boston Red Sox fan has ever done to anything connected with the New York Yankees. Or Texas A&M to Texas, or Ohio State to Michigan, or Duke to North Carolina. Even fans of European soccer teams have never gone this far with their arch-rivals.

Updyke ended up serving 104 days in jail and getting fined nearly $800,000. The trees were found to be dying and beyond saving, and were removed on April 23, 2013. Replacement trees were planted, but they died, too. Two new trees were planted in February 2017.

One of the new Oaks, 2021

On April 27, 3 months after the call to the Finebaum show, a tornado hit Tuscaloosa, killing 13 people. Rescue workers and fundraisers from all over Alabama came together, even from Auburn. Alumni from the 2 schools put together a flag football game to raise money. It raised $45,000, and the 'Bama alumni won, 42-41. For a brief time, the hatred had been put aside.

But peace never lasts. In a State with no major league sports teams, a person is either a Tide fan or a Tiger fan. And the hate has outlasted a lot, including the original trees at Toomer's Corner.

As of the 2021 season, Alabama lead the rivalry, 48-37-1.

*

January 27, 2011 was a Thursday. Baseball was out of season. Football was between the Conference Championships and the Super Bowl. And the NHL was in its All-Star Break. But there were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Miami Heat, 93-88 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Houston Rockets, 111-106 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

* And the Boston Celtics beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 88-78 at the Moda Center in Portland.