My Dad was a member of Auburn's 1957 National Championship team. If you look at the team picture for that season, Dad is in the absolute middle.

Several months after the team received their rings, Dad drove home to Mobile one weekend. He stopped in Montgomery to get gas and go to the bathroom. After leaving the bathroom and getting in his car, he realized that he left his ring on the sink in the bathroom when he washed his hands. He rushed back to the bathroom (only a couple of minutes had elapsed), but the ring was not there. He looked everywhere and even asked the clerk in the store if anyone had turned in a ring (which he knew was futile, but he was desperate). He was devastated. He only had had the ring for a few months and now it was gone.

His parents contacted AD Jeff Beard to see if they could purchase Dad a new ring (which they wanted to do for Christmas). They received permission (which they had to get, otherwise many fans would have duplicate rings made for themselves) and purchased a replacement. They gave it to Dad as a Christmas gift and Dad was elated.

Fast forward about 9-10 years. One Friday, my Mom and Dad were at a party at the house of a friend of his since grade school (they went to grade school, high school and Auburn together). His buddy came up to Dad at the party and asked if he could see Dad’s ring. Dad was puzzled, saying “you’ve seen this ring hundreds of times”, but Dad handed it to him anyway. His buddy looked at it, shook his head and said “The strangest thing happened earlier this week at a company seminar held in Birmingham. One of the guys there was showing off his Auburn 1957 National Championship ring and bragging about being on the team. Because of you, I was friends with everyone on the team, but for the life of me, I did not remember this guy.” Dad asked him if he knew who that guy was. They went to my Dad’s buddy’s home office to look at a roll of attendance for the seminar and, surprise, surprise that guy was from Montgomery. Dad asked his buddy what he was doing the next day and his buddy replied “Apparently driving to Montgomery with you in the morning”…lol).

The next morning, they drove straight to this guy’s house (his address was posted in the company directory). When he answered the door, he was wearing the ring. After Dad’s buddy explained the story to him, surprisingly the guy just shut the door in their face. Now Dad and his buddy were furious, but didn’t know what to do. After thinking about it for a bit, they decided to go a local police station. After explaining their story to one of the officers there, the officer asked Dad if there was anything distinguishing about the ring that would indicate it was his. Dad said that his name was engraved on the inside. The officer said that was enough to get a warrant to see if that was Dad’s ring. They then went back to the guy’s house with the warrant. When the officer looked at the ring, sure enough it had Dad’s name engraved on the inside. Now Dad had his original ring back and was ecstatic. (Many people asked if the guy got in trouble and the answer is no. Other than being a jerk by not giving them the ring when they first confronted him, he didn’t steal the ring, he found the ring.)

Now Dad had two rings. Because he was so grateful to his buddy, he gave the replacement ring to his buddy (a 1960 Auburn graduate) to wear until either he or Dad passed away. In that case, the ring would be returned to me and my brother so that both of Dad’s sons would get a ring. Unfortunately, my Dad had a stroke in '93 and his buddy returned the ring shortly after that rather than wait until Dad passed away (Dad lived another 15+ years. We lost him in the spring of 2010….right before our historic season). I really wish he could have witnessed it, but it just wasn’t meant to be. My brother (a 1991 grad who ironically was living in Phoenix at that time) and I were both there at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale that night in January 2011 wearing Dad’s 1957 National Championship rings while watching Auburn win the 2010 National Championship. What an incredibly emotional night.

I still wear “my” ring every day instead of my 1987 Auburn graduation ring.

As Jim Fyffe would say, “My time is up, I thank you for yours”.

War Damn Eagle!!!

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