In Search Of Brandon Cox... Fan Day 2007

By Jay Coulter

As a general rule, Fan Day is not my thing. The idea of standing in line for more than two hours to get autographs is akin to spending a day in line at Six Flags, which is something else I hate. Despite this, I’ve known since April that I would be spending an afternoon of joy at 2007 Auburn Fan Day.

Why? It’s quite simple. I have an 11 year-old daughter who would step around, over and through you to get close to Auburn quarterback Brandon Cox. Although she won’t admit it, my wife is almost as bad.

My last fan day was in 2004, a day that I promised myself would never happen again. We’ve all made promises to ourselves that we can’t keep. Fans began lining up at 9:30 a.m. for an event that didn’t start until 3 p.m.

In my mind, I was early. I showed up with the family and our good friends, the Benton’s at 1:50 p.m. More than two hours later, my daughter and my wife to an extent, had all their dreams fulfilled. As for me, I had fulfilled my fatherly duties – nothing more, nothing less.

The Auburn athletic department estimated the crowd at more than 5,000 people. Honestly, it seemed like 25,000 people. I was impressed at how the players reacted. They were swarmed from the minute they arrived, but all had smiles on their faces and were extremely nice to the kids, both young and old.

They had to be tired. Just a little while earlier, they had finished up the first full scrimmage of the season. Tommy Tuberville preaches that he wants the right kind of players at Auburn. After watching them interact with the fans Saturday, I have to say that he’s done an incredible job.

And yes, my daughter did get the coveted picture with Cox. Today, we are having it enlarged to 10 different sizes to fit that many frames. Fan Day was a huge success.