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Letter to the editor

Ferocious fans

Win or lose, near or far, year after year, by plane or by car. Nothing stands in the way of them and their Auburn Tigers.

By SHARON GINN Times Correspondent
Published September 28, 2007

Betty and Jim Carroll are diehard Auburn University football fans. Jim, 76, hasn't missed a game since October 1983. Betty, 71, has missed one.
	[Daniel Wallace | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Daniel Wallace | Times] Some Auburn team memorabilia.

Jim and Betty Carroll sat in the football stands together, as they had for more than two decades. They were used to making the long trips from their Tampa home to Jordan-Haire Stadium in Auburn, Ala. 

Indeed, Jim may be one of the most hard-core Auburn fans, living nearly 450 miles away in Bayshore Beautiful, deep in Gator and Seminole country. The Auburn University alum claims he hasn't missed a game - home or away - in 24 years. Betty was never a student there, but she was always a big fan, too.

But that day three weeks ago, the Carrolls' beloved Tigers were playing the University of South Florida, which just happened to be the former "little commuter school" that Betty graduated from in the 1970s.

It was a risk, she knew. Still, she decided to show a little support for her own alma mater. Peeking out from under her orange button-down shirt - just this once - was a USF T-shirt.

"It was funny at first," Betty said.

Until the Bulls started winning.

"Then it got to be not funny at all.

"I looked at the girl sitting next to me and said, 'I really need to save this 44-year marriage, so I'd better take the shirt off.'"

* * *

If you know anything about college football, you know the outcome of that fateful game: The underdogs, USF, beat Auburn 26-23 in overtime.

Somehow, neither the Carrolls' loyalty nor their marriage were really tested. Betty never expected USF to win and was actually disappointed the team won.

The next week, she and Jim made the trip to watch the Tigers lose again. They finally celebrated a win last week.

Come Saturday, they'll be in the stands in Gainesville for yet another contentious bout as Auburn takes on Southeastern Conference rival the University of Florida's Gators at 8 p.m.

The Gators are undefeated with a 4-0 record; Auburn's record is 2-2. Jim's not that optimistic about Auburn's chances. Either way, the 76-year-old businessman still will be a Tiger.

He has seen worse. Back in college, from 1950 to 1954, when Jim studied to be an engineer, Auburn was so bad that students joked that their slogan was "Let's win the party," he said.

Saturday will be Jim's 290th consecutive game, a streak of home, road, bowl and SEC championship games that dates to October 1983.

Betty's streak would equal his, were it not for one miserable day four years ago that she was stuck in bed, recovering from pneumonia at what they call their "vacation home" in Auburn (which is mostly just the place they get ready for and recover from Auburn football games).

All told, Jim figures he has been to 494 Auburn games since 1950. Betty hasn't been to quite that many. Back when she was teaching at Chamberlain High and raising two boys, it was a lot tougher to make the nine-hour trip from Tampa just for home games.

* * *

As a child growing up in Birmingham, about 120 miles away from Auburn, Betty's father taught her early on to love the Tigers. Where they lived, you either rooted for Auburn or the University of Alabama. Her family chose Auburn.

Jim came to his loyalty after he was discharged from the Army Signal Corps in 1950. He planned to attend Rice University in Houston but visited Auburn a few times with a friend and fell in love with the small town and its genteel Southern manners.

The couple have raised two Auburn graduates - Phillip and David - and along with Jim's company, Carroll Air Systems, have donated enough money to the school and the athletic department to get their names on parts of two buildings.

To hear the Carrolls tell it, their loyalty is not that unusual.

"All of the people that we know are almost as gung ho as we are," Betty said, but acknowledged, "maybe that's just the group we gravitate to."

The Carrolls have viewed their game attendance streak as less of a commitment than a simple desire to see their favorite team every week. The trip to Auburn can be notoriously inconvenient either by airplane or car, and the Carrolls have tried just about every route and every mode of transportation, from small planes to motor homes to flights to Atlanta (and driving the rest of the way).

Their longest journey, hands down, was the time they cut short a weeklong trip to the former Yugoslavia for a business meeting. In order to make it back to Auburn in time for the game, they had to leave behind the couple they were hosting.

Nobody minded.

"They were Gators," Betty said. "They understood completely."

Tigers 101 | The school, the fans 

So where is Auburn?

Auburn, Ala., is a college town with about 50,000 permanent residents. Columbus, Ga., is about 40 miles to the southeast and Birmingham, Ala., about 120 miles northwest. Its claim to fame, Auburn University, is a public college with about 24,000 students this year. In U.S. News & World Report's issue of America's Best Colleges 2006,AU was ranked 39th among public universities nationwide.

Source: Auburn University, the city of Auburn

Meet the Carrolls: true Auburn fans

- Jim, 76; Betty, 71

- Jim says he has not missed an Auburn game - home, away or bowl - since October 1983.

- Betty has missed just one game during that period (four years ago because of pneumonia).

- Sons Phillip, 49, of Tampa and David, 48, of Pensacola both graduated from Auburn. (Of course, grandchildren are always encouraged to do likewise.)

- In 1972 Jim founded Carroll Air Systems, which furnishes equipment, parts and service for heating and air conditioning systems. Betty is vice president and financial manager. In 2006 Jim received the "Distinguished Auburn Engineer" award from the Auburn Alumni Engineering Council.

[Last modified September 27, 2007, 07:43:04]