OT: Bama fan poisons trees at Auburn
So this is a horrible story and its on ESPN main page but I thought it might be a good thing to share and talk about. A radio station gets a caller from a guy claiming he poisoned the trees at Auburn's Toomer's Corner, and yells "Roll damn Tide" and hangs up.
Sure enough, they tested the soil and the area is contaminated with a herbicide that will undoubtedly kill the trees. Best part? The article also says that it will likely spread throughout the area and could be prevalent in the soil for 3-5 years. And the trees are said to be of an average age of 130 years old. What a shame!
I'm all for rivalries, but destroying a tradition of another school is out of this world. This is on a grandiose scale I've never heard of. It would be like cutting the head off Sparty, but that pales in comparison to destroying life. Could you imagine someone poisoning all the trees in the Quad? I'd be livid.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=6129272
February 16th, 2011 at 7:45 PM ^
We wouldn't necessarily need to retaliate. Enough students at a certain school about an hour and some change northwest of Ann Arbor pee in the Grand River that the water and the banks are devoid of substantial life......
February 16th, 2011 at 7:54 PM ^
Technically it's the Red Cedar River that runs through EL, if you're going by straight facts. It meets up with the Grand River in Lansing several miles W of East Lansing.
February 16th, 2011 at 8:01 PM ^
.....on my way to paint Sparty.
February 17th, 2011 at 8:29 AM ^
slow down there sonny!
February 16th, 2011 at 7:46 PM ^
Hopefully the a-hole gets arrested for vandalism, and gets put in an Auburn jail. Justice would then be served... But even that, though satisfying, can't bring back 130 years of a tree's life.
February 17th, 2011 at 5:59 AM ^
Agreed. The only 130 year old thing that lives on campus and deserves to be poisoned is Gene Chizik.
February 16th, 2011 at 7:47 PM ^
Pawwwwwl, I done poisoned dem trees. Pawwwwwl.
February 16th, 2011 at 7:51 PM ^
jeebus...srsly. Alabama Fans...
February 17th, 2011 at 8:02 AM ^
Alumni networking at its finest.
February 17th, 2011 at 1:52 PM ^
that pic looks photoshopped to me. It looks like the fat red balloon was placed on top of the existing image.
February 16th, 2011 at 7:57 PM ^
That's awful, yet it is not surprising.
February 16th, 2011 at 8:09 PM ^
There are some major friggin idiots out there.
"The trees are on Auburn's campus, therefore they are obviously Tiger trees! They must die!"
The south, man. Ugh.
February 16th, 2011 at 8:32 PM ^
There are stupid people everywhere.
February 16th, 2011 at 9:36 PM ^
But where inbreeding is considered a "lifestyle choice" you certainly get more of them.
February 16th, 2011 at 9:39 PM ^
That's true, but I'd argue that there's a higher concentration of stupid people in the South. I've lived in the Midwest, the West, the East Coast, and the South, and based on my experience, I'd give the award of "most stupid people per capita" to the South.
February 17th, 2011 at 9:47 AM ^
If you ever lived in Ohio, you might want to do a little rethinking of where stupid people reside.
February 16th, 2011 at 9:42 PM ^
There are. But after living in Alabama for 27 years, I can tell you, we have more than our share.
February 16th, 2011 at 9:49 PM ^
Not in Ann Arbor.
February 16th, 2011 at 8:20 PM ^
It'll be a huge middle finger to that guy and Bama fans when the trees end up surviving and even thriving. That'd be sweet
February 16th, 2011 at 8:23 PM ^
not suprised alabama is full of white trash......been to auburn's campus and the trees are really cool......what a shame.
February 16th, 2011 at 8:34 PM ^
Pssssssh poinsoning trees?!?!?
We go to war with our rivals! Albeit a relatively peaceful war, but still, WAR!
February 16th, 2011 at 8:40 PM ^
unitl he was 27 but from then on... Roll Tide
February 16th, 2011 at 8:43 PM ^
They should cut down the trees before they rot, build a wooden horse and give it to Bama as a gift....
February 16th, 2011 at 8:50 PM ^
Beware Tigers bearing gifts.....
February 16th, 2011 at 8:54 PM ^
Learned that one the hard way.
Thanks Grampy.
February 16th, 2011 at 9:19 PM ^
And the SEC always seemed so classy...Seriously, though, that's terrible.
February 16th, 2011 at 9:54 PM ^
Like school in July, man.
February 16th, 2011 at 9:21 PM ^
Well state did spray paint angel halls pillars....which was bad.
But this actually is worse.
February 16th, 2011 at 9:32 PM ^
I'm pretty sure paint takes <1 day to fix. You can't grow a 130 year old tree over night.
February 16th, 2011 at 10:13 PM ^
Not true. They tried to get the paint off for a long time and it wasn't for a while until you couldn't notice it anymore.
WIth that said, its still not the same as killing 150 year old living trees....(that happen to be a main part of campus)
February 16th, 2011 at 9:46 PM ^
one of the best things about college sports (and college football in particular) is all of the tradition and all the notable land marks. M club banner, auburns trees, georgias hedges, etc. destroying them is just stupid. sure it'd be hilarious to paint a winged helmet on the sparty statue but why ruin the whole fun of everything by destroying it?
February 16th, 2011 at 11:36 PM ^
There's an M Club banner from 1998 that currently resides in Syracuse, NY. Only game since they've been using the banner that Michigan didn't run out under it.
February 17th, 2011 at 10:26 AM ^
I think that banner was eventually recovered.
February 17th, 2011 at 10:56 AM ^
Last I saw it was hanging from the top of a parking garage near the Dome during a tailgate in 1999.
February 16th, 2011 at 10:25 PM ^
I mean, just wow. What a terrible thing. The only way this turns out OK is if Alabama and Auburn get together and find a way to save the trees. I really hope there are no similar failures at humanity who are "inspired" to similar acts elsewhere.
February 17th, 2011 at 9:37 AM ^
Very true, Alabama should volunteer their staff or funding or something. I realize it isn't their responsibility, but if they do literally nothing (and it seems they haven't even released a statement yet) they look like they condone this.
February 16th, 2011 at 10:40 PM ^
Call me a tree-hugging hippy, but that sort of disrespect for a living thing is abominable. I understand and even endorse getting rid of trees when they're in the way of progress. But killing a living thing because of a perverted sense of rivalry is disgusting.
Sadly, we can't even say this is just a "southern" thing, as other posters have. About a century ago, before the Harvard-Yale game, Harvard's coach tried to motivate his team by strangling a bulldog in the locker room.
Apparently we haven't come all that far in a century. Disgusting.
February 16th, 2011 at 10:53 PM ^
Pretty sure that's just a story that never actually happened. Besides, you're not equating trees to dogs, are you? I think the perpetrator oughta be exiled to Mongolia myself (not many trees there), but still.
February 16th, 2011 at 10:57 PM ^
I got a little carried away. And thank God that story's not real. It really bothered me when I first heard about it. I'm still depressed for humanity that this jackass exists in Alabama. He belongs in the West Texas moonscape.
February 16th, 2011 at 10:58 PM ^
Thanks for picking up on this as well. A coach choking a dog out is not the same as some dumb ass fan killing a tree. Sorry, I can't make that leap with you. If the find the guy they should give him a 1,000 paper cuts.
February 16th, 2011 at 10:47 PM ^
February 16th, 2011 at 11:23 PM ^
"A radio station gets a caller from a guy claiming he poisoned the trees at Auburn's Toomer's Corner, and yells "Roll damn Tide" and hangs up."
Ladies and Gentlemen. May I present to you, the Deep South.
February 16th, 2011 at 11:26 PM ^
Not even a modicum of perspective. Wow.
February 16th, 2011 at 11:47 PM ^
If a tree falls on him in the woods and nobody's around to hear it... would anybody care?
February 17th, 2011 at 1:02 AM ^
If it lands on Nick Saban then no
February 17th, 2011 at 3:08 AM ^
Of course, like all things, this works both ways.
February 17th, 2011 at 11:46 AM ^
Mixing two kinds of grass on a lawn vs. killing 150 year old trees.
Maybe I'm just more sympathetic to the Auburn fans because I really hate Alabama, but it seems like a subtle difference to me.