Charles Barkley may not be current on Auburn news, but he is a prolific horseback rider. (Layne Murdoch/Getty Images)

By Zac Ellis

Ever since the poisoning of the oak trees at Toomer’s Corner, Auburn fans have mourned the gradual loss of their iconic landmarks. The school held a final rolling of the trees after the Tigers’ spring game on April 20, which served as a memorial before the trees were finally taken down.

Evidently, TNT NBA analyst Charles Barkley didn’t get the memo. An Auburn fan who played his college basketball with the Tigers, Barkley offered his thoughts on the upcoming football season on the Tim Brando Show. He doesn’t seem to be particularly well-versed on the latest news coming out of the Auburn community.

Charles Barkley on Tim Brando Show: "We've got Gus Malzahn. I'm very confident we're going to be rolling trees at some point this year."—
Chris Vannini (@CoachingBuzz) April 30, 2013

Too soon, Chuck. Too soon.

Verne, you charmer, you. (Lisa Krantz/SI)

By Holly Anderson

We are once again engaging in the odd practice of linking to something on our own website, but college football fans will not want to miss Richard Deitsch’s Q&A with national treasure Verne Lundquist*:

You met your wife Nancy in 1980 and you were married in 1982. How did you two meet?

We met in a bar — and I hasten to add it was an upscale bar in Dallas. It was a place called Arthur’s. I walked in after I did the 10 o’clock news (at WFAA-TV in Dallas) and I just didn’t want to go home. Nancy and her date were at the bar and her date recognized me from local television and invited me over to have a drink. He introduced me to his date and her name was Nancy Miller. It was their first date, a blind date. So we sat and chatted and her date, Raymond Willie, said to me, “Listen, I know you are single. I’m going to fix you up with a friend of mind and we can all go to dinner.” He looked at Nancy and asked her, “What are you doing Thursday night?” She said, “Nothing.” He said, “Good, you’ll be my date and we’ll fix Verne up with this schoolteacher friend of mine and we’ll go to dinner.” Meanwhile, I’m looking at Nancy thinking she is the prettiest thing I have ever seen in my life. So, Raymond finally left to take care of his business and I asked Nancy, “So, how involved are you with Raymond? She said, “Oh, this is our first date and it’s a blind date.” So I said, “Well forget what he is talking about on Thursday night. What are you doing on Saturday night?” She said, “I think I am doing whatever you are doing.”

*Whom we have never, ever heard called “Drunkquist.” Who are these people? Can we fight them?

Laugh to keep from crying, Rod Gilmore? ESPN has broken up the GilTess team. (US PRESSWIRE)

College football’s transience is at once its greatest design flaw and a patience-shoring comfort. We spend well over half of each year awaiting its arrival, and prize each game all the more for getting only a dozen or so chances to watch each team. Can’t stand your alma mater’s mouthy wideout? Take heart: You won’t have to live with him for a generation like you would a Brett Favre. Treasure your most favored program’s huggy killbear of a nose tackle? Treasure him hard: You’ll get two or three more years of watching him in those colors at most.

It’s much the same with the folks who bring us the games. Did you enjoy Bob Davie pronouncing Will Muschamp’s name “Muscamp”? Hope you savored it, now that Davie’s gone to New Mexico. Are you an American with a pulse, and therefore someone who loathes Craig James to your very marrow? He is no more! But then:

“Joe Tessitore and Matt Millen will serve as the announcers for a new package of additional Saturday night games, primarily on ESPN.”

ESPN is breaking up GilTess, and sincere congratulations to Tessitore for landing a Saturday gig. But slotting Carter Blackburn in Tessitore’s place alongside Rod Gilmore will leave our Fridays a little less madcap, and we can’t help but feel we’ll be spiritually poorer for it.* So WACtion sank to grief, y’all.

Other items of note from the annual announcer shuffle: Erin Andrews’ sideline replacement for the Herbie-Musby ABC primetime crew has not been named. The addition of David Pollack to the Rece Davis-Jesse Palmer booth makes Thursday night college football the best hair night in sports. Jemele Hill will join that Friday team, and Samantha Steele takes the Thursday sideline gig. Still intact: Nessler-Blackledge-Rowe for ESPN primetime.

*And yet: See Stewart Mandel’s Tessitore feature, and note who is slated to call Mike Leach’s Washington State debut. Hope is kindled. 

Beth Mowins (above) could see her profile increase after Pam Ward’s bump off the college football beat. (Porter Binks/SI)

More than a decade after becoming the first woman to call a college football game for a national TV network, Pam Ward is being moved off the beat in 2012. Via SI’s Richard Deitsch, here is ESPN’s statement on reassigning Ward away from college football coverage: ”For a decade, Pam has been a trailblazing voice on college football. She will continue to be a big part of our coverage plans across multiple sports including college basketball, softball, the WNBA and more.”

It’d be some kind of reverse sexism to defend Ward’s body of work because she has lady parts. I was never a particular fan. I like my announcers openly and brazenly biased (think the pair of relentless homers who do Hawaii games on the island’s local feed), unable to contain their glee (Verne Lundquist, whose chortles are a national treasure) and susceptible to stunts (Tessitore-Gilmore, who were famous for rifling through college students’ unmentionables on camera long before they became America’s Friday-night shootout sweethearts). But I can and will envy her ascent* and freely admire that she was there at all.

I’m also not big on the concept of “favorite female sports announcer,” because it’s a tiny pool and needlessly lops off a big swath of the population doing the exact same job that doesn’t change on account of plumbing. (It’s like saying “favorite freckled barista.”) But if I had one, it’d be Beth Mowins. If the Ward move leads to an increased profile for Mowins, that’s to the good, because she’s good at her job.

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