UNTIL THE BIGGER GAME IS WON

IT WILL SOUND FAMILIAR. Teams began cancelling their seasons over the summer. Sports sections read like obituaries for entire programs. Headlines heralded the end
of the game—you just couldn’t risk the health of the players. If you did, you risked the entire population of the country. Maybe even the world. The crisis was global. It
affected everything.

Still, people held out hope. Surely, come September—surely everything would be back to normal, or at least normal enough for touchdowns and field goals and
cheerleaders and hotdogs. The country needed it. People needed it.

But, unlike you and me, they didn’t get it. Not a single snap.

This is the story of the one year it actually happened — 1943, the year Auburn cancelled football.

THERE WERE A COUPLE OF MADMEN trying to take over the world, so, obviously, the handwriting was on the wall. But no one wanted to read it. And they definitely didn’t want to believe it—not after a season like 1942.

Sure, with a 6-4-1 record, there had been a few hiccups—all on the road, all in the rain, let it be known. But get ’em on a dry field and, man, oh, man, were the Auburn Tigers even better than that final No. 16 ranking! Those final three games? The blowout vs. Clemson in the only game at home? The upset over LSU? But most especially, forever and always, that upset win over No. 1 Georgia? We’re not talking some last-second miracle. It wasn’t a Hail Mary. It wasn’t some fluke field goal. No, it was a beating—a beating you were going to tell your grandkids about, the biggest upset of a generation.

Georgia had a great team led by Heisman Trophy winner Frankie Sinkwich and had gone on to win the national championship in 1942. And Auburn and mighty Monk Gafford, Auburn’s best back ever, had blown them out of the water.

Youtube Video – 1942 Auburn vs. Georgia

WORD WAS that Coach Meagher was bringing the video reels with him to the ballroom—that he was going to narrate the whole Georgia game after dinner! The 200 reservations were snapped up faster than ever.

Ol’ George Penton, the granddaddy of the old Montgomery Auburn men, was going to surprise the Little General with an inscribed wristwatch. “Jack Meagher, Our All-America Coach—Montgomery Auburn Alumni.” Everyone would cheer and then Meagher would hit the podium and hold up some “Gafford Sinks Sinkwich” headlines and introduce Monk, and then they would dim the lights and flip the switch and Genial Jack and his low tenor voice would relive it right in front of them.

Finally, Meagher would talk about the upcoming season and about how, sure, it might get interesting because of the war, and that they might be down a few practice balls because of the leather rationing, but that plenty of the current boys probably wouldn’t be called up for a couple of semesters, and that even if they were, there’d probably be some decent new material coming in through the Army Specialized Training Program. No, despite all the Chicken Littles, he just didn’t see the Army or the Navy saying no to the benefits of football. What better way to train a future fighting man to fight than the gridiron? Not to worry, ol’ Jack would surely say—they would find a way to do America proud and still beat the hell out of Georgia again. That’s what was supposed to happen that Wednesday night, Feb. 10, 1943, in Montgomery.

API President Luther Duncan stood up. The room got quiet. Dr. Duncan wasn’t smiling. After a few seconds, neither was anyone else.

Coach Meagher, Duncan said, wasn’t there. He wouldn’t be coming.

Lt. Commander Meagher, Duncan said, was on his way to North Carolina. Right then. At that very moment. Uncle Sam had called that morning. Meagher had said yes. He was reporting for active duty. For the past 12 hours, Auburn hadn’t had a football coach.

After a few seconds, Assistant U.S. Attorney Hartwell Davis, Class of ‘28, broke the silence. They were Auburn men, he reminded the room, they were Auburn women. He motioned that the club immediately wire Meagher a message:

“GOOD LUCK IN THE BIG GAME.”

JACK MEAGHER HADN’T EXACTLY BEEN SHY about wanting to return to the service. He’d been itching to come off the bench since Dec. 7, 1941. He’d withdrawn from Notre Dame to enlist in the Marines in 1917, finished the Great War as a captain, and still had connections with Navy brass who now wanted him in charge of the Navy’s physical training division. Made sense. If you can whip boys into shape for football, you can get them fit enough for a Flying Fortress.

So, no, it wasn’t exactly a surprise, but it was still a shock. People looked at each other. This did not bode well. It wasn’t just a feeling. Duncan was saying as much.

“I don’t know whether we will have intercollegiate football this fall or not.”

Meagher’s departure—and Duncan’s quote—hit the papers hard and fast, regionally and nationally. Every major paper in the country was eager to tease the To Play or Not To Play wartime narrative with whatever they could get their hands on. The football fate of the team that had spoiled a perfect season for mighty Georgia might now be decided not just by possible lack of material (which everyone would be dealing with to some extent) but the lack of a head coach, one Esquire Magazine had two years earlier called one of the top 10 in the country was too good to pass up?

Love of Country Trumps School Spirit!

It was too good to pass up.

Of course, it was natural to think an assistant could just handle things for as long as necessary. The only problem was that there weren’t any assistants. Most had already shipped off themselves. Porter Grant, Boots Chambless, Jimmy Hitchcock and some guy named Shug Jordan were already gone.

And now, suddenly, minus Meagher, they were also without an athletics director. Gentleman Jack had been pulling double duty.

But surely it was too premature to say something as drastic as no football. It wasn’t just Meagher’s reassurances. SEC bigwigs had been promising business as usual not two months earlier, promising that football was totally aligned with the war effort in every possible way—good for morale, good for fitness.

And Auburn had kept the gridiron going during the last conflict — which coincided with the Spanish Flu, no less—even when some other schools hadn’t. Why not now? Everyone understood that 1943 might look a lot different than 1942, and that they’d maybe have to bring some men out of the woodwork to coach the boys, but couldn’t it work out if there were still boys to coach, like the January 27th War Department directive made it sound like there might be?

Almost certainly not, said the February 12th War Department directive.

THE NEWS BROKE just two days after Meagher’s departure, and mere hours before President Roosevelt took to the airwaves to promise an expedited annihilation of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan.

In the Loveliest Village, word spread fast. Forget the “in a couple of semesters” talk—it was time to kiss your sweethearts. And to try to get excited about another sport.

Because for Auburn and the 270 other colleges under the authority of the Army Specialized Training Program, as opposed to the less strict V-12 Navy College Training Program, the issue wasn’t just the new timetable, it was the new rules.

Any soldiers-in-waiting on campus might be able to play baseball, basketball, track, tennis, stuff like that. But risking life and limb for the fate of a football game rather than the fate of the free world was now out of the question.

The decision to officially cancel the game would still be up to individual schools. They could throw shoulder pads on civilians, schedule some games with whatever teams were left and call it a football season if they wanted. If they could get people to pay to watch 17-year-olds, or any 18-year-olds who hadn’t been processed, or any of the 4-F boys classified as physically or mentally unfit to defend the United States of America, more power to them. But any man fit enough for a fall roster was Uncle Sam’s, and Uncle Sam was no longer screwing around.

“Football,” read a common headline, “is Doomed.”

There were plenty of schools where that didn’t seem true. Auburn wasn’t one of them. Suddenly, the main issue wasn’t the lack of a competent coach. It was the lack of competent
players.

What would happen if they sent out 11 men who hadn’t gone through spring training—men who might even still legally be children!—against the Green Wave on the first Saturday in October? Tulane wouldn’t have as many varsity men as they’d had in 1942, but the ones they did have could still play football—they’d be Navy trainees. You could say the same for plenty of teams on Auburn’s tentative 1943 schedule. Georgia Tech had Navy men. LSU had Marines. Georgia thought they’d be allowed to tap into the university’s Naval Preflight Program team, a veritable all-star squad stocked with professional players from across the country. If Auburn lined up against its main rivals under current conditions, they’d be lucky to make a first down.

But, of course, the conditions seemed to change every day. These were crazy times. Plenty of folks across the conference thought the Army might ultimately reverse course. Duncan highly doubted it. But September was still a little ways off. There was still a month or two to decide.

Until there wasn’t.

IT WAS SATURDAY, JULY 3, 1943. Duncan walked up the stairs to Samford Hall. He could hear the yellow J-3 Cubs off in the distance. Seemed like there were never fewer than five overhead at any given moment. The 100 cadet pilots who’d taken up residence for training at the airport—the Navy had taken over the tiny facility—averaged 100 hours in the air each day. No one minded.

The Loveliest Village hadn’t slowed down much for the summer. Plenty of men were already at Fort Macpherson, but plenty were still around, hoping to get in one last Saturday night street dance behind Samford Hall before reporting Monday for 12 weeks at Officer Candidate School. The party was set to start at 8:15 p.m. It was going to be a good one, doubling as a special Independence Day celebration.

It was the furthest thing from Duncan’s mind.

He just wanted to get the afternoon and the whole issue behind him. He didn’t know how long the meeting would take. But he was pretty sure what the recently formed faculty committee on athletics was going to say.

By the beginning of the month, five SEC teams had already thrown in the towel. And then, Friday afternoon, the news from Knoxville hit the wire. That was six—half the conference. They handed him the piece of paper.

“It is recommended to the president that intercollegiate athletics at Alabama Polytechnic Institute be suspended for the present due to the insurmountable difficulties arising from the war.”

STUDENTS WEREN’T HAPPY. The Plainsman wasn’t happy. They understood, they accepted it. But the paper still insisted that the student body would cheer on any 97-pound weakling willing to strap on a helmet for the glory of Auburn. If they had to find some 17-year-olds, they’d find them. Hell, if the team needed underwire, so be it. Robert Allen, dean of the school of science and literature, and chairman of the faculty athletic committee, got out his typewriter. The Plainsman ran his letter.

The recent decision to drop intercollegiate football at API for the duration was reluctantly made by Pres. Duncan upon the unanimous recommendation of the faculty athletic commission, the executive council, and prominent alumni, long been associated with Auburn Athletics, who urged similar action.

Some of the factors influencing the decision follow:

The entire football coaching staff is in the Army. Only one member of last year’s football squad is on hand. The Army shows no disposition to modify its decision that college trainees are not eligible for intercollegiate competition. Auburn’s 1943 squad would have to be composed of 17 [sic] to 18-year-old boys and those classified into 4F or 2A.

Without the advantage of spring or summer practice under the direction of an able coaching staff it would be impossible to build a team in the fall that could offer reasonable competition to those having the services of Navy trainees or those still retaining their coaching staffs. Unsuccessful efforts were made to borrow the services of head coaches from other
Southeastern Conference colleges that have suspended athletics.

The majority of the SEC members have been faced with similar considerations and have elected to drop football. Those fortunate enough to have coaching facilities and eligible players are in the minority.

Under the circumstances, it did not seem possible to field a team that could acquit itself creditably. Every consideration dictated the wisdom of setting aside our intercollegiate sports until the bigger game is won.

Everyone had been invited to the stadium for the All Out For Victory pep rally. Students, soldiers, sailors and naval air cadets all were there. Cheerleaders were out in full force. Even football players, or former ones, at least—Monk Gafford and plenty of others from the great ‘42 team, still with the Army Specialized Training Program, yet to ship overseas, attended. It was Thursday night, November 18. Instead of Coach Meagher talking about what should have been the upcoming game against Georgia, Col. John J. Waterman talked on “Football Players at War.” Instead of orange and blue—red, white and blue.

“This time we were not yelling for the Auburn football team because there is no Auburn football team this year,” the Plainsman wrote a week later. “We were all down there yelling for a bigger and better team. The U.S. Army team! We were yelling for that team to march on to victory as our football team won victory over those Georgia Bulldogs last year.”

At the end of the night, everyone moved to the stadium parking lot. They lit the bonfire. Instead of papier-mâché bulldogs, they burned effigies of Hitler and Hirohito.

How two friends in two different fields came together to make a big difference

She’s Chelsea Phillips ’15, the head of her own boutique public relations firm. He’s Jonathan Jones ’15, cornerback for the New England Patriots and a two-time Super Bowl champion. Their friendship began at Auburn, but now it’s connecting their professional careers like never before. Auburn Magazine sat down with the longtime friends to see what brought them together and how their careers continue to grow.

Auburn Magazine: How did you two first meet? Did you know each other before?

Chelsea Phillips: We met at Auburn and became really close friends…was that our junior year? We both had a class in Lowder and when we had some little break time, we would go in there and get some coffee and just talk about life. We’re both from Georgia, but prior to Auburn we didn’t know each other.

Jonathan Jones: It was definitely outside between classes and just having conversations at the Starbucks at Lowder about the future. Kind of what we wanted out of life. My plans of wanting to be in the NFL. Her plans wanting to work in PR. Just conversations like that over and over.

AM: What is the motivation behind the Jonathan Jones Next Step Foundation?

JJ: It’s focused around youth, just the next step in life. I feel like everyone gets to a point where they need direction and mentorship. They need someone to help them move to the next step. A lot of people have goals and ambitions—they just need help getting on that next path and that next step.

“Not everyone is going to score touchdowns on Sunday, but they can score touchdowns in life. Being good parents, being good citizens, things like that are what my foundation is based on.”

AM: When did you start working together professionally?

JJ: For me, my head was spinning. My first couple of years, I was undrafted. Football was my main focus. Last year, I finally got to that place in my career where I had a break and was kind of like, “what is Jonathan Jones beyond football?” I wanted to start my own foundation and go on that path. My first contact I reached out to was Chelsea. I was like “hey, these are some ideas. I’ve got a lot going on in my head and I need someone to facilitate that because football just takes up this large portion of my life.” There’s so much more that I still want to do, that we are doing. It just started from that.

CP: Jon had been playing in New England for I think two or three years at that point, and I would just call and check in. He was, like, “Sis, you haven’t even come to a game,” so I went to Boston…we didn’t really even have the conversation then, but in February 2019 we talked about it. Jon reached out. He said “I’m thinking about having a football camp this year; I want you to plan it.” And I was, like, OK. All those Auburn conversations had manifested, and here we are.

AM: Chelsea, that’s similar to your “Beyond the Jersey” project, right? 

CP: My whole goal with that series is to highlight what the athletes are doing outside the field. It’ll probably launch the first part of 2021. It was kind of inspired by the comment made toward LeBron James, “shut up and dribble.” We see a lot of that nowadays—people want athletes to be quiet, they don’t want them to have an opinion, and they just want them to shut up and play.

There are so many amazing people doing so many amazing things, but a lot of times, the only things people are focused on is what they do on Sunday, or Monday or Thursday. I think it’s a cool way to highlight what they’re doing outside of football.

AM: What makes your friendship translate to work so successfully?

JJ: When you think of PR, you want someone who knows you on a personal level. Who understands your personal vision. When I tell Chelsea I want to do this, she sees it the way I would like to see it. Having someone who’s familiar with me and knows how I see things, how I want things to be done, that’s the first part of your relationship: knowing your client.

CP: It’s cool to know him on that personal level and not just strictly business. Every time we talk, it’s not just “hey Jonathan, what do we need to do?” Our foundation is “hey, how’s [your daughter] Skylar doing? How’s your mom doing?” It’s cool to have that friendship component of the business as well.

What was it like starting the Super Bowl, preparing and winning?

JJ: That was crazy. The week before, I played primarily corner in the AFC Championship game. Then the coaches came to me about a week before the Super Bowl and were like ‘hey, how do you feel like playing safety?’ I’m like, ‘I’ve never done it before, but if it’ll help us win, I’m down to do it.’

Just to be out there contributing, competing, coming back [after] missing the Super Bowl before with an injury…it’s not like you’re going to go the Super Bowl every year, so just having that opportunity to be right back after watching my teammates go out and compete but come up short. That year, having the opportunity to affect it and be out there, it meant so much to me.

AM: Do you have any favorite memories of working together?

CP: My favorite memory is our first event—I don’t know if Jonathan even knows this—but I was so nervous. I wanted everything to go off without a hitch. We had a football camp and his agent was there and he said, “I’ve never seen a camp perform this well.” He’s been an agent now for 20-plus years and he’s, like, “this went off without a hitch. It seemed like a five-year camp to me.” And that was really rewarding to hear him say that.

How do you go from being undrafted to playing in the NFL?

JJ: That was my whole focus, making sure I had a job, just trying to prove my worth. Coming in undrafted, day in and day out, just proving yourself, continuing to earn your job. Not saying it’s not that way as much [once] you become a veteran, but you’ve kind of solidified yourself in certain ways—people already know what you can do in this league. [It’s] hard, though, going undrafted; you don’t have any guarantees, so you’re just working from the bottom.

Your team has won two Super bowls and been to three, that’s got to be pretty sweet

JJ: That’s life changing [laughs]. You come in your rookie year, go to the Super Bowl versus your hometown team, that’s amazing. You win that, come back the second year, go to the Super Bowl…I got hurt in the playoffs, that was a tough one to sit out. Then that third year, coming back, starting, being a pivotal person on the defense and the team, getting that start and winning the super bowl again, it’s been a crazy journey. You take it step by step and day by day.

AM: What projects are you working on next?

JJ: Right now, we have social justice reform that we’re doing with the team, so I put my attention toward that. We felt that as the “patriots” of New England, we had an extreme platform, and just being able to use that for so many things outside of football kind of just goes back to that “Beyond the Jersey” topic—we step off the football field and we still have the same impact that we have on Sundays.

What’s it like living and training in the middle of the Pandemic?

JJ: It’s been different. I’ve had some experience knowing what an offseason should look like, trying to stay on that same schedule and routine, but it’s been different.

When it first started, once everything shut down, I was trying to assemble a home gym to keep the workouts going. That was frantic, weights were sold out everywhere. People were trying to find something to do and stay safe and stay healthy, but at the same time knowing the season was hopefully going to take place, so still training as though things were going to be the same.

Once we got to camp, everything became normal a little bit. You’re back with the teammates, you’re back with the training [schedule]. We didn’t have a preseason, which was different, kind of hurt a lot of the younger guys, but the older guys definitely knew what to expect.

Chelsea, how has your public relations work been affected by the Pandemic?

CP: I actually balance two careers, I’m in insurance as well. That’s been very busy—a lot of people are now seeing the importance of having life insurance.

As far as the sports PR side goes, it’s kind of just thinking of ways to get creative to keep Jonathan’s name at the forefront, because of course we want to make sure he gets the recognition [he deserves] off the field. That was always my goal when it came to working with professional athletes—they’re so much bigger than the person they are on the field, they have personalities outside [the game] as well, so just thinking of creative ways to make sure we’re keeping him relevant, for lack of a better word, off the football field.

Jonathan, what is it like playing with new quarterback Cam Newton?

JJ: It’s definitely different than Tom Brady. He brings a little piece of the south back up north and it’s definitely, uh, a little bit refreshing [laughs].

Having someone back from home, obviously another Georgia native and Auburn alum, he brings great energy, he’s been a great leader, just earning the trust of the locker room every day. Having a former MVP and someone who knows the league in and out, just to be here to lead this team, he’s done such a good job so far and I wish him nothing but continued success.

It’s completely different — different offense, different team without Tom, but one thing about the coaching staff, [OC Josh McDaniels] will find a way to get the most out of his players and having Cam, with his skillset and abilities, those guys are going to do phenomenal things on offense.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=”full_width_background” full_screen_row_position=”middle” equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”top” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” top_padding=”20″ bottom_padding=”20″ overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom” shape_type=””][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]Chelsea, what’s it like working in Public Relations and achieving the first stage of your dream?

CP: It’s definitely exactly what I thought it would be. As far as representing clients, taking what I Iearned in class, writing a press releases when it’s time to get the media out to events. I’m glad I’m able to use my degree—I joke with my parents that in my first 3.5 years of working in the family insurance business, I kind of didn’t need to go to college, so it’s cool to use the things I learned in college and to apply them here.

It’s cool because people have reached out to me, younger girls who find me off social media, find me off hashtags, ‘oh my gosh you’re in sports PR, that’s always what I wanted to do…’— I just to talk to them about the importance of networking.  I always say it didn’t just fall in my lap, I used to tell Jonathan this is what I wanted to do, I put it on social media, “this is what I want to do” this is my desire, so just teaching and coaching younger women [about] what it’s like, what to look for, whatever their end-goal is.

“Not everyone is going to score touchdowns on Sunday, but they can score touchdowns in life. Being good parents, being good citizens, things like that are what my foundation is based on.”

How do you make time for working together during the regular season?

 CP: Tuesdays are typically Jonathan’s off days, and I know he said he wanted to give back to the community up in Boston, so I was like ‘OK, just explain what it is you want to do.’ My role, my responsibility, is to find the organization, make contact, make media contacts, things of that nature, and just kind of plan it out.

Jonathan is obviously the brain [and] the financial piece behind it, but I plan through logistics and set everything up and say ‘hey, OK we have this at this time on this day’ and we make it roll from there. We play well off each other’s schedules in my opinion.

JJ: People like Chelsea are extremely important for me because, we have a million things going through our heads each week. A lot of things are important, but Coach [Belichick] always says ‘it’s not about the game on Sunday.” You’re battling that mindset with work because you have to be present, you have to have your emotions, your mental and your physical locked in to have success on the football field.

But at the same time, I have so many ideas and things I want to do in my head. Having someone that I can have a conversation with and say ‘hey, this is just what I’m thinking, I don’t know how it’s possible or how we can get it done, but this is what I’m thinking, can you help me get this done?’ That is extremely important because having someone bring those thoughts together takes some weight off my shoulders.