The AUM Library wishes you a very Happy Thanksgiving as we pause to reflect on the past year and look forward to the new year and all that it holds for us.

Here are some interesting facts about Thanksgiving that each of us should know:

The first Thanksgiving celebration can be traced back to the Plymouth Pilgrims in the fall of 1621.

The first Thanksgiving feast was held to thank the Lord for sparing the lives of the survivors of the Mayflower, who landed at Plymouth Rock on December 11, 1620. The survivors included four adult women and almost forty percent children.

The Wampanoag chief Massasoit and ninety of his tribesmen were also invited to the first thanksgiving feast. Governor William Bradford invited them for helping the Pilgrims surviving and teaching them the skills of cultivating the land.

The celebration in 1621 lasted for three days and included games and food.

The president to proclaim the first 'National Day of Thanksgiving' in 1789 was George Washington.

Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor, campaigned to make Thanksgiving a National Holiday in 1827 and succeeded.

Abraham Lincoln announced Thanksgiving to be national holiday in his proclamation on October 3, 1863.

The 'wishbone' of the turkey is used in a good luck ritual on Thanksgiving Day.

Puritans of the Mayflower used to drink Beer.

Source: http://primtalkradio.com/0ct31.pdf

How the Turkey Got Its Name
There are a number of explanations for the origin of the name of Thanksgiving's favorite dinner guest. Some believe Christopher Columbus thought that the land he discovered was connected to India, and believed the bird he discovered (the turkey) was a type of peacock. He therefore called it 'tuka,' which is 'peacock' in Tamil, an Indian language. Though the turkey is actually a type of pheasant, one can't blame the explorer for trying.

The Native American name for turkey is 'firkee'; some say this is how turkeys got their name. Simple facts, however, sometimes produce the best answers—when a turkey is scared, it makes a "turk, turk, turk" noise.

At one time, the turkey and the bald eagle were each considered as the national symbol of America. Benjamin Franklin was one of those who argued passionately on behalf of the turkey. Franklin felt the turkey, although "vain and silly", was a better choice than the bald eagle, whom he felt was "a coward".

Source: http://www.factmonster.com/spot/tgturkeyfacts.html

This week, the AUM Library is proud to salute our nation's veterans from all branches of the military, and from all wars and conflicts. Check out these titles and more this week at the Library, and take a moment to remember those who have fallen to protect our freedom.

American Women in World War I: They Also Served
By Lettie Gavin
Gavin draws from the full range of possible sources for this excellent volume. The number of American women who served in World War I ran into the tens of thousands, with 11,000 "Yeomanettes" in the navy alone (they were the first U.S. women to officially don uniforms). Others included army nurses, doctors who volunteered as "contract employees," the "Hello Girls" who supplied the Signal Corps' telephone system with English-speaking operators (and were not recognized as deserving of pensions and other benefits until long after most had died), physical therapists, and the volunteers of the Red Cross and Salvation Army. One and all, they overcame sexism, racism, bureaucratic inertia, shells, gas, the Spanish influenza, long hours, short rations, and poor quarters to accomplish a prodigious amount of work. And they did all that without benefit of any "gender studies" concepts or jargon, from which Gavin's readable, highly recommendable volume is also blessedly free.
Source: http://www.amazon.com/American-Women-World-War-Served/dp/087081432X

Band of Brothers (DVD)
Based on the bestseller by Stephen E. Ambrose, the epic 10-part miniseries Band of Brothers tells the story of Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army. Drawn from interviews with survivors of Easy Company, as well as soldiers' journals and letters, Band of Brothers chronicles the experiences of these men who knew extraordinary bravery and extraordinary fear. They were an elite rifle company parachuting into France early on D-Day morning, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge and capturing Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. They were also a unit that suffered 150 percent casualties, and whose lives became legend.
Source: http://www.amazon.com/Band-Brothers-Damien-Lewis/dp/B00006CXSS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1251809920&sr=1-1

The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War
By David Halberstam
Pulitzer-winning historian Halberstam first decided to write this book more than thirty years ago and it took him nearly ten years. It stands as a lasting testament to its author, and to the fighting men whose heroism it chronicles. Halberstam gives us a full narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides, charting the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu, and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides vivid portraits of all the major figures--Eisenhower, Truman, Acheson, Kim, and Mao, and Generals MacArthur, Almond, and Ridgway. He also provides us with his trademark narrative journalism, chronicling the crucial battles with reportage of the highest order. At the heart of the book are the stories of the soldiers on the front lines who were left to deal with the consequences of the dangerous misjudgments and competing agendas of powerful men.
Source: http://aum.worldcat.org/oclc/137324872&referer=brief_results

A Life in a Year: The American Infantryman in Vietnam, 1965-1972
By James R Ebert
Ebert combines interviews and printed primary sources in this brilliant reconstruction of the infantryman's experience during the Vietnam War. Though accounting for less than 10% of the American troops in Vietnam, the infantry suffered more than 80% of the losses. Ebert, a secondary school teacher in Wisconsin, tells their story chronologically, from the grunts' induction and training, through their arrival in Vietnam, their first encounters with battle and their final rendezvous with the airplane that would carry them home--the "freedom bird," one of the numerous military terms, abbreviations and Vietnamese words defined in the glossary. The infantrymen confronted environments from rice paddies to jungles, from densely populated cities to virtually empty countryside. They fought in patrol skirmishes and in division-scale battles. They learned to kill, but few understood a war with no clear objectives. They survived, but most paid a price for their survival. The book belongs in every collection on America's longest and most controversial war.Source: http://www.amazon.com/Life-Year-American-Infantryman-1965-1972/dp/0891415394

This week we're focusing on America's favorite pastime, baseball! While the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies are slugging it out for the title of World Series Champion, you can brush up on your baseball history with these featured titles:

Baseball: An Illustrated History By Geoffrey Ward and Ken Burns
(Located on the 4th floor: GV863.A1 W37 1994)
A magnificent, exhaustively researched chronicle in words and pictures of our nation's pastime, and how it came to be what it is. In their analysis and celebration of baseball's evolution over 150 years from a game played on vacant city lots in front of a few lookers-on to present-day contests in domed stadia with television audiences approaching one billion, Ward and Burns divide the sport's history into nine sections (or innings), each with accompanying essays by such notable writers as Gerald Early, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and George Will. Perhaps most noteworthy is this volume's ability to examine the game while remaining blessedly free from the over analysis and intellectualization that are common to such comprehensive studies. To wit: Babe Ruth is seen not so much as a lens through which a historical era can be studied, but as a great player whose accomplishments helped alter millions of fans' connection to the game. Also worthy of high praise is the straightforward depiction of black players' exclusion, stemming from an unwritten agreement among team owners, during the period spanning from the late 1800s until 1947. Burns’ assertion in the preface that baseball is a ``powerful metaphor...for all Americans'' might be dismissed by some as just a tad ingenuous. However, the true genius of this work is in demonstrating how the baseball diamond does provide a common ground for a nation comprised of disparate elements, overcoming cultural, ethnic, and regional barriers better than nearly any other institution. This companion volume to an upcoming PBS series also stands on its own as a literary achievement.

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Baseball-Illustrated-Geoffrey-C-Ward/dp/0679404597

Clemente : The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero By David Maraniss
(Located on the 4th floor: GV865 .C45 M355 2006)
On New Year's Eve, 1972, following eighteen magnificent seasons in the major leagues, Roberto Clemente died a hero's death, killed in a plane crash as he attempted to deliver supplies to Nicaragua after an earthquake. Journalist Maraniss now brings the great baseball player back to life. Anyone who saw Clemente play will never forget him--he was a work of art in a game too often defined by statistics. But Clemente was that rare athlete who rose above sports to become a symbol of larger themes. Born in rural Puerto Rico, at a time when there were no blacks or Puerto Ricans playing organized ball in the United States, Clemente went on to become the greatest Latino player in the major leagues, a ballplayer of determination, grace, and dignity who paved the way and set the highest standard for waves of Latino players who followed in later generations.

Source: http://aum.worldcat.org/oclc/63179088&referer=brief_results

Baseball In America & America In Baseball By Donald G. Kyle and Robert B. Fairbanks
(Located on the 4th floor: GV863 .A1 B387 2008)
Presenting views from a variety of sport and history experts, Baseball in America and America in Baseball captures the breadth and unsuspected variety of our national fascination and identification with America's Game. Chapters cover such well-known figures as Ty Cobb and lesser-known topics like the "invisible" baseball played by Japanese Americans during the 1930s and 1940s. A study of baseball in rural California from the Gold Rush to the turn of the twentieth century provides an interesting glimpse at how the game evolved from its earliest beginnings to something most modern observers would find familiar. Chapters on the Negro League's Baltimore Black Sox, financial profits of major league teams from 1900 to 1956, and American aspirations to a baseball-led cultural hegemony during the first half of the twentieth century round out this superb collection of sport history scholarship.

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Baseball-America-Prescott-Memorial-Lectures/dp/1603440232/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257021141&sr=1-1

Yogi Berra : Eternal Yankee By Allen Barra
(Located on the 4th floor: GV865 .B4 B37 2009)
In the introduction to his latest effort, Barra (The Last Coach: A Life of Paul Bear Bryant) says that one of his goals was to create the first comprehensive work written about Yogi Berra, the greatest ballplayer never to have had a serious biography. The result is not only comprehensive but also incredibly engaging, as Barra narrates the life of one of the most eccentric ballplayers of the 20th century. Starting with his modest Italian upbringing in St. Louis, Mo., Berra quickly took a liking to what his father called a bum's game. And after a short career in the navy, he parlayed his talents into one of the most decorated athletic careers in history, leading the New York Yankees to 10 World Series championships and winning three MVPs. Each of Berra's baseball highlights is meticulously described, as are his stints as a manager for both the Yankees and cross-town Mets, his relationships with men like Casey Stengel, Mickey Mantle and George Steinbrenner, and his ability to create some of the most famous catchphrases of our time, Yogiisms, as they're called. Barra's love of the catcher with the similar name is evident throughout this deserving biography of Yogi.

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Yogi-Berra-Eternal-Allen-Barra/dp/0393062333

It's Shriek Week at AUM, so the focus this week is on authors who make you scream! Check out some of these horrifying titles by some of the spookiest writers around.

Anne Rice: Queen of the Undead
In the now-classic novel Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice refreshed the archetypal vampire myth for a late-20th-century audience. The story is ostensibly a simple one: having suffered a tremendous personal loss, an 18th-century Louisiana plantation owner named Louis Pointe du Lac descends into an alcoholic stupor. At his emotional nadir, he is confronted by Lestat, a charismatic and powerful vampire who chooses Louis to be his fledgling. The two prey on innocents, give their "dark gift" to a young girl, and seek out others of their kind (notably the ancient vampire Armand) in Paris. But a summary of this story bypasses the central attractions of the novel. First and foremost, the method Rice chose to tell her tale--with Louis' first-person confession to a skeptical boy--transformed the vampire from a hideous predator into a highly sympathetic, seductive, and all-too-human figure. Second, by entering the experience of an immortal character, one raised with a deep Catholic faith, Rice was able to explore profound philosophical concerns--the nature of evil, the reality of death, and the limits of human perception--in ways not possible from the perspective of a more finite narrator.
While Rice has continued to investigate history, faith, and philosophy in subsequent Vampire novels (including The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief, Memnoch the Devil, and The Vampire Armand), Interview remains a treasured masterpiece. It is that rare work that blends a childlike fascination for the supernatural with a profound vision of the human condition.
Source: http://www.amazon.com/Interview-Vampire-Anne-Rice/dp/0345409647/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245088876&sr=1-6

Tess Gerritsen: Queen of Suspense
Tess's first medical thriller, Harvest, was released in hardcover in 1996, and it marked her debut on the New York Times bestseller list. Her suspense novels since then have been: Life Support (1997), Bloodstream (1998), Gravity (1999), The Surgeon (2001), The Apprentice (2002), The Sinner (2003), Body Double (2004), Vanish (2005), The Mephisto Club (2006), The Bone Garden (2007), and The Keepsake (2008). Her books have been translated into 33 languages, and more than 20 million copies have been sold around the world.
Her books have been top-5 bestsellers in both the United States and abroad. She has won both the Nero Wolfe Award (for Vanish) and the Rita Award (for The Surgeon.) Critics around the world have praised her novels as "Pulse-pounding fun" (Philadelphia Inquirer), "Scary and brilliant" (Toronto Globe and Mail), and "Polished, riveting prose" (Chicago Tribune). Publisher Weekly has dubbed her the "medical suspense queen".
Source: http://www.tessgerritsen.com/biography.html

Edgar Allan Poe: King of Fright
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was orphaned at the age of three and adopted by a wealthy Virginia family with whom he had a troubled relationship. He excelled in his studies of language and literature at school, and self-published his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, in 1827. In 1830, Poe embarked on a career as a writer and began contributing reviews and essays to popular periodicals. He also wrote sketches and short fiction, and in 1833 published his only completed novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Over the next five years he established himself as a master of the short story form through the publication of "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Tell-tale Heart," and other well-known works. In 1841, he wrote "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," generally considered the first modern detective story. The publication of The Raven and Other Poems in 1845 brought him additional fame as a poet.
Edgar Allan Poe is credited with having pioneered the short story, having perfected the tale of psychological horror, and having revolutionized modern poetics. The entirety of Poe's body of imaginative work encompasses detective tales, satires, fables, fantasies, science fiction, verse dramas, and some of the most evocative poetry in the English language.
Source: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Complete-Tales-and-Poems-of-Edgar-Allan-Poe/Edgar-Allan-Poe/e/9781435106345/

Stephen King: Master of Horror
Walk into the dark with bestselling author Stephen King, who has terrified readers with his classic novels over the past three decades.
Here are some short descriptions of some of King's most successful books.

Pet Sematary - "Sometimes, death is better." Those are the ominous words spoken by Jud Crandall, an elderly resident of Ludlow, Maine to newcomer Louis Creed. Dr. Creed and his family have just moved in to a house across the road from Crandall, who warns them to approach the intersecting highway with caution since many large trucks frequently pass by.
One day Jud takes them for a walk into the forest and shows them a burial ground for dead pets, many of which were run over on the highway. Later, the two men travel further, over a difficult barrier of thick foliage to another cemetery once used by the Micmac Indians. It is here that the dead can come back to life, but when they do, they aren't quite the same. When Gage, their youngest son, is killed by a speeding truck and then buried in the Native American graveyard, there are horrific consequences for the rest of the Creed family.

It - In the town of Derry something evil is living below the ground in the sewers and storm drains. It likes to kill children, and then hibernate for twenty-seven years before awakening once again to satisfy it's appetite for human flesh. A group of young kids fight this monster in 1958, and must do so again as adults in 1985 after they find out "It" has come back, and is hungry. They must come to grips with their repressed memories of that fateful encounter long ago, as well as destroy the creature once and for all.
Source: http://horror-fiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_books_of_stephen_king

Almost every culture in the world has its own vampire legend, and some date back thousands of years. Today, we are most familiar with Count Dracula and other folklore from Eastern Europe. Do you want to learn more? Here is a wealth of juicy trivia to sink your fangs into this Halloween season.

1.Was the first vampire a woman? The oldest known vampire legends come from Babylonian and Sumerian mythology. Female demons called the Lilu were said to hunt women and children at night, and drink their blood.
2. Vlad III Tepes, also known as Vlad Dracul, was known for his incredible cruelty; he was alleged to have killed up to 30,000 people at one time! His bloodthirsty reputation inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula.
3. The National Retail Federation listed "Vampire" as the second most popular adult Halloween costume in 2005. Vampires were the sixteenth most popular children's costume for the same year.
4. While modern pop culture usually portrays vampires as sensual and romantic, other countries don't see them that way: the Ghanan Asasabonsam vampire has iron teeth and hooks for feet - which they drop from treetops onto unsuspecting victims.
5. Some believe that Cain was the first vampire, cursed by God for slaying his brother, Abel. This theory is frequently found in popular films and games.
6. In 1992, Francis Ford Coppola's "Dracula" movie won seven awards, including three Oscars.
7. Stakes, fire and sunlight aren't the only ways to kill a vampire. Other cultures recommend beheading a vampire, boiling it in vinegar, pounding a nail through its navel, or scattering birdseed on its tomb.
8. In Latin American folklore, El Chupacabras is a supernatural creature that drinks the blood of animals - usually chickens and goats.
9. According to popular tradition, vampires can shape-shift into wolves, bats, or clouds of mist.
10. In March 2007, self-proclaimed vampire hunters entered the tomb of Slobodan Milosevic and staked his body through the heart.


Source:http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/361065/halloween_monster_trivia_13_facts_about.html?cat=37

All Hallow's Eve is almost upon us, and the AUM Library is getting into the 'spirit' by featuring books with a bite! Check out these tasty treats and more at the Library this month. That is if you aren't afraid of things that go bump in the night...

Interview with the Vampire By Anne Rice
In the now-classic novel Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice refreshed the archetypal vampire myth for a late-20th-century audience. The story is ostensibly a simple one: having suffered a tremendous personal loss, an 18th-century Louisiana plantation owner named Louis Pointe du Lac descends into an alcoholic stupor. At his emotional nadir, he is confronted by Lestat, a charismatic and powerful vampire who chooses Louis to be his fledgling. The two prey on innocents, give their "dark gift" to a young girl, and seek out others of their kind (notably the ancient vampire Armand) in Paris. But a summary of this story bypasses the central attractions of the novel. First and foremost, the method Rice chose to tell her tale--with Louis' first-person confession to a skeptical boy--transformed the vampire from a hideous predator into a highly sympathetic, seductive, and all-too-human figure. Second, by entering the experience of an immortal character, one raised with a deep Catholic faith, Rice was able to explore profound philosophical concerns--the nature of evil, the reality of death, and the limits of human perception--in ways not possible from the perspective of a more finite narrator.
Source: http://www.amazon.com/Interview-Vampire-Anne-Rice/dp/0345337662
Located on the 2nd floor in the Browsing Collection

Dracula: The Connoisseur’s Guide By Leonard Wolf
In the 100 years since its publication, Bram Stoker's Dracula has never been out of print. Once introduced to the world by the silent film classic Nosferatu in 1921, Dracula became an enduring icon of fear, forever immortalized as a frightful embodiment of evil and forbidden sexuality.Now, in this fascinating and entertaining account, Wolf examines the various interpretations of the immortal vampire in print, film, television, theater, and literature, including an extensive outline of Bram Stoker's life and his literary masterpiece, Dracula. Wolf explains how the story of a sexually sadistic undead creature/man who feeds on blood worked its way into mainstream society and how it is now used as a ubiquitous marketing tool for products from hair tonic to children's breakfast cereal.
Source: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/w/leonard-wolf/dracula.htm
Located on the 5th floor PN56 .V3 W65 1997

30 Days of Night By Steve Niles, Ben Templesmith
In a sleepy, secluded Alaska town called Barrow, the sun sets and doesn't rise for over thirty consecutive days and nights. From the darkness, across the frozen wasteland, an evil will come that will bring the residents of Barrow to their knees. The only hope for the town is the Sheriff and Deputy, husband and wife who are torn between their own survival and saving the town they love.
Source: http://www.amazon.com/30-Days-Night-Steve-Niles/dp/0971977550
Located on the 5th floor PN6727 .N55 A15 2007

The Hammer Horror Series Collection of classic horror films
Hammer Films, one of the most celebrated horror studios in the history of cinema, presents 8 classic horror films in one collection. From Dracula to Frankenstein, werewolves to phantoms, the Hammer Horror Series showcases some of the most terrifying monsters in the history of cinema and features legendary performances by Peter Cushing, Oliver Reed and Janette Scott.
Source: http://www.amazon.com/Werewolf-Paranoiac-Nightmare-Creatures-Frankenstein/dp/B0009X770O
Located on the 2nd floor in the Media Collection PN1995.9.H6 H255 2005

October is National Archives Month, to celebrate we're focusing on the holdings of the Library's Archives & Special Collections Department. The Archives & Special Collections dept. was created in 1986 and is home to official university records, rare and unique books, manuscript collections and photos. Stop by and check us out! We're located on the 8th floor in the Library Tower.

The AUM Archives & Special Collections Department is home to the following collections:

Wayne Greenhaw:
Greenhaw has published fifteen books of fiction and nonfiction. He has worked on prize-winning TV productions, and two plays he wrote have been produced. He has worked as editor and has taught journalism and creative writing.
He was also the 2006 recipient of the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer, given annually by the Alabama Writers’ Forum and Alabama Southern Community College at Monroeville’s Alabama Writers’ Symposium.
http://www.waynegreenhaw.com/index.php?page_id=236 & http://www.southernscribe.com/contact/contributors.htm

Capri Theatre:
The Capri Community Film Society was organized in 1983 to save Montgomery’s only remaining neighborhood theater as an operating movie house. Constructed in 1941 in an Art Deco style, the Clover Theater served as the neighborhood theater for the Cloverdale area. As a non-profit agency, the Society is unique in that it is the only non-profit film society outside of New York that operates its own theater. http://aumnicat.aum.edu/departments/archives/capri.pd

U.S. Congressman William Dickinson:
2nd District Representative from 1964-1992. In 1964, Dickinson was elected as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives for the Second District of Alabama; he served on the Armed Services Committee until he left office in 1992.
http://aumnicat.aum.edu/departments/archives/dickinson.html

Lella Warren:
Her national, and even international, reputation is based primarily on the success of a single book, Foundation Stone, a historical novel about a family that settled in Alabama in the frontier period of the 1820s. Favorably compared with Gone with the Wind, Foundation Stone was a huge popular success.
http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2348

Go to Moe's Southwest Grill the first Thursday of every month and show your support for AUM! Moe's has generously agreed to donate 20% of your total receipt to AUM Athletics, and Athletics has agreed to donate 25% of the total to the AUM Friends of the Library! Just stop by the Athletics Department or the Library to pick up a flyer and take it to any of the three local Moe's locations. Thank you for your support!!

Football frenzy continues this week with the following selections from our regular collection and the browsing collection: Playing for Pizza by John Grisham; College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy by John Sayle Watterson; The Real All Americans: The Team that Changed a Game, a People, a Nation by Sally Jenkins; Taliaferro: Breaking Barriers from the NFL to the Ivory Tower by Dawn Knight


Here are some fun college football facts

Georgia: Before the Bulldog became Georgia’s now famous mascot, their first unofficial mascot was a goat. That’s right—when Georgia played its first intercollegiate game against Auburn in 1892, they introduced the ferocious goat as their lucky charm.

Florida: Steve Spurrier, former legendary coach and Heisman trophy winner for the Gators, is known for his clever quips. An obscure one he once said: "Wuerffel is a New Testament guy. You slap him upside the helmet, and he'll turn the other cheek and say, ‘Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do.' I'm a little more Old Testament. If you spear our guy in the earhole, I think we're supposed to be able to spear your guy in the earhole."

LSU: Before Gatorade was created on the campus of Florida to help replenish fluids for their football players, Bengal Punch was a sports drink first concocted in 1958 for the LSU team. It was created by Dr. Martin Broussard, the long-time LSU athletic trainer, and is believed to be the first sports drink ever created, pre-dating Gatorade by seven years.

Clemson: Clemson shares its mascot with Auburn. Coincidence? The "Father of Clemson Football," Walter Merritt Riggs, brought the game with him from Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama (now Auburn University). Riggs let his players pick the team mascot, and even though he may have influenced their decision, the players chose Tigers because Princeton University had just won the national championship.

Auburn: Auburn’s first bowl game was against Villanova in the Bacardi Bowl, held in Havana, Cuba. The game was played in a revolutionary atmosphere. Fulgencio Batista, the dictator who would be overthrown by Fidel Castro 22 years later, had just assumed power. The game was almost canceled because Batista’s picture was not in the game program. A quick trip to the printer saved the Bacardi Bowl and allowed Auburn’s bowl history to get off to a significant and historical beginning.

Alabama: The "Crimson Tide" nickname originated from a muddy game
Prior to becoming the Alabama Crimson Tide, people commonly referred to Alabama's football squad, as the "Crimson White" (named after the school colors) or "Thin Red Line." Then in 1907, Alabama played its arch rival, Auburn. Alabama was a huge underdog, and the teams played in a "sea" of red mud. However, Alabama battled Auburn to a 6-6 tie. Later, a sports editor named Zipp Newman popularized the nickname "Crimson Tide."

Tennessee: Smokey, Tennessee’s mascot, has had its share of trials and tribulations over the years. Smokey II was stolen by Kentucky students in 1955 and was involved in an incident with the Baylor Bear's mascot Judge at the 1957 Sugar Bowl. Not to be outdone, Smokey VI was the first dog to make the Volunteer injury report after suffering heat exhaustion in the 1991 UCLA game.

Source: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/46610-strange-but-true-things-you-may-not-know-about-college-footballs-top-25/show_full

New in the Browsing Collection:

206 Bones by Kathy Reichs
Alex Cross's Trial by James Patterson
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Sheer Folly by Carola Dunn
Shooting Stars by LeBron James & Buzz Bissinger
Tears of Pearl by Tasha Alexander

If you find that a book you want to read is already checked out, you can request a Hold on that book so that as soon as it comes back to the Library YOU will be the next in line for it! Ask at the Circulation or Reference Desks and we can place the Hold for you, or you can do it yourself by logging into your Patron account in the AUM Catalog.


Happy Reading!