Toilet paper sales are about to spike again on The Plains

Toilet paper sales are about to spike again on The Plains

By Fran Thompson
Although it was not a major concern during the Bryan Harsin debacle (9–12 overall, fired eight games into the 2022 season), Auburn football fans can again celebrate big victories by tossing toilet paper on oak trees at Toomer’s Corner.
“Both trees have made excellent progress since planting took place six years ago and are now considered to have recovered from transplant stress,” said Auburn arborist Alex Hedgepath in a press release. “Because of the Auburn family’s commitment, the trees are now established and can withstand rolling and cleanup efforts after Auburn athletic victories. With continued care, we expect the trees to grow vigorously and become further established.”
According to lore, the rolling tradition began when employees of Toomer’s Drugstore started throwing ticker tape from telegraphs on powerlines at the corner to communicate with the townspeople that Auburn had won an away game.
There is no clear consensus on when the tradition changed to throwing toilet paper into the trees. But Auburn fans definitely tossed toilet paper at Toomer’s Corner after the 1972 Iron Bowl win.
Alabama was leading Auburn 16-3 in what is now known as the “Punt, Bama, Punt” game, when Auburn’s David Langner fielded a blocked punt and returned it 25 yards for a touchdown that trimmed the Tide’s lead to 16-10. After another defensive stop, Langner delivered an instant replay to put Auburn ahead 17-16.
For good measure, Langner intercepted an Alabama pass to seal the victory. Bill Newton blocked both Alabama punts and also made 23 tackles. Auburn finished that first post Pat Sullivan/Terry Beasley season with a 10-1 record and a No. 5 ranking and neither of those men has had to buy his own drink at The War Eagle Supper Club since then.
The original Toomer’s Oaks, planted between 1937 and 1939, were poisoned in 2010 by Alabama fan Harvey Updyke following a Crimson Tide Iron Bowl loss.
Updyke, a former Texas state trooper, became a household name in Alabama when he called into the Paul Finebaum radio show and claimed he poisoned the trees following Auburn’s win in the 2010 Iron Bowl (Auburn trailed by 24 points in that game before a Cam Newton led “camback”). He also left a phone message to an Auburn professor saying he knew who poisoned the tree.
“Let me tell you what I did,” Updyke told Fin ebaum. “The weekend after the Iron Bowl, I went to Auburn because I lived 30 miles away, and I poisoned the two Toomer’s trees. I put Spike 80DF in ’em. They’re not dead yet, but they definitely will die.”
In a later phone call to Finebaum’s show, Updyke was non-repentant.
“If I was an Auburn fan, I would be upset too. I just want to tell them I’m not a bad person. I’m a Alabama fan. Tommy Lewis and the ’54 Cotton Bowl. He came off the bench and tackled the Rice player,’’ he said. “They asked him why’d you do it? He said, ‘I just have too much Bama in me.’ Too full of Bama. To the Auburn people, I don’t blame them. I’m gonna get what I deserve. This is gonna make people mad, but I gotta do it. Roll damn Tide.’’
In a later CBS News podcast, Updyke said he planned the crime for a month and used 500 times the amount of herbicide needed to kill the trees.
“I wanted Auburn people to hate me as much as I hate them. I just don’t like Auburn,” Updyke told CBS. “Every night I’d stay up all night long, and they used to have cameras on the trees, and I figured out when the slowest time, what day of the week and what out of the night was the slowest around those oak trees, so I could go in there at that time and not get caught.”
The oaks, which were slowly dying due to the herbicide, were removed on April 23, 2013 following one final rolling at Auburn’s A-Day game. The university planted two new oaks at the site on Feb. 14, 2014, but Jochen Wiest, a 29-year-old German man who set the toilet paper on fire following Auburn’s win over LSU in 2016. He pled guilty to felony first-degree criminal mischief and was given a suspended sentence, fined $20,807 and ordered to pay restitution.
“I’m sure that everybody is thinking about Harvey Updyke, especially with the stuff that’s been in the news and how it compares to Jochen Wiest,” said Lee County assistant district attorney Jessica Ventiere. “The only thing that I can say is that comparing Updyke and Wiest is even a greater difference than apples and oranges; I mean you’re talking about apples and unicorns.
“Updyke was a malicious damaging to property. Mr. Wiest was someone from Germany who didn’t really understand what he was doing, he was very intoxicated at the time, damaged the property and has essentially from the beginning been trying to claim responsibility for this, making it known, entering his guilty plea, making it right and he’s already (paying) full restitution.”
In February of 2017, the university planted the current oak trees, and asked fans to not roll until they were established. Now, the rolling can continue.
“The rolling of Toomer’s Corner is one of the nation’s top sports traditions,” Auburn president Christopher Roberts said. “Our fans have come together for decades on the corner of Magnolia and College to celebrate our big wins. In recent years, we continued our cherished tradition by rolling different trees, but I am very excited that the Auburn Family will once again be able to roll our most prominent trees.”
Auburn plays its first home game of the Hugh Freeze era on Sept. 2 against U Mass.