Friday (Aug 29) is also College Colors Day, a national movement held in conjunction with the kickoff of the college football season. College Colors Day promotes higher education and celebrates the achievements, spirit and traditions of colleges and universities.

Auburn fans are also encouraged to participate in All Auburn All Orange. Established in 2004 to celebrate the unity and spirit of the Auburn family, the All Auburn All Orange program encourages fans to wear the official All Auburn All Orange T-shirt to designated events. Upcoming All Auburn All Orange events include: Auburn football vs. Louisiana-Monroe Aug. 30; Auburn football vs. Georgia Nov. 15; Auburn volleyball vs. Arkansas Sept. 19; and AU soccer vs. Mississippi Oct. 3.

On The Plains Fall Survival Guide 2008

Admission is free for annual and life members of the Auburn Alumni Association and for children aged three and under. Members may bring one non-member guest for a fee of $5. Admission is $10 for non-members ages 13 and over and $5 for children aged four through 12.

If you aren't already a member of the Auburn Alumni Association -- join now! There is a link for membership in the special ALUM News section at the bottom of this email. Or call 334-844-2960.

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Raptor Center Presents Pre-game "Eagles, Owls and Other Critters"

AU's Southeastern Raptor Center will host "Eagles, Owls and Other Critters," a birds-in-flight raptor program, on Fridays before home football games. Shows will begin at 4 p.m. CT in the 350-seat Edgar B. Carter Educational Amphitheater on Raptor Road just off Shug Jordan Parkway. Shows are scheduled for Aug. 29; Sept. 5, 19 and 26; Oct. 10; and Nov. 7 and 14.

"Because of the popularity of the program, we are expanding it to include all of the home games this year," said Marianne Murphy, education specialist at the Raptor Center.

"This year's program will use a flighted format to teach the relationship that raptors have with other 'critters' in the environment and the addition of new elements will better illustrate what the birds do and how they do it," said Roy Crowe, education specialist at the Raptor Center. "Guests will see birds such as hawks, owls, eagles and falcons flying free."

Tickets will be available at the raptor center gate. Admission is free for children under 3, $3 per person for school groups and $5 each for all others. Payment is by check only, made payable to the Southeastern Raptor Center. Cash cannot be accepted.

For educational programs for school groups, call (334) 844-6943. For more information about the raptor center, go to http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/index.pl/raptor or e-mail wareagle1@auburn.edu.

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The Lee County Auburn Club is heading up a project aimed at furthering Auburn University's reputation for being a friendly campus. This effort will include a hospitality tent on home football Saturdays for visiting teams' fans. The first-known of its kind, the tent will offer visiting teams' fans a place to gather information and ask questions about Auburn's campus and culture as well as the City of Auburn. Members of the Lee County Auburn Club will be on hand to welcome visitors and to hand out maps, brochures and water.

Thomas Maple, Lee County Auburn Club member and campaign chair for the hospitality campaign, said he got the idea for the tent after helping some Kansas State fans find their correct gate at Jordan-Hare Stadium last year prior to the Auburn vs. Kansas State football game.

"Auburn is already known as a friendly campus so we wanted to find a way to extend that hospitality and further the good reputation of the Auburn family," he said. "We hope that the tent will also be beneficial in educating visitors who might not know much about Auburn. We'll have information available to help them take a closer look at our campus and learn about our traditions."

The tent will be located on the lawn of the Nichols Center on south Donahue Drive, close to the new location of the Auburn Alumni Association tent. It will open three hours before kick-off and will close 30 minutes prior to kick-off. It will not be open after the game.

In addition to the hospitality tent, members of the Lee County Auburn Club will be selling lapel pins for $5 throughout the football season. The orange-and-blue pins feature Aubie's face with the phrase "Welcome to the Friendliest Village on the Plains." Pins will be sold on gamedays outside Tiger Rags stores and at the Lee County Auburn Club's hospitality tent.

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Need Parking?

-The School of Nursing has Season Football Parking spaces for sale for all home games. The spaces are located directly behind and beside Miller Hall which is across the street from the Jordan-Hare Stadium.  Please contact Stacey Seawell at seawasj@auburn.edu for more info.  The parking spaces will be available on a first come basis.

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Sporting News Launches Free Online Daily

Sporting News, the oldest sports magazine in the U.S., has launched an online daily -- and it's Free. It's about 30 pages a day and has a great college football section. What else? Well, there's a special Auburn guest columnist every week -- Sen'Derrick Marks. The All-SEC defensive lineman is one of 22 college football players writing for the online edition. His column has already debuted and will run through the football season. How do you sign up? Go to sportingnewstoday.com

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Auburn University sent 31 current and former student/athletes to the Summer Olympics in China. And if it would have been its own country, the Tigers' 18 medals would have tied for 14th place in the world with Spain and Canada.

Auburn finished with more Olympic medals in swimming, 13, than any other school in the United States.

Forbes ranked Auburn 6th among its Top 10 Olympic Schools. Auburn Tigers at the Games hailed from 13 countries.

Fred Bousquet - France - took the silver in the 400m Freestyle Relay; Marc Burns - Trinidad & Tobago - won silver in the 400m Track & Field Relay; Cesar Cielo - Brazil- won swimming gold in the men's 50m Free and took bronze in the 100m Freestyle; Swimmer Kirsty Coventry - Zimbabwe- won gold in the 200m Back, silver in the 100m back, silver in the 400m individual medley and silver in the 200m IM; Mark Gangloff - USA - won gold in the 400m Swimming Medley Relay; Margaret Hoelzer - USA- won silver in the 200m Back, silver in the 400m Medley Relay, and bronze in the 100m Back; Avard Moncur - Bahamas - won silver in the 1600m Relay Track & Field event; Leevan Sands - Bahamas - won bronze in the triple jump; Kerron Stewart - Jamaica - took silver in the 100m Track & Field event and bronze in the 200m race; Matt Targett - Australia- won swiming silver in the 400m Medley Relay, and bronze in the 400m Freestyle Relay.

Another former Auburn student, U.S. Army shooter Glenn Eller, won gold in trap shooting. USA Today ran a nice article on him -- click here to read it. (If you add Eller's medal to the tally - that makes 19 for AU, pushing us ahead of Spain and Canada!)

Check Here to Read the Forbes Article in its Entirety

Click here for more information about Auburn's Olympians and Olympic History

Great Article about Cesar Cielo's Gold Medal

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By Kevin Tresolini, Gannett News Service

After Olympics, Auburn & Metro Atlanta's Shanteau Ready to Beat Cancer

BEIJING - If Eric Shanteau attacks his cancer the way he assaults the water in a swimming pool, he's confident his disease doesn't have a chance.The 25-year-old former Auburn swimmer pledged as much, when his Olympic medal quest ended in the semifinals of the 200-meter breaststroke and his mission to be free of testicular cancer became his primary focus.

Diagnosed in June but cleared by doctors to compete here, Shanteau vowed that the determination he demonstrated in becoming an elite swimmer will also characterize his cancer fight.

Shanteau planned to spend a few more days in China before returning to his Austin, Texas, swim base and then going home to Atlanta "to get this crap out of me," he said. "Now I've got a much bigger battle to win," he added, "and I know I'm going to win that one."

Asked if he was disappointed he won't have Olympic training as a distraction anymore, Shanteau said, "I think that's worse for the cancer. "Now I can put all my energy toward that and getting rid of that. Now that thing stands no chance. It's going to get out of me, I'm going to beat it."

Shanteau placed sixth in his semifinal heat of the 200 breaststroke at the National Aquatics Center in 2:10.10, a career best time but not among the eight fastest needed to reach the finals.

"As far as the Olympic experience goes, it was everything I wanted it to be and thought it was going to be," said Shanteau, who placed fifth in the 200 breaststroke at the 2007 World Championships.

"I have no regrets about coming here and experiencing the Games. As far as the swim goes, I accomplished what I came here to do and that was get a best time.

In the Headlines: Latest Auburn News...and more

From Associated Press, Aug 26, 2008

 

"It hasn't been that both have done bad or both have done great," he said. "It's just that both have been very consistent. The players rally around both of them. "It's a great situation for us. Both will be hungry to play, and I want it that way. I want them both to be very competitive but I also want both of them to know they're on the same team."

The competition is so close Tuberville said the starter could boil down to the first dozen or so scripted plays and who is best suited to run them.

In the meantime, the contenders who have battled throughout spring and fall practices can just work and wait.

"I guess we'll find out when everybody else finds out," Todd said. "Y'all know just as much as I know, so we'll see."

Added Burns: "I know that I'm going to be out there and I know I'll be playing, so I'm not worried about it. I think we're both going to play."

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But behind the good season and the final record were signs that things needed to be changed up a bit. The defense was its usual nasty self and the running game was decent enough, but the offense wasn't explosive and needed some work. The Tigers finished 97th in the nation in total offense and time and again had to hang on by the skin of their teeth.

Seven of the games were decided by a touchdown or less, including three of the four losses, while the 23-13 season-opening win over Kansas State was much, much closer than the final score with a late fumble return for a touchdown that ended up padding the stats.

While it's a sign of a good team that it can win the close ones, especially considering they're almost all close ones in the SEC, and the Tigers did a great job of rebounding from a shaky start, they had to do something different or risk being pushed into also-ran status. After all, juggernauts like LSU, Florida and Georgia aren't going away, and programs in the division like Alabama, Arkansas and even Ole Miss are getting better and better. Something had to be done, and it had to be done with the offense.

The Tigers needed an offensive pick-me-up and they needed to be more consistent and more dangerous. Exiting is Al Borges, who made the Jason Campbell/Carnell Williams/Ronnie Brown 2004 offense such a monster, and in comes Tony Franklin, a spread offense specialist who made QB Omar Haugabook and Troy so dangerous over the last few seasons. While Franklin would like to wing it around, he'll have the pieces in place to run a more traditional, for lack of a better word, spread attack.

While normally the expectations would be tempered a bit with the new offense being put in, there's no reason the Tigers can't be in the thick of the SEC title chase in a year when almost everyone in the West is revamping or retooling in some way. The defense, even with star coordinator Will Muschamp off to Texas, has the potential to be every bit as strong as last season's group that led the league in points allowed and was second overall, and the offense, even if it takes a little bit to get going, isn't going to be worse.

Read the rest of the article by clicking here

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AU Photo of the Week

AU developing aquaculture program in Uganda
Deep in the heart of equatorial Africa, where lions, elephants and other wildlife roam the Nile basin, a new economy is emerging in the developing nation of Uganda. Using proven techniques developed in Auburn University's Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquaculture, Ugandan fish farmers are building a sustainable aquaculture industry from the ground up.

"When we came here, we asked ourselves, let's say someone started a commercial fish farm, and what are they going to need?" said AU researcher and chief of party Karen Veverica. "They're going to need good advice on construction and design, a source of seed and feed, trained workers, and a market. And none of these were really well developed here at all. So we're working on several fronts all at once."

The team's efforts have paid off. As the fish farming industry has grown, new jobs have been created and support industries have emerged-netmakers, fish hatcheries, feed suppliers and others, providing even more Ugandans a way to earn a living.

Farmer Paul Ssebinyansi says although fish farming is nothing new in Uganda-it dates back the 1950s-the most successful farmers are those employing the methods and techniques developed at Auburn.

"Before we were just doing fish farming, but without the right equipment, without technical know how," he said. "But with the Auburn people here in Uganda, the fishing industry has improved a lot. The help of Auburn University, the Auburn people, and the presence of the Auburn people here, has made my farm grow into a successful operation."