The call came person-to-person to the Auburn sports information department. A person who loved the Tigers wanted to talk to me.
In the days before cell phones and social media, in a profession where people don't reach out to hug you, it was an extraordinary effort. For a reason lost to history, this Auburn fan wanted me to know he was no fan of mine.
He concluded his angry soliloquy with this: "I don't know why Coach Dye lets you in the city limits."
I told him, as prominent as Pat Dye may have been in the 1980s, he didn't have the power to lock the gates to the Loveliest Village on the Plains, even to keep out a barbarian like me.