The Loveliest Little on the Plains

A conversation with this lifelong Auburn basketball fan reveals a spirit that is anything but small.

On a Wednesday night in late January of this year—the Year of the Tiger—the cell towers connect the kitchen island in my Austin, Texas, apartment to a house in Pike Road, Alabama. Janie Little is on the other end. She’s just returned from her supper club.

Janie is delightfully Southern—something I’ve missed since moving from my home city of Birmingham to Austin five years ago. She’s the perfect blend of charm, humility, kindness, and wit. She doesn’t simply find things funny—she’s “tickled” by them. A week or so earlier, she’s already warned me in a text about her accent—as if I haven’t been…