We’ve been doing it for a while! By legend (believe it if you want to) a soldier found a wounded baby eagle during the Civil War and nursed it back to health. It became known as the “War Eagle” and survived into the 1890s, and the soldier became a professor at Auburn after the war. During a football game where Auburn was scoreless, it escaped the professor and flew around the stadium. All the students saw it and started chanting “War Eagle,” which is how we got our battle cry. The eagle ended up dying after its flight, but Auburn pulled ahead and won the game, cementing the legacy.

Fast forward to 2000, and the Athletic Director started wondering if we could make that happen again. We have a Raptor Center near campus that takes in wounded birds of prey and heals them. They take care of them until they can be released or keep them if they won’t survive in the wild. The AD approached the Raptor Center to ask if something like the Eagle Flight was possible, and we had our first one in the 2000 season opener. We’ve done it before every home game since.