Tuberville honoring troops, father on Middle East tour
Editor’s note: Ivan Maisel will accompany Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville, Georgia’s Mark Richt, Miami’s Randy Shannon, Notre Dame’s Charlie Weis and Yale’s Jack Siedlecki on the coaches’ tour of the Middle East. He will update this trip diary regularly starting on Tuesday and will take a deeper look at the journey beginning May 27.
Tuesday, May 20
SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. — The college football coaches who are leaving Tuesday to visit U.S. troops in the Middle East are doing so to bring a piece of home — the Saturday-afternoons-in-the-fall piece — to the young men and women working so hard so far away.
Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville is going in order to honor the troops. But he’s also going in order to honor his father.
“I was fortunate,” Tuberville said. “I grew up with a military dad who fought in World War II. … He was in the Army and drove a tank. He drove a tank down the middle of Paris when they liberated it.”
Tuberville and his fellow coaches, Mark Richt of Georgia, Randy Shannon of Miami, Jack Siedlecki of Yale and Charlie Weis of Notre Dame, are the unusual stars of this trip, organized by Armed Forces Entertainment and a private firm, Morale Entertainment.
espn.com
5/20/08
Magnolia Tribune
