Crews work to remove toilet paper from the two poisoned oak trees before spraying the leaves with a coating at Toomer’s Corner in Auburn, Ala., on Thursday. Harvey Almorn Updyke Jr. has been charged for poisoning the landmark live oak trees on the Auburn University campus. (AP Photo/ The Birmingham News, Michelle Campbell)The poisoning of two famed oak trees at Auburn by an Alabama fan has cast a negative light on college football’s most passionate in-state rivalry, but representatives of both schools do not believe the rivalry should have to suffer.
“I look at it as an individual thing, and the guy needs to go to jail,” former Auburn coach Pat Dye said Thursday. “A man who will do that will poison your dog, your cat and your children. People can spin this any way they want to, but this was a guy who was off his medicine.”
Harvey Almorn Updyke Jr. from Dadeville, Ala., was arrested early Thursday morning in connection with pouring lethal amounts of herbicide around the 130-year-old trees at Toomer’s Corner. The 62-year-old was charged with first-degree criminal mischief, a Class C felony that could carry a sentence of up to 10 years if he’s convicted.
Auburn fans since the early 1980s have celebrated victories by rolling the two trees at Toomer’s Corner, and it had a mammoth gathering Jan. 10 after the Tigers toppled Oregon to win their first national title since 1957. The trees will try to be saved, university experts said Thursday, even though the poison could be in the soil as long as five years.
“Beano Cook once said the state of Alabama is the Mideast of college football, and this is one of those times that makes Beano right,” said former Auburn athletic director David Housel, who attended 50 Iron Bowls in a row. “I don’t know that this incident will have a great effect on the rivalry, but it certainly could. There have always been fraternity-type pranks, but killing those trees takes it a step further. It’s never been this bad.