“Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together … mass hysteria!”

The 1984 movie Ghostbusters left out one unthinkable image – folks in Tuscaloosa teaming with people in Auburn.

But Ron Anders did more than think it. The Auburn city councilman helped lead the charge that led to the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s rotation of its Super 7 football championships between Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium and Tuscaloosa’s Bryant-Denny.

Anders poses with assistant director Wanda Gilliland.

His efforts made him one of 23 people to be recognized by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Coaches Association.

Anders was selected to receive the NFHS Coach Contributor Award, presented to one individual annually who has gone above and beyond in the coaching profession by exemplifying the highest standards of sportsmanship, ethical conduct and moral character, and who carries the endorsement of his or her respective state high school association.

Anders envisioned the championships at Auburn University’s Jordan-Hare Stadium and the University of Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium.

It is an idea AHSAA member schools have enthusiastically embraced since the rotation began in 2009. From 1996-2008, the state football championships were played at Legion Field in Birmingham. Prior to 1996, the championships in all classes but 6A were played at home sites.

“It took more than one conversation with the stakeholders at both universities,” Anders said. “At the end of the day, they realized that they’d provide an opportunity to make people’s lives better by opening their facilities to young people. It would be the opposite year of the Iron Bowl being hosted on their campus. That made it more palatable for them.

Anders, right, posed at Jordan Hare stadium with, from left, AHSAA executive director Steve Savarese, D Mark Mitchell from Opelika, and Gilliland.

“It did take some work but it does show that the greatest rivals can come together for good causes.”
Anders said the endorsement of the head football coaches at that time – Gene Chizik at Auburn and Nick Saban at Alabama – was key to the project getting off the ground.

“Both football coaches at that time were very supportive of what we were doing,” he said. “They got it and they knew it was in the best interest of the young people of our state to play those games in the two most prominent stadiums in the state. They supported it and their support goes a long way. They helped pave the way for us to get this done.

“The catalyst was a crazy guy like me who went on a fishing expedition and started asking questions of why and why not.”

In a release from the AHSAA, Executive Director Steve Savarese called Anders “a civic leader who uses every spare moment to find a way to help youth in Auburn and around the state of Alabama. His tireless efforts have helped hundreds of student-athletes have life-long memories of what is right and good about high school education-based athletics.”

Anders applauded Savarese for his courage in “allowing a guy he barely knew enough leash to run with an idea and try to pull it all together and make it happen.”

The Auburn city councilman also noted the help of his local partners in the project – Auburn-Opelika Tourism Bureau President John Wild and Opelika’s D. Mark Mitchell.

Anders will receive his award at the AHSAA Championship Coaches Awards Banquet at the conclusion of the 2016 AHSAA Summer Conference in July. The banquet will be at the Montgomery Renaissance Hotel and Convention Center on Friday, July 22, at 6 p.m.