SZVETITZ COLUMN: Landing Super 6 huge for community

What a great day for the Auburn-Opelika community.

Our community.

Getting the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s Super 6 state championship football games to come to Jordan-Hare Stadium every other year starting in 2010 is as big as landing the Iron Bowl.

Seriously.

This is huge. Ginormus, if you will.

Not only for the area, as having the two-day event, plus a coaching clinic, dinner and all the other bells and whistles that come along with a state championship will bring millions of dollars into the community, it’s also a heck of a recruiting tool.

And not just for the football team.

It’s a chance for Auburn to sell Auburn. All of it — the community, the university, the culture.

It’s a chance for prospective athletes to come and play on one of the two largest stages in the state.

It’s a chance to get mommies and daddies, brothers and sisters, grandmas and grandpas on the campus and in the shops and restaurants.

It’s a chance for even just the regular ol’ student to come in and see Auburn.

“The opportunity to have prospective college students to come to campus and have a chance to tour Auburn and take a look at it with their parents — band members, cheerleaders and whatever it may be — to have them on campus is great,” said Auburn University Athletics Director Jay Jacobs. “We believe if we get them on campus, there is something special — there’s a spirit here. So, we’re very excited.”

And, of course, it’s a chance for Gene Chizik and his staff to host a free recruiting visit.

“Obviously, selfishly for me, from a football standpoint, it’s a no-brainer,” Chizik said. “They get to be in Jordan-Hare and be in the locker room and all those things that go along with recruiting. So you’re looking at teams with probably a lot of good football players that get some free exposure for us.

“That’s a great thing. That’s a no-brainer as well.”

No doubt.

It’s also a money maker, which is great for our community. And a memory maker, which is great for the athletes and their families.

It’s a win-win situation. All the way around.

“The bigger the dream, the bigger the vision, the bigger opportunities that you have,” Jacobs said.

“And this is just another example of all of us working together, creating big opportunities for students — children — in our community.”

And the Auburn-Opelika community is the biggest winner of all.

Sure, it starts with Auburn University, but it ends with us.

Being able to get all the coaches and athletes on campus where they can see what the Tigers are all about up close and personal is the first step in a trickle-down process that will benefit everyone.

There’s no doubt that Chizik, Jacobs and anyone else sporting an interlocking AU will pull out all the stops for the event.

“We think that the hospitality here in the community and the reputation the community has for hosting events and the opportunity for us to have the high school students on campus, not only from a football recruiting standpoint, but just from the exposure to Auburn, we think it’s a great idea,” Jacobs said.

That red carpet that’ll keep getting stuck in your car’s undercarriage is just a price you’ll have to pay to have the Super 6 here.

But it’ll be OK. You won’t mind. Because the end result of this will have a direct impact on all of our bottom lines.

Having the Super 6 in town has the chance to make the football program better. Having hundreds of potential recruits on campus for two days, experiencing Auburn, sure can’t make it worse.

And the better the football program, the better the support. The better the support, the better the gameday atmosphere. The better the gameday atmosphere, the more money spent. The more money spent, the better the economy. The better the economy ... well, you get the point.

“For me personally, on behalf of our football program, and athletic department as well, we want to say thank you, because this is a big deal,” Chizik told the Auburn-Opelika Tourism Bureau’s Sports Council during a press conference Wednesday.

And we should all echo those sentiments to everyone involved. This is a very big deal.

There are a lot of people who made moving the event from Legion Field in Birmingham to Auburn and Tuscaloosa possible. Some long, hard hours were put in for this dream to become a reality.

But there’s three people in this community that need perhaps the biggest slap on the back ... Ron Anders, the chairman of the Auburn-Opelika Tourism Bureau Sports Council; John Wild, president of the Auburn-Opelika Tourism Bureau; and D. Mark Mitchell, who is a member of the sports council.

Those guys made this happen. And it didn’t come easy. But it came. And it’s big. Really big.

Good job, gentlemen. And congratulations.

Your community thanks you.

MIKE SZVETITZ is sports editor of the Opelika-Auburn News. He may be reached at or 737-2513.

Read Mike Szvetitz’s blog here.