‘I know Rod loved you’: Auburn baseball readies for NCAA Regional with heavy hearts

AUBURN — Before the Memorial Day NCAA Tournament selection show began, Butch Thompson got up out of his seat and walked to the front of the athletics complex auditorium.

The fourth-year head coach told his Auburn baseball team how proud he was. He told his players how excited he was about the postseason opportunity in front of them. He instructed them to continue to “want to win every pitch of every game we play.”

Then he pulled out his  phone.

“There are a couple of people that are usually in this room that are not. One of them, of course, is Rod Bramblett. And Andy Burcham is not, but he just sent me a text, and I wanted to read that,” Thompson said. “I got this four minutes ago:

“Butch, I’m so sorry I won’t be there today and in the Regional coming up. For Rod and I, we look forward to this time more than any other time of our professional year. It will pain me not to be with you, the team, the staff wherever you’re sent. I wish you nothing but the best. Love you. War Eagle.”

The Tigers had reason to celebrate Monday morning. They earned a No. 2 seed in an NCAA Regional just 112 miles up I-85 at Georgia Tech, which was as close to home as they could have possibly been sent once the 16 hosts were announced Sunday night. They’ll open against Coastal Carolina at 11 a.m. CT on Friday.

MORE: Auburn baseball headed to Atlanta for NCAA Regional

But that celebration was “bittersweet.” Auburn will make that short drive without two members of its team. Bramblett, along with his wife Paula, died in a car accident just off Auburn’s campus on Saturday. Burcham will stay behind and continue to help the family — the memorial service is set for 2 p.m. Thursday inside Auburn Arena (visitation begins at noon), and the GoFundMe page set up to help the Bramblett’s children, Shelby and Josh, had raised nearly $140,000 as of Monday night. Thompson and his wife, Robin, donated $5,000 of that total.

The Tigers have made the NCAA Tournament 14 times since 1995, and this weekend will mark the first time that Bramblett and Burcham — who celebrated 25 seasons together this year — will not call those games on radio.

MORE: Auburn has lost its voice, but memories of Rod Bramblett will never be forgotten

“Personally, it was really hard, because that’s a man I connect with every day when we talk about our ballclub,” Thompson said. “The last 27 years, Rod has been telling the story of Auburn baseball. Him and his wife are great examples of how to love Auburn, how to be a husband, how to lead a family — a pretty good example for everybody to play off of. To have that missing any time — but especially now because of a tragedy, an accident or something like that out of thin air — it puts baseball in perspective.

“Those heavy hearts won’t go away, but I know what Rod and Paula Bramblett would want, and that’s to love on our children, take care of them, and we have to stay and adapt to that. And No. 2, he would want us to go represent Auburn the best way we possibly can moving forward.”

Thompson said the team’s mood was understandably “somber” when it met for practice Sunday, less than 24 hours after Bramblett’s death. He and Burcham were far more than just radio broadcast team up in the booth. They traveled with the team, ate with the team and stayed in the same hotel as the team. Bramblett talked to Thompson before every game, and Burcham interviewed the coach and players on the field after.

“He meant a lot, especially to me,” sophomore right-hander Tanner Burns said. “Our relationship off the field, talking to him after games — he would always ask me how my family was and how my family was doing. It was just stuff not about baseball. I’m going to miss his voice. He had a really good voice. I’m going to miss him. He meant a lot to a lot of us.”

Junior designated hitter Conor Davis went back and listened to Bramblett’s call of his walk-off, three-run home run to defeat South Carolina and clinch a series at Plainsman Park on April 2, 2017, which has been a part of the Voice of the Auburn Tigers’ highlight reel ever since.

“We talked for a while after that. And we had talked just through all the interviews and stuff like that. It’s a terrible loss for the Auburn community,” Davis said. “It’s just crazy how fast things can change and that’s what Butch kind of went into: Things can change overnight. Things can change within an hour. But he just wanted to relay to us that he loves us and stuff like that, and if we need anything we can go to him. But the loss of Rod is — I don’t even have words for it. It’s terrible.

“All the calls he’s made throughout his career, he’s not going to be able to do that anymore. It’s just something that’s going to be very missed.”

Auburn’s radio booth won’t go quiet this weekend. Paul Ellen and Brit Bowen will likely be on the call from Russ Chandler Stadium. But Bramblett will be on the team’s mind.

“I know Rod loved you,” Thompson told his team. “I got to visit with him before every ballgame, and he was eternally optimistic every one of those days. ‘How are we going to figure this thing out today, Coach?’ When one of you would have a good game, that next day, before we’d go on air and he started taping, he’d always say, ‘Hey, it was so much fun to watch that young man pitch, or this guy at bat, or what a play in the outfield, that diving catch.’ He really, really cared.”

Josh Vitale is the Auburn beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. You can follow him on Twitter at @JoshVitale. To reach him by email, click here.