It’s hard to imagine one year, much less 41, without an Iron Bowl.

But when Selma native Gillis Cammack arrived at Auburn, this was the case. Little did he know on Dec. 4, 1948 that he would play an important role in renewing what many consider the greatest rivalry in college sports.

Gillis was student body president when the schools decided to renew the rivalry, which, he said, was not an easy decision for administrators at either school.

“For years people had said that they didn’t want to start the game again because there would be such hard feelings between the two schools and it would cause a division in the state,” he said. “But the two presidents got together in the spring of 1948 and decided everything would be alright.”

When both parties agreed to renew the rivalry, Cammack said they made it clear they wanted to keep things under control.

“The two student bodies got together and let everybody know that we wanted them to behave and then we met with Bull Connor, who was police chief in Birmingham,” he said. “He was strict and tough. He had four or five of us from each school meet him one day and laid the law down. He said we wouldn’t have anybody cutting up and if anybody got out of line they were going to jail.”

To celebrate the renewal, both student bodies agreed to have representatives meet at Woodrow Wilson Park before the game and bury a hatchet.

“The idea was that there would be no hard feelings,” he said. “That was at Woodrow Wilson Park. Then we had a big march through Birmingham to Legion Field.”

Everything, Cammack said, went fine with the exception of the action on the field. In the end, Alabama prevailed 55-0. By the time the second game rolled around and Cammack was truly able to enjoy the fruits of his labor with an Auburn victory, he had to rely airwaves north of the border to follow the action.

“I had graduated by the and was living in Detroit working for Ford. The only way I could hear it was on a radio station out of Canada,” he said. “It wasn’t a big deal then and there was no television. But I listened to every minute of it.”

After moving back to Alabama in 1952, Cammack said he began going to every Iron Bowl that was played in Birmingham and continues to attend all of the rivalry games in Auburn.

When he and the Alabama student body president buried the hatchet all those years ago, Cammack said he never thought the game would grow to today’s proportions of 100,000-plus fans that would see the game at Bryant-Denny Stadium today.

“Nobody ever thought it would get this big,’ he said. “We just thought it would be a fun rivalry, but it’s known all over the nation as the rivalry.”

Cammack, whose father was a 1907 Auburn graduate and wife was a War Eagle girl, said he is hoping for an Auburn victory, but he is still uncertain what will happen Friday.

“It’s going to be a good game I think,” he said.