Faires Austin Shares Passion for His Faulkner Eagles

by Joel Sellers

Many things could have been said about Faulkner that day.

However, no one could say it had given in. The Lady Eagles played with all they had against William Carey on the afternoon of October 16, 2021. They kept pace with the Crusaders almost point for point. The stat sheet was neck-and-neck. As usual, Tine Davis proved to be a perfect setting for a volleyball match, an intense atmosphere for fans and opponents of the blue and white alike.

Unfortunately, Faulkner was swept in three sets by the razor-thin margins of 26-24, 27-25 and 29-27, one of the closest performances to winning a team can have while still not coming out on top in any frame.

Something else couldn’t be said that day, which takes us from the court to high up in the stands. No one could say Faires Austin, Faulkner superfan and sign enthusiast, gave up on his Eagles. He held one of his infamous signs, a fairly new one to his collection. It read:

If you want a SOFT SERVE Go

to Dairy Queen

Another one Austin brought to the gym that day read: THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS IS NOT CEREAL, IT’S THE OPPOSITION

Austin’s presence at Faulkner sporting events brings a smile and a renewed enthusiasm for the game to both players and spectators.

These are easy takeaways when one meets a man that has plenty of those characteristics to go around. His cheerful disposition and hearty laughter are infectious, and his quick wit and classic one-liners can keep everyone in stitches. Through it all, though, his sincerity and generosity can be seen through the giving of his time, whether it be teaching others about Christ through serving as an elder and Bible class teacher at University Church of Christ, or his love for Faulkner, especially the athletic programs.

“We enjoy the sports,” he says. “I go to as many football, volleyball and basketball games as I can. We have a lot of fun at these games.”

The 75-year-old native of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, has lived in the South for almost his entire life. Though he never played many sports outside of track in high school, he and his wife have always been huge fans. Since he began working at Faulkner, they have made a point to be regulars at games. While most fans might only show interest in football and men’s basketball, the Austins go to women’s sporting events just as often as the men’s games, supporting each of the teams equally.

His zeal for Faulkner and its athletics began long before he earned his degree from the university.

Austin retired from Faulkner in August 2020 and his wife of over 50 years, Margie, retired from the Financial Aid office five years ago. They met in 1965 while they were students at Freed-Hardeman University. When he could no longer pay for his tuition, he entered the Air Force and spent a tour in South Vietnam before being stationed in Charleston, South Carolina.

After his service ended and he began work as the owner of a tire company, he never lost sight of the value of a Christian education and wanted to encourage high school students in his church to take that path toward continuing their schooling. While attending North Charleston Church of Christ, he and Margie would take the teenagers in the youth group on a bus to visit Christian universities. Faulkner, then Alabama Christian College (ACC), was the one they took the teens to most often.

Admissions counselors from ACC would come through Charleston on recruiting trips and would often stay at the Austins’ home. As a result, Austin got to know more and more people at Faulkner including Joey Wiginton, then the director of admissions and the current alumni director. Wiginton eventually brought Austin to Montgomery.

Austin became an unofficial recruiter for the school, even setting up tables with Faulkner material at statewide church events to share with teens the benefits of Christian education. His efforts had an effect on a good number of his church’s youth, including his own children.

Their son Allen came to Faulkner to play baseball. He is married to Angie, who also grew up in the North Charleston congregation and attended Faulkner. Julie, their daughter, chose Faulkner for her higher education as well and married another Faulkner student, Charlie Knapp, who became an assistant coach for the Eagles’ football program from its inception in 2007 until 2018.

The Austins saw firsthand the quality education their children received from Faulkner and it did not take much convincing for Austin to take the job as director of student housing in August 2001. He then became assistant dean of students a couple years later and eventually was hired as dean of students nine years after that.

While working, he decided to go back to school and finish his degree, and earned his Bachelor’s in Biblical Studies from Faulkner in 2006, in addition to completing a Master’s in Counseling from Liberty University in 2009. He then became a transfer admissions counselor in 2014 and later served in graduate and adult recruiting until his retirement. Just because he’s retired doesn’t mean he’s slowed down, though. Not in the slightest. He says that he is almost as busy now as he was when employed by the university. He still gladly gives campus tours to those who ask, as he is quite the expert on Faulkner’s history.

And of course, he still shows up and cheers on the Eagles, with his signs in hand. He was inspired to use these props while watching a popular talk show among college football fans.

“On a football Saturday morning, you’ve got those four guys sitting there at the desk, and they’ve got the College GameDay going,” he recalls. “And they’ve got this big audience with all these homemade signs, some of them are just hilarious!’ That’s how I got the idea of doing that, way back in the early 2000’s. And of course, our football team didn’t start until ’07, but we had volleyball before then, and basketball before that. So that’s how it got started.”

“I don’t want to intimidate the other team too much, but just a little bit! It helps people to go, ‘Oh yeah, we can do this!’ I like to kind of get the crowd fired up. When they start hollering, the team does better! People get a kick out of it. I just want to get them enthused and get them in the game, and cheer our team on, whether we win or lose.”

He estimates he has about 80 signs in all that he has had professionally made over the years, whether big or small. He keeps them on racks in his backyard storage unit. He enlists the services of Signs in One Day on Forest Hills Drive in Montgomery enough that Margie says the workers know him by name and the sizes, fonts and colors (mostly blue and white, naturally) that he generally prefers. Some have simple fan sayings like “Go Eagles,” but the ones that really catch people’s attention are the ones that use alliteration, clever puns or other classic one-liners. Some of the ideas are his own, coming from his sharp wit, while he has gained inspiration for others from the internet, College GameDay or word of mouth.

Most of the signs never go out of style and some can even be used across all sports. In fact, his signs with punchlines where the name of the other school is necessary often include a blank place to write in the upcoming opponent’s name. For example:

I Tried To Change My Password To

BUT GMAIL SAID IT WAS WEAK

It’s not just signs he uses. He uses a Faulkner cowbell at football games, where he’ll “ring that sucker!” Another accessory he uses is somewhat unconventional.

“You know, every once in a while, when you catch an NFL game, some of these guys in the stands will be dressed up in weird stuff. The only thing I do like that is, my wife takes a special marker and she puts ‘Go Eagles’ on my forehead. I’m a walking billboard that says ‘Go Eagles!’”

If there have been any historical moments in Faulkner’s athletics history, chances are Austin was there to see it! The first one he thinks of is this past basketball season when the men’s team notched a 92-73 win over conference opponent Loyola, its first over any team ranked No. 1 nationally. Another he remembers like yesterday is when the 2011 football team played in a marathon game against Union that went into three overtimes. It was the highest scoring football game in NAIA history and the second-highest mark reached by an existent program across any divisional level.

“We have a hard time beating Loyola!” he exclaims. “And we whupped them this last season, that was their only loss this season! That was a great moment, that was a super moment for us! And then another moment is when, before we got our football stadium here, of course we played downtown at Cramton Bowl, and before that, we played a few games at Alabama Christian Academy (ACA). We played a game over there that lasted, how many hours, five? Because it was 95-89!”

As he reminisces, he marvels at the fact that Faulkner plays some very tough opponents in the Mid-South Conference in football and the Southern States Athletic Conference in all other sports. He points out, as everyone else who has watched Faulkner games over the years can attest, “Anybody can beat anybody on any given day.” In his mind, that just makes it all the more interesting.

One of his favorite traditions has been to see the football team off on road trips, and sometimes he and Margie have even traveled to away games. When the buses pull away from the fieldhouse he holds up a sign predicting that weekend’s game score. This is uplifting to the players, who often have a long trip ahead of them, sometimes as far away as Kentucky or south Florida. For home games, he uses the same strategy, holding up his prediction as well as one that reads “Hustle, Hit & Never Quit!” by the front gate of the stadium as the players reach the end of Eagle Walk. He loves seeing the effect the signs have on the crowd, even with members of other athletic programs at Faulkner who are in the stands during the other sports. He is especially happy when some of the international soccer and golf players who speak different languages understand the messages, as they point at the signs, have a good laugh and start to cheer louder.

“We’re there to cheer on our team,” he states plainly. “If we want to win, one of the factors is we’re playing at home, that’s an advantage. Number two, if we have spectators that are hollering, cheering us on in a Christian, nice way, that’s like saying, ‘Go get ‘em, boys!’ ‘Do the best you can!’ I think it’s important for the student body to be there. Parents are there to watch their kids play, and grandparents want to see their grandkids play, which is great, but the school needs to be behind athletics and cheer these students on. They’ve worked hard, and they deserve it!”

“You know, if somebody’s cheering me on, I’m going to give it a little bit extra sometimes. So, I think that’s very, very important. How sad it would be to have a basketball game, football game, volleyball game, and just the coaches show up? No spectators, none of that stuff. Then, what’s the use, why are we here? We need to be behind the students, these young athletes. They may go on, but very few, to a higher level. For some, this’ll be it. Let’s make it fun! Let’s make it interesting and fun, and let them know that we’re there to support them. Period.”