An odd chain of events led to the lineup of Auburn’s 1957 championship team, led by Dr. Lloyd Nix, a well-known Decatur, Ala., dentist and the winning quarterback that year. Nix, who died Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, at age 87, was promoted to quarterback when other players were expelled, reportedly because of a popular trend in the 1950s: a panty raid.

Here’s how it went down. (Spoiler: Nix did not participate)

The backstory

After World War II, more and more women were attending college. Add them to the influx of men attending on the GI Bill and you have a conundrum for the administrators at a time when people feared for women’s virtue whenever the genders mingled.

Dorms at Auburn, then called Alabama Polytechnic Institute, were separated by gender and women’s dorms had chaperones. Women had early curfews; men could visit women in dorm common rooms but were not allowed in bedrooms – or the dorms at all after curfew.

The young men figured out a way to get past the rigid standards: Groups of male students would “raid” dorms and sorority houses, taking with them female underwear, including bras and panties. They were quickly dubbed “panty raids.”

Katherine Cooper Cater, Auburn’s dean of women and social director from 1946 to 1980, wanted to ensure that her women knew how to handle themselves in any situation, going as far as to make a pamphlet called “Rules for Women in Case of Panty Raids.” The instruction booklet advised female students not to go to their windows when men approached. To discourage the raiders, they should turn off lights and sit in the hallways, wearing raincoats or robes for modesty. (A few contrary women instead beckoned to the men from the windows).

In 1952, newspapers were publishing stories about collegiate panty raids across the country.

The May 22, 1952, edition of The Sun in Baltimore, Maryland, wrote, “U. of M. Gets into Panty-Raid Act: 1,000 Students, Defying Pleas, Barge Through Dormitories in Search for Lingerie.”

In the May 25, 1952, edition of The Knoxville News-Sentinel, commentator Ruth Millett wrote: “The panty-bra brawls have spread like grass fires from campus to campus, throwing house mothers into hysterics, embarrassing college authorities, and causing a good many people to wonder if the cultural advantages of a college education are all they are supposed to be.”

In the article, Millett quotes an anonymous dean as saying males in college at that time were acting out because the war, in which many of them served, made them uncertain of their futures.

Law enforcement raids on panty raiders surged again in 1957, leading to numerous headlines across the country. The Auburn student paper, The Plainsman, had a “panty raid reporter,” Tom Duke, according to this Jan. 23, 1957, article.

A week later, on Jan. 30, 1957, The Plainsman published an editorial stating: “We have heard of cases where a crowd of panty raiders have broken into dormi­tories, taken down doors, destroyed furni­ture, torn up clothes, and in some cases physically attacked coeds residing inside. These battles have not always been one­-sided, either. In one women’s dorm up north a sort of man-trap was set. An at­tractive coed would stand in a doorway waving some lingerie. As the unthinking male charged through the door a second girl promptly laid into him with a softball bat. Serious injuries resulted.”

During one such event on the Auburn campus in 1957, several football players, including the team’s quarterbacks, were expelled after being caught in a women’s dorm. Nix said in the 2011 interview that he does not recall whether the players were on a panty raid, but said they were definitely in the women’s dorms when they were not allowed to be.

“Coach Jordan sent them home and told me he was moving me to starting quarterback,” Nix said. “It’s been one of the best things that ever happened to me, then and throughout my life.”

Nix never mentioned the names of those expelled and no record of the expulsions was published in the available online editions of The Plainsman. None of the quarterbacks in 1956 returned for the 1957 season, according to rosters. The 1957 roster lists Nix as starting QB with four backup QBs.

The game

Alabama Polytechnic’s team was having a heck of a season under Coach Ralph “Shug” Jordan. The Tigers were undefeated when, on Dec. 3, 1957, The Ledger-Enquirer in Columbus, Ga., reported: “Coach Shug Jordan’s Auburn team was given a big lift by the development of halfback Lloyd Nix into a fine quarterback.”

Nix, who was a junior in 1957, was shifted from running back to quarterback following the 1956 season and stayed in the position through 1958. He led API/Auburn to a 6-0 win over the University of Georgia to take the national championship for 1957. In 1958, as a senior, he was named team captain.

The Alabama Sports Hall of Fame says Nix led the team “for the best back-to-back seasons in Auburn football history: the 1957 National Championship season and the 1958 season where Auburn finished with a 9-0-1 record and fourth place in the AP Poll.” He was named to the All-SEC team twice.

In 1958, Nix also played first base on Auburn’s SEC baseball championship team. “During the 1959 season, he had a perfect 9-0 pitching record,” his Hall of Fame entry says. “He won the 1959 Cliff Hare Award as Auburn’s outstanding senior athlete.”

Nix said the fad of panty raids led many young men down the wrong path. He recalled a story told by a member of the clergy at his Decatur church, who told Nix: “When you were at Auburn, you saved my life. There were some students headed into a girls’ dormitory on a panty raid, and you turned me around and led me out and kept me out of trouble.” Nix laughed at the memory.

Nix received the Auburn Alumni Association Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 for his service to his community and to Auburn.