This is an opinion column.

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My thoughts go to the perfect words of Rod Bramblett whenever Kick Six comes to mind.

It’s not just on the anniversaries either. It’s all the time.

We’re celebrating the 10-year mark of Kick Six, but Auburn’s incredible 34-28 victory against Alabama that night in 2013 is never far away. The game is a piece of Alabama state folklore, and the singular moment that captured everything great and pure about the culture of college football is expressed in the voice of Auburn’s late play-by-play announcer.

Bramblett and his wife, Paula, died tragically in a car accident in Auburn in 2019. He was 52 and she was 53. They are dearly missed, but their spirits are eternally linked to the Iron Bowl.

I still can’t read through Bramblett’s call of Chris Davis’ return without my eyes watering, and writing this column was emotionally draining. It’s not just that Kick Six was one of the greatest plays in college football history. It’s that Bramblett matched the drama and the scene with a radio call considered one of the best ever in sports broadcasting, and now his words during those seconds are a cherished part of his memory, too.

Celebrating anniversaries are a function of how we mark and record our time while we’re here together on this earth. Anniversaries are about who we are and how we got here. They’re about valuing every second, and, in this case, that one very infamous second that Alabama coach Nick Saban had to have put back on the scoreboard a decade ago this Iron Bowl.

It was Davis, the Auburn defensive back, who knocked Alabama’s T.J. Yeldon out of bounds with time expiring in regulation. The game was knotted 28-all after Auburn tied it up with 32 seconds left. Instead of letting it go to overtime, Saban argued to have one second put back on the clock. Alabama’s legendary coach wanted his field-goal kicker, freshman Adam Griffith, to have a shot at a 57-yarder.

One of my favorite phenomenons of Kick Six? To this day, knowledgeable football fans can spot Kick Six vanity car tags not just in Alabama but all over the country. Many of them are a variation of remembering that one second Saban fought so hard to secure. A lot of things went into Kick Six, but don’t ever forget that it wouldn’t have happened without Alabama’s coach demanding more time.

Jordan-Hare Stadium went from breathless to chaos in an instant after Davis’ return for a touchdown. Everyone knows someone who was on that field either celebrating Auburn’s victory or fighting to find an exit. Bramblett was up in the booth soaking it all in after having delivered what the New York Times would later describe in memoriam as the call of a lifetime.

Kick Six solidified the Iron Bowl as the greatest rivalry in American sports, and it was Bramblett’s words that etched it into our shared experience. In honor of his gift to college football as a storyteller, and in the spirit of everything that the Iron Bowl represents to the people of Alabama, here is Bramblett’s description of Kick Six in all of its majestic, floating power:

“Well, I guess if this thing comes up short he can field it, and run it out.

“All right, here we go…56-yarder…It’s got…No, it does not have the leg.

“Chris Davis takes it in the back of the end zone. He’ll run it out to the 10…

15…

20…

25…30…

35…40…

45…50…45…

“There goes Davis! Davis is going to run it all the way back! Auburn is going to win the football game!

“Auburn’s going to win the football game!

“He ran the missed field goal back! He ran it back 109 yards!

“They’re not gonna keep them off the field tonight! Holy cow! Oh, my God! Auburn wins!

“Auburn has won the Iron Bowl!

“Auburn has won the Iron Bowl in the most unbelievable fashion you will ever see! I cannot believe it! 34–28! And we thought ‘A Miracle in Jordan-Hare’ was amazing! Oh, my Lord in Heaven!”

If time is a measure of our lives together, then it only takes one second to express in words a hope that will survive forever.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama”, a book about togetherness, wild times and rum.