“The Voice of Auburn Tigers,” Rod Bramblett, died in a car accident Saturday night, along with his wife.
The 53-year-old beloved play-by-play announcer was driving a 2017 Toyota Highlander, with his 52-year-old wife Paula in the passenger seat.
According to reports, the two were stopped, waiting to make a turn, when a 16-year-old driving a 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee slammed into the back of their car hard enough to kill both of them.
Medical personnel airlifted Rod Bramblett to UAB Hospital in Birmingham, where he died from a severe head injury.
Paula Bramblett, also airlifted, had to be diverted to East Alabama Medical Center, where a physician pronounced her dead from multiple internal injuries shortly after she arrived.
The 16-year-old driver, whose name has not been released, was taken to the hospital in an ambulance with non-life threatening injuries.
Bramblett became Auburn’s play-by-play voice in 2003, after the untimely death of another Auburn broadcasting legend, Jim Fyfee. The latter died of a brain aneurysm at 57 years old.
A three-time Alabama sportscaster of the year, Bramblett voiced some of the most memorable calls in Auburn Tigers history.
Most notably, he gave this exasperated but jubilant call of the “Kick Six” that helped Auburn win the 2013 Iron Bowl.