When Madeline Burkhardt, a third-generation Auburn University graduate, heard about the school’s hire of head football coach Hugh Freeze, she pulled out her notes app and started typing a letter.
She felt someone should know the story of her grandmother, Mary Rosser Burkhardt, who was one of a small number of female graduates in the 1930s. Burkhardt grew up hearing her grandmother’s tales of greasing down the railroad tracks before a big game. If anyone spoke during the alma mater song, she would shush them, Burkhardt said.
