Why the Neville family made historic donation to Auburn basketball — without ever attending school there
AUBURN — In late February, the courtside couple wandered into the arena that would soon be named after them. They were there to watch the Auburn basketball team practice in a mostly empty gym, away from the cameras and the other suits and ties.
They had recently given the largest single donation in the history of Auburn athletics, despite the fact that neither husband nor wife had attended Auburn.
As the Tigers' home venue was officially renamed Neville Arena on Friday, Bill Neville started and ended his speech with a testimonial: "I love basketball."
From now on, that's whose name will be attached to the building that opened in 2010 and has established itself as one of the great home-court advantages in modern college basketball.
"I really love the two hours of magic and chaos that we all create together in this beautiful arena," Neville said Friday outside the building.
Bill's father and grandparents both graduated from Auburn, and he grew up dreaming of becoming the voice of the Auburn Tigers. Though he graduated from Rice University and became a successful software designer, he serves on the Tigers Unlimited Foundation board and is a member of the Pat Dye Society, Auburn's highest level of donor recognition. The size of the Nevilles' donation is undisclosed, but Pat Dye Society members have donated at least $3 million.
He and his wife, Connie, have shared a decades-long passion for basketball. When Bill was in middle school, he told the school's coach he wanted to be part of the team as it made an exciting tournament run. The coach considered the request and returned to Bill with a job: Keep the scorebook.
That humbling experience eventually helped lead Bill toward a brief career in play-by-play radio broadcasting. As he called games for a local station in Eufala, "we only had budget for one headset," he quipped, earning one of many chuckles from a crowd of Auburn brass Friday. Connie sat next to Bill at games, keeping the scorebook and writing her color commentary on a clipboard. "I would read them on the air and get all the credit," he said.
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Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl, athletics director Allen Greene, university president Jay Gogue and trustee Bob Dumas also spoke at the event. The arena will make its debut in renamed form Saturday (noon, SEC Network) when No. 5 Auburn (26-4, 14-3 SEC) hosts South Carolina (18-11, 9-8) trying to clinch a solo SEC regular season championship. The Tigers have already clinched a share of the title for the fourth time in program history.
"I just want to apologize that it's going to take us 24 hours to win your first championship," Pearl said during his brief speech. "I'm sorry about that. And it might take less than that, because gymnastics has got a chance tonight." (No. 6 Auburn faced No. 3 Florida in one of the biggest meets in program history.)
The Nevilles sit courtside and recently joined the student section, The Jungle, during a basketball game. When Neville kept that scorebook that helped him fall in love with the sport, "that book was the one source of truth." He was responsible for alerting the officials when a player fouled out. He was quiet and ad reserved when one of his team's players reached five fouls. When an opponent fouled out, Bill was a bit more emphatic.
"I notice a lot of the kids in The Jungle might have kept scorebooks when they were kids, too," he said. "Because I hear a lot of the same things."
"I've learned I better not pop off at a ref," Connie Neville said after the ceremony, "because it shows up all over social media. It takes a lot for me to pop off. I guess I got onto one of them one time.
They'll be back in their seats as usual Saturday for the final home game of the 2021-22 season. Perhaps they'll find their way to The Jungle again.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Why Bill Neville made name-changing Auburn basketball donation
