Many schools have copied it, many covet it as a bonafide football tradition, as one of their keepsakes, but when you get right down to the beaten path, there really is only one true walk in college football.

And it comes from the SEC.

The Tiger Walk is Auburn’s path to victory, or at least the Tigers have always hoped so on fall Saturdays from outside Jordan-Hare Stadium.

The picture is always clear, no matter the weather that particular Saturday: The Tigers players, with the mascot and whatever cheerleaders following them, acting something like rock stars as they stroll down a walkway with a sea of fervent fans’ hands wanting a high-five from each player, if possible.

Those same Tigers fans who in a matter of a few hours will be shouting for them from somewhere inside Jordan-Hare just want a piece of their heroes as they make their way toward battle. AuburnTigers.com documents the Tiger Walk in its library of sports traditions, right alongside Rolling Toomer’s Corner and the passionate War Eagle battle cry.

But while the Tiger Walk has been a way of pregame life for Auburn fans, the Tigers sports website introduces this tradition with the annoying caveat that has developed over time. The opening sentence reads all too truthfully: The Tiger Walk at Auburn University is one of the most imitated traditions in all of college sports.

So before the page goes into detail about what a wonderful tradition the Tiger Walk is, it laments the fact that the ritual has been taken, photo-copied and plastered on campuses across the country. What’s that saying about how imitation is the biggest form of flattery, or something along those lines? If you’re an Auburn fanatic and you’re the slightest bit upset about the Tiger Walk being ripped off, just keep repeating that line about flattery.

Because it could never be more true than in this case.

Mad dash to a uniform Walk

This wondrous walk was born in the 1960s, a decade highlighted by spirited “walks” of a different kind, when groups of children would walk up the street to get autographs from the players before Auburn games. So before it was a walk, the Tiger Walk was more of a passionate mad dash by a bunch of kids just looking for a high-five or a signature from one of the big men on campus.

The Tiger Walk has gotten a more organized with time, as is usually the case with things like this. On gameday, the parade of Tigers players starts from the Athletics Complex right down Donahue Drive to Jordan-Hare.

The walk always starts two hours before kickoff, and as the school sports website points out, “the team doesn’t make the walk alone; instead, they are cheered on by the thousands of Auburn fans who line the streets and, in the process, create one of the great scenes in college football.”

Just imagine Auburn’s gladiators stepping down that path with hands extended from fans of all ages, a sea of well-wishers clad in burnt orange and navy blue, telling their Tigers to do their best and, surely, to please win that day.

The day Bama came to town

According to auburntigers.com, there was indeed a most famous Tiger Walk, and not surprisingly it involved hated rival Alabama. It happened on Dec. 2, 1989, when the Crimson Tide rolled into Auburn’s campus for the first time. The Alabama-Auburn showdowns had only previously been staged at Legion Field in Birmingham. Finally, Bama was coming to town, and so that day’s Tiger Walk took on an entirely different meaning.

An estimated 20,000 rabid Auburn fans surrounded Donahue Drive that day, according to school officials. ESPN.com college football writer Ivan Maisel recalled the incredible scene that day and later wrote: “The height of emotion (the Tiger Walk) reached in 1989 will be a watermark for years to come.”

Maisel was right, and the sky-high 11th-ranked Tigers took down the second-ranked and unbeaten Tide 30-20 that day. The most passionate pregame walk of all turned hours later into a glorious victory celebration over the rival school.

One guess is that some 87,451 fans, the exact current capacity of Jordan-Hare Stadium, claim they were there that day in ’89 for the most heralded version of the Tiger Walk (so far at least). The tradition is so embraced that it has inspired YouTube uploads to capture its incredible passion, the sounds it makes and its meaning to a school and a fan base.

And imagine that this glorious madness was really launched during coach Doug Barfield’s tenure (1976-80), with Barfield encouraging fans to come out and support the Tigers. If only Barfield knew the tradition he was starting, though he is said to have dismissed any ownership of the ritual.

Often imitated, never duplicated

The Tiger Walk has become so big that it sometimes takes its show on the road. It’s maybe not as bombastic as those walks back home into Jordan-Hare, but for road games Auburn fans are known to cheer on the Tigers from their team buses right into the visiting stadiums. Call those very friendly walks into enemy territory.

But then there’s that bittersweet reminder of flattery. According to former athletic director David Housel, Tiger Walk has become “the most copied tradition in all of college football.”

Maisel wrote in an ESPN.com column entitled “The best Walk in America” that the Tiger Walk “has spawned copycat walks at Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia Tech and several other schools.”

Think about that and ask yourself this question: How many times do you watch an opening to a college football telecast, in the SEC or elsewhere around the country, and see a shot of the team walking through a sea of adoring revelers toward its stadium, with cheerleaders and mascots and all the rest?

That’s the pregame frenzy the Tiger Walk has given birth to.

Every singular Tiger Walk does end. But the buildup is a seemingly endless reel of noise and excitement that can be tracked from the first steps to the last ones — until another Tiger Walk cranks up again.

Maisel gave a history lesson:

“There are older pregame walks at Stanford and at Williams College (Massachusetts). But they don’t generate the passion that builds as the Auburn team makes the turn from Donahue onto Roosevelt (Drive) at the south end of Jordan-Hare Stadium.”

Once the Tigers get into Jordan-Hare Stadium to play the actual game, all bets are off. But no matter what the final score turns out to be, the Tiger Walk has always done its job.

Maisel wrote of the somewhat controlled madness: “They scream, they sing, they cheer, they fire up the Tigers and get fired up themselves.”

Then they take a few deep breaths before the game begins.