Alabama Student Government Association president Jimmy Taylor drew criticism from fans and media when he made the decision to not travel to Auburn Thursday for the annual Foy-ODK Trophy presentation, citing unsafe weather conditions.

The trophy is presented annually to the winner of the Alabama-Auburn football game during halftime of the Alabama-Auburn basketball game on the winner’s home court. Tradition holds that the SGA president of the losing team present the trophy to the winning SGA president and sing the opposing team’s fight song.

Both Alabama and Auburn canceled classes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday due to a sweeping snowstorm that hit the Southeast last week. The basketball game, initially scheduled for Wednesday, was pushed back to Thursday.

Taylor was not made available for an interview Friday but released the following statement through Leela Foley, director of SGA media relations:

“The decision not to travel to Auburn for the ODK presentation was made early Thursday afternoon after careful evaluation of the ongoing situation resulting from the snow storm on Tuesday that impacted our state and both campuses. It was a difficult decision to make, but at the end of the day, we felt it was better to err on the side of caution to ensure the well-being of the members of our University family. We informed our contacts at Auburn University, who were incredibly understanding, and we thank them very much for that. And, in keeping with the spirit of the ODK presentation, I shot a video with our local television station Thursday afternoon congratulating Auburn’s football team on their outstanding season, and I sang the Auburn fight song. While Auburn received the video around 6:30 p.m. Thursday, we understand they were unable to plug it into the program because of the hectic nature of rescheduling the games.

“It was most certainly not our intent to cause hard feelings between our two great Universities. The Student Governments of our two schools have a very positive and collaborative relationship, and visit each other’s campus each year to exchange ideas. Our tremendous respect for Auburn University made this a very difficult decision. I understand the concerns of those who felt we should have made the trip anyway. As campus leaders, we were faced with a difficult decision and we decided that the safety of our faculty, staff, and students was our priority.”

Auburn SGA president Harrison Mills said there are no hard feelings in a phone interview Sunday.

“It’s a sportsmanship trophy,” Mills said. “If I get upset about a tradition like that, then I’m not being a good sportsman.”

Foley said the SGA is in the process of putting the video on its website.