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Shug used to joke that it was pronounced Jordan, “like the river”… as if the name of the site of Jesus Christ’s baptism was, you know, pronounced the way he pronounced his last name (and wanted everyone else to pronounce it), not the way that basketball player or Martha Reed Garvin pronounces it.
Only thing is, he may not have been joking.
Because just like how the Auburn Athletics Department once instructed sports writers and TV guys on the proper pronunciation of “Jordan,” so, too, did the United Methodist Hymnal, which was apparently convinced that good ol’ Samuel Stennett wanted his most popular hymn sung by sanctuaries full of Shug Jordans, not Martha Reed Garvins.