Re: A&M is fast, strong, SEC speed...

Trainer [26]

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Posts: 18

Joined: 9/11/18

Sep 3, 2019, 8:29 PM

Good to be you I guess GT, but most Ags can do math, its #1 vs #12 on Saturday. One or both of those numbers will change, we'll find out when the game is played. That is kinda the point.

But if its comparisons you want, I like to lead with the stuff that matters. (if you do not want to read all this, just skip to the last point, think you folks will get it), and if there are any history buffs among you, would appreciate if you would post a link to a similar story about one of the Clemson men who left college at the outset of WWII (or WWI). Know its hate week, but the Greatest Generation is best remembered by stories among people with similar backgrounds imho.

Clemson is a public, land grant research university in the Southeastern United States, established in 1889, Texas A&M is a public land grant research university in the Southwestern United States, established in 1876.

Clemson has a storied military tradition, sending 6,500 plus (not up to speed on the numbers, so no offense intended if got that wrong), Texas A&M sent over 20,000, with 14,000 plus as officers. The huge discrepancy in those numbers has to do with a secret meeting between FDR and the President of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M) in the late '30's, but that is a whole separate discussion.

When your school (Clemson) empties out and sends the entire school off to fight for your country, not a whole lot more to say about that than, ####.

Clemson has a reputation for being good hosts and travel well, same with us.

Clemson rarely loses to South Carolina, A&M never has (but we just got started).

Clemson has 1,750 acres, give or take, A&M 5,200 or so, but a lot of that was the artillery ranges and mounted training areas. Point is, both have agricultural roots and are therefore large in area.

Clemson changed from a cadet corps to civilian enrollment, to include women in 1955 and fully integrated in 1963, which tracks almost exactly with A&M (except we kept a uniformed cadet corps).

Think the only area where A&M kind of beats out Clemson (Clemson's campus is more attractive I think hands down) is endowments, but a lot of that has to do with how Texas separated out funding for the two flagship schools, not better management or ...... A&M stands at right about $13.5 billion as of last year, pretty much twice as much as the rest of the SEC put together times two. So, you could say we were not invited in to the SEC for our looks, and you'd be correct.

Clemson has a much more successful football program, A&M has for the last 7 years been one of the three most profitable athletic departments in the country. Whether or not that is a sign of brilliance or wishful thinking is not clear, but Aggies will throw money at the school in huge amounts.

Last point: read somewhere that Clemson grads like their school rings, we do too. Here is a link about the most famous Aggie ring of all, think all you Tigers who know your history might appreciate that we cherish ours too:

This is a link to a story that is a few pages long, but for you history buffs, its a good read. For you football fanatics, this story also involves the quarterback of the 1939 AMC football team. At any rate, the German family that returned the ring eventually had sons graduate from A&M, as an Aggie promised to pay to send their children to college, "as long as it was A&M".

The story starts on page 90 of the book in the link. I have spoken to the German officer who returned the ring, and he says the day after he notified Texas A&M he had it, his commanding officer told him he was to get on an airplane to the United States immediately, that Texas A&M was flying him and his entire family to Texas, and he had better start packing immediately.

Be safe this week Tigers, and if you have family around Charleston, we pray they are safe also.

https://books.google.com/books?id=QBSRPbx44bIC&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=Lt.+Turney+W.+Leonard%27s+ring+returned+from+Germany&source=bl&ots=bMMgqR4frI&sig=ACfU3U1tVmCfACr9La7aZhNBhFZT7PA2Dw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjTnKGd77XkAhVQbKwKHTmADeEQ6AEwCXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Lt.%20Turney%20W.%20Leonard's%20ring%20returned%20from%20Germany&f=false

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Of course, this is your house, you set the rules, but Good Bull is Good Bull everywhere.

So, at A&M in the Corps there is a saying, "Its a fine line between Red ### and Dumb ###," sure your ROTC guys are just like ours and get the meaning.

But something you guys would not know, is the Band, while in the Corps, pretty much dislikes the Corps in general, and we fought them all the time, food fights, water fights, so much so they named us Band Queers, or BQ's....... One September night in 1975, the Cadet Corps Commander insulted the Band. Three nights later, the band barricaded the Corps staff in their rooms and blocked all their escape routes, bringing in over 300 gallons of pig sh*t, and used squeegees and mops to push the pig.... stuff into their rooms, all in the hallways and down the stairwells. When the job was done, the band went back to our dorms and had a good nights sleep.

The next morning, we were herded into the E.V. Adams Band Hall (Ormond R. Simpson, Class of 36 and former Commandant of the Marine Corps was the judge, jury and executioner, looking for the ring leaders so he could expel them). The prosecutor was the Cadet Corps Commander who made a tactical error by saying, "There are people at this university who think this kind of behavior is no longer good sh*t (the Aggie Corps expression for something "Red ###", well and daringly performed)."

The Aggie Bandsman who led the raid (Calvin Rinn, Class of '77, drummer and a legend to those of us who knew him), stood up and indignity interrupted the Cadet Commander and said, "Now ...#### it Jim, that was the best pig sh*t we could find, we went to the swine center and brought it up fresh!"

There was a crashing sound in the corner, Ormond R. had fallen off his chair, swallowed his chewing tobacco and was coughing, laughing, gasping for air and crying all at the same time. When he regained his ability to speak, he informed us as only a Marine can, that we were all going to sit the next 10 weekends (a form of punishment in the Corps), and that if he so much as saw a single BQ (Aggie Bandsman) before final review (held just before graduation), we would all be pounding sand until St Peter called all the Marines home.

So, if you go to the game, and you hear Aggies yelling out, "BQ's", they are really just calling out to the band, but you will know what it really means.

A&M is fast, strong, SEC speed...