Awesome Aggies

At Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College, even the students in the stands take their football the hard way. The Aggies' corps of cadets stand from start to finish of every game--and at Texas A. & M. most of the students are cadets. A long and proud tradition of military training and service runs back to the school's foundation in 1876, when wolves and deer still roamed its vast, land-grant acres of Brazos County in east-central Texas. Today there are nearly 7,000 Aggies, and not a coed among them to hamper the self-conscious military discipline that has made the college a special favorite with many a Texas parent.

Although a talent for football can earn a husky young man a life of comparative ease at most universities, the spartan life at College Station still draws its fair share of athletes. Last week the best Aggie team in years traveled to Houston to take on Rice Institute, and scored three times in the final three minutes and 18 seconds of the game, to whip the fired-up Owls, 20 to 12. It took the Aggies a long while to get started, but once they clicked they did everything right.

Stiff Penalty. Such rousing football is typical of teams coached by Paul ("Bear") Bryant. (He played that way himself in the early '30s when he was the "wrong end" on a fine Alabama team that had its headlines hogged by a glue-fingered pass-grabber named Don Hutson.) Even on Monday afternoons, when other squads are still resting from their weekend's labors, the Aggies butt heads on their Brazos River practice fields.

When it comes to beating the bushes for new talent, Bear Bryant drives himself as hard as he ever drives his players. He had hardly hit Texas early last year, a refugee from the high-pressure Kentucky basketball barony of Adolph Rupp, when he put on a recruiting drive that started other Southwest Conference coaches screaming: "Foul!" Conference officials promptly blew the whistle on Bear's overenthusiastic salesmanship and set the Aggies back with a stiff penalty: two years' probation and orders not to appear in any bowl games.

Big Honor. In early fall, that bowl-game prohibition seemed academic to most Southwest sportswriters. Almost to a man they picked the Aggies to finish up on the conference doormat. But Bear has been feeding the writers their prophecies ever since. After a slow start against U.C.L.A. (when they looked tough even while losing 21-0), the Aggies have been knocking over everyone in their way. Only against Arkansas did they slow down, and then they eked out a 7-7 tie.

Old grads watch Halfback John David Crow and are happily reminded of that Aggie immortal, Jarrin' John Kimbrough. The hard-charging linemen are many, mean and magnificent, and recently the squad elected Sophomore Jim Stanley as the meanest of the bunch. "Shucks," said the dark-eyed guard who knows an Aggie compliment when he hears it, "that's an awful big honor."

Now, only Texas U. stands between the awesome Aggies and the conference title that they have not won since 1941.

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