Since I tried a little satire in good college rivalry fun and claimed that Texas A&M is a cult, I decided to do a little research.
Of course the first place I turned to was The Google, and as I typed in “Texas A&M is” – well, “texas a&m is a cult” displayed in the search list with 53,300 results.
Within those results was a 2003 article in The Daily Utah Chronicle by Chris Bellamy titled “Cult! Fear and loathing in College Station.”
The article is about his visit to Aggieland and it parodies the intense school spirit and tradition on Texas A&M’s campus.
A few days later, the newspaper posted a follow up article about the reaction of the “Cult! Fear and loathing in College Station” article. Here’s how it starts off . . .
On Tuesday, Sept. 9, The Chronicle ran a sports column by Chris Bellamy titled “Cult! Fear and loathing in College Station,” a parody of the intense school spirit on Texas A&M’s campus.
It didn’t take long before the column circulated all the way to Texas A&M, and students and alumni began responding by the dozens. Chris has received more than 200 e-mails so far-almost all of which came from people in Texas.
The responses were varied. Many current and former A&M students were very positive about it, and found it funny. Some were quite offended, while others had mixed feelings.
The paper included several responses in that follow up article, but if you want to read more of the responses, check out this link where the first four to five pages contains responses to the article.
The referenced article reminded me of when a group of my son's friends wanted me to help them plan a visit to A&M their senior year in high school. I insisted that they must attend a home football game complete with Midnight Yell Practice to get the full effect. Needless to say the reactions of these young men and their parents, none of whom had ever experienced any of this,were very similar to the reporter from Utah.
I'm glad to see that the majority of reactions by Aggies to the article were positive and contained a healthy ability to laugh at themselves (as was my intent in my lame attempt at satire in an earlier post). I understand the defenders of the "faith", but regret the ones that chose to berate Mormanism. beingsEnter text right here!
When I hear someone say that they are thinking about attending A&M I suggest that they spend a football weekend in College Station. After attending Midnight Yell and a game at Kyle Field they will walk away saying one of two things:
1. There is no way I could ever go to school here
2. There is no way I could ever go to school anywhere else but here
In my experience there is no middle ground.
Class of '88
A&M is Gaayyyyyyy
A&M is a super cult: they have a cemetery so that aggie fans can be close to their dear old school, they all wear maroon, they do that weird whoop crap, they worship a dog, and they have ritual fires… uhh cult much???