Screaming rituals in the middle of the night. A deep and inherited trust within members of the group. A long list of traditions and ceremonies for every new member to memorize.
No, these aren’t characteristics of a cult you have seen on the news. This is the school the LSU football team plays on Thursday.
Texas A&M is listed as a form of higher education, but it’s probably the closest thing you’ll get to a cult when it comes to major colleges. Any LSU fans making the trip for the holidays should be prepared for an entirely new type of fanfare.
Growing up in Texas, I remember respecting A&M and preferring it over the rival Texas Longhorns. But hearing Aggie alums speak with fervor and pride about their school’s customs has always been a little alarming.
“On the outside, it looks like a cult,” one of my friends from A&M once told me. “But on the inside, it’s something you wouldn’t understand.”
Actually, that sounds exactly like a cult.
There’s the midnight yell ceremony, an event LSU fans can watch if they get to College Station on Wednesday night. The A&M band and “yell leaders” light torches and lead the way for typically 20,000 fans as they march from the school’s quad into the football stadium.
Once at Kyle Field, the crowd belts out the school’s fight songs, which they actually call “war hymns.” The yell leaders also will tell stories about how the Aggies are going to win, as if they’re headed to battle instead of participating in college athletics.
While LSU students worship their team before game day, it’s usually under the influence of various spirits. Most A&M fans are sober when they march into a stadium and yell at an empty field. The fans are inspired to carry on a tradition, no matter how bizarre it appears to anyone else.
There’s also Reveille, a long-haired collie who is A&M’s official live mascot. A dog may appear more normal than having a live tiger on campus, but the Aggies’ reverence for their animal mascot is far more absurd.
While Mike is the occasional star of a girl’s Instagram account, Reveille is cared for by the Corps of Cadets, a military organization on campus. The cadet caring for the dog takes it to every class, and any lecture is cancelled if the dog simply barks.
When Reveille passes away, a full military funeral service is held, usually attracting several thousand people. Read that sentence again and remember this school actually exists.
The most well-known tradition is the 12th Man, a custom stemming from an Aggie student donning football pads when the team had multiple injuries during a bowl game. Now, many A&M students stand the entire game, pretending to be ready to have one of their names called.
Students don’t actually believe they’ll play, but they should at least acknowledge the lunacy going on. Standing for three and a half hours is a bad idea, and doing it in memory of a game from the ’20s is just strange.
Despite all the rituals, A&M fans should still be credited for caring so much. You’d never see an A&M crowd empty out in the third quarter like LSU’s, and that’s because it has been ingrained in those fans’ minds to stay the entire game.
Then again, if I ever saw LSU fans and the band marching with lighted torches toward Tiger Stadium, I would probably call the police.
Tommy Romanach is a 22-year-old mass communication senior from Dallas, Texas. You can reach him on Twitter @troman_92.