Cult! Fear and loathing in College Station (Texas A&M Cult Alert)

Daily Utah Chronicle (University of Utah) ^ | September 11, 2003 | Chris Bellamy

[Recourse]

Cult! Fear and loathing in College Station

By Chris Bellamy

Media Credit: kevin buehler / The Daily Utah Chronicle My two colleagues and I were terrified as we stumbled upon the worshipping ground of the Texas A&M football faithful.

I tried to escape. Honest, I did. But believe me when I tell you, I didn't know what the hell was going on. What was happening around me was dumbfounding, disturbing, frightening.

I don't know what it was that compelled me to stay. Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was my obscene sense of curiosity. Maybe it was the smell.

Whatever the reason, last Friday night I found myself, along with my co-workers Asad Kudiya and Kevin Buehler, in probably the most peculiar situation of my life.

Cannons were firing. People were chanting. They were gyrating in unison. My God, they were doing synchronized pushups!

This was called "The Yell," and I found myself unwittingly and unintentionally thrown into the middle of it. It was there that I began to discover just what College Station, Texas was all about-and I'm not exaggerating when I say it may have changed my life forever.

More than 30,000 Aggie fans crowded the streets outside the stadium just before midnight last Friday, as they do before every home game, ready to take part in this massive pre-game pep rally.

Now, I had always heard about cults. I had even seen a few documentaries on them on The Learning Channel. Heaven's Gate. Jim Jones and The People's Temple.

But never had I seen a cult up close and personal until we settled into our places in Kyle Field Friday night.

It started with the pushups. Then it was the "Fighting Aggie War Hymn," a tune repeated ad nauseam all night long, one that still rings in my head at this very hour.

Hullabaloo, Caneck, Caneck. Hullabaloo, Caneck, Caneck. All hail to dear old Texas A&M...

Then it got weird. A group of young men, wearing matching overalls, took center stage down on the sidelines as the raucous crowd suddenly hushed. The men began leading these Aggie faithful in chants, cheers and the reading of Masonic verses.

And everyone knew exactly what to do-and when to do it. They knew what every hand gesture meant. They knew every word of every chant and every song.

Everyone except us, of course. We, visitors from Utah, did not belong. We did not have the ceremony down by heart. But we did what we were told. What else could we do?

"I was confused...and scared," a genuinely shaken Asad told me afterward. "I felt like if I didn't do what they were doing, they were going to rape me."

We leaned over and bowed our heads with the rest of them. We repeated those infernal chants and sang the praises of the Aggie gods. We leaped up and threw our hands in the air, and praised the Good Laaaaawwwwd, as the four men down in front declared a Jihad on the Utah Ute football team.

Beat the hell out of Utah, they chanted. Beat the hell out of Utah!!

The four Yell leaders wailed on the microphone and told the crowd to Riiiiiise Up! They made a strange, Hitler-looking gesture to the crowd, and all of a sudden the people around us threw their arms around us and we all began to sway from side to side, singing that war hymn...and it was then that I realized that everyone was speaking in tongues.

Hullabaloo, Caneck, Caneck. Hullabaloo, Caneck, Caneck. We're gonna beat you all to Chigaroogarem. Chigaroogarem. Rough, tough, real stuff, Texas A&M!

My memory is a little fuzzy, but if I remember correctly, everyone around us was wearing long, white cloaks and burning candles. And If I'm not mistaken, there was a virgin sacrifice as well.

Strange and terrible things began happening inside me. These people had been brainwashed, I was sure of it...but...I kind of liked it. I was oddly titillated by the whole experience, ashamed as I am to admit that.

I was conflicted. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I loved them and loathed them. I was repulsed, yet mysteriously drawn to their sick, twisted game, comforted by this theatre of mass worship, this cornucopia of rabid fan psychosis. It was like a KKK gathering on mushrooms.

Talk about worshipping false idols. This was just for the football team, for Pete's sake. The football team!

The U football team sometimes struggles to get 35,000 fans at the actual game-A&M got that many for the pep rally. On a late Friday night, no less. These kids should have been getting wasted, having sex and walking around town in a drunken stupor stealing stop signs and falling asleep in public fountains.

But no-at half past midnight, they were at the football stadium, worshipping Dennis Franchione while four boys in overalls did their best impression of an Episcopal sermon.

I'd never seen anything like this place. None of us had.

I mean, what can you say about a town that simultaneously symbolizes everything that is right about college football, and everything that's wrong about our nation's educational system?

But it wasn't just the football fans-the whole town of College Station was ass-backward.

The place was littered with the scary but aptly named Crickets on Steroids with Wings, which may or may not have been the apocalyptic, flesh-eating bugs prophesied in the Bible.

The night desk clerk at our hotel was named Lucifer. Everyone in town drove a maroon-colored pickup truck. The uniform code at every business establishment was an Aggies T-shirt. The school marching band looked uncannily like the Third Reich. We went to a bar where people actually played darts for hours and hours on end. Who does that?!

Small things, I know. But after our experience Friday night, every little thing made the town seem all the more strange.

When we left "The Yell" Friday night, none of us could speak. What the hell just happened, we all thought to ourselves. That wasn't just school spirit-it was something different altogether. Those people were just...different. If this wasn't a cult, I didn't know what was.

The experience of College Station was an odd one. To tell you the truth, I'm just glad I got out of there alive. Hopefully, the place didn't rub off on me.

Hullabaloo, caneck, caneck. Chigaroogarem. Chigaroogarem.

cbellamy@chronicle.utah.edu

[secret garden]

Fightin' Texas Aggie ping. WHOOOOP!

[secret garden]

It's been too long since I heard that. :-)

[Recourse]

From Jim Rome:

"They won't shut up. They have to go on about spirit, and old army, and red ass, and how bonfire represents the burning sensation they have in their urine to beat UT, and blah blah blah. Shut up. You start to get the feeling the entire school was built to spite UT. Forget the fact that when the Texas Legislature back in the 1870's passed legislation to start a state university they also decided to have a subsidiary branch of the main school (University of Texas) that would teach agriculture and mechanics. Aggies love to say their school is older, from where they get that I don't know......the fact is, the State intended A&M to be a branch of UT. They are like the afterbirth from the original creation. Like Danny Devito in "Twins". So they apparently have this complex, so much so, that they must devote their entire school to trying to prove to UT that they are just as good. All the while, nobody at UT denies that A&M is a good school, yet they won't shut up. So they write a fight song......about?....Texas, and how they want to beat them. They have a Fish Camp for freshman where they tell them how bad Texas is and how good A&M and all its traditions are."

[tarawa]

ping...

[Southack]

Oh man, if he thinks that Yell Practice was something to behold, then we need to invite him back for Bonfire!

Even if Bonfire happens to be off-campus every now and again.

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

Is that the same Jim Rome who ran for his life off the set when he called Jim Everett "Chris Everett" one too many times? That dork knows as much about the South, and football, as Hitlery knows about the Yankees.

[DrewsDad]

Just another future member of the mainstream media scared to death when a bunch of conservatives stand together for a cause. Actually, I thought it was pretty funny. He must have had some good hallucinogens though.

[and the horse you rode in on]

Texas Tech?
That's for students who can't make the cut at either UT or A&M?

[Conservababe]

People, can't you recognise that this writer has his/her tongue firmly planted in cheek?

I am laughing so hard.

[moyden2000]

Only us cultists would know what that means.

When did you graduate?

[Gulf War One]

I'm laughing too.

Best of all, he got to leave with a loss...

Gig 'em.

[daniel boob]

Look forward to seeing you in Austin this year.

HOOK 'EM

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Two boys are playing football at this park in a small Texas town when a
crazed Rottweiler suddenly attacks one of the boys.

Thinking quickly the other boy takes a rock and kills the dog, thus saving
his friend.

A local sports reporter who was strolling by sees the incident and rushes
over to interview the boy. He tells the boy he's going to write the story
and says, "I'll title it 'young Longhorn Fan Saves Friend From Vicious
Animal.'"

But I'm not a Longhorn fan," the little hero replies.

"Sorry, since we are in Texas, I just assumed you were," says the reporter
and he starts writing again. He asks "How does 'Aggie Fan Rescues Friend
From Horrific Attack' sound?"
"I'm not an Aggie fan either," the boy says.

"Oh, I thought everyone in Texas was either for the Aggies or the
Longhorns. What team do you root for?" the reporter asks.

"I'm just visiting my cousin, I'm an Arkansas Razorback fan," the boy
replies.

The reporter smiles and starts a new sheet in his notebook, and writes:

"LITTLE REDNECK BASTARD FROM ARKANSAS KILLS BELOVED FAMILY PET!"

[tet68]

Maybe they just didn't get to listen to the

MAROON TATTOO!

Sends chills up my spine just thinking about it.

Kind of a College death star sort of thing.

[Texaggie79]

I just hope that Dennis can be our worthy David Koresh....

[Texaggie79]

boo ya

[Texaggie79]

To share your hand signal with satan worshipers must be fun....

[Texaggie79]

don't know if ya'll are already here. I lost my Aggie ping list.

[Texaggie79]

Notice... this comming from someone in UTAH.... saying he hasn't seen a "cult" before...... ha

[Dead Dog]

My UT and eATMe coworkers loved smack about Oregon being pathetic and lacking "tradition", being the bottom feeders of a mediocre conference, ect ect.

Here's a pic of UT losing to the Ducks in 2000.