November 18 was the anniversary of the end of the GOAT college football tradition

As time passes many don't even remember the Aggie Bonfire falling in '99 as they were too young or not born. Many SEC folks probably had little idea of Bonfire as well. Make no mistake though, it was something completely over the top and unique. Long thread here so feel free to check out but if you want to understand a little more about A&M read on.

Most focus is rightly on the tragedy and lives lost. The mistakes and why it fell are what people think of now and understandably so. In the current environment this could never happen again like it was. If you ever visit A&M and have time to go by the Bonfire Memorial it is truly impactful. They have monuments of the 12 who died in a circle of where the Bonfire stood so you can get a feel for the size of it and they have letters and anecdotes from them talking about how much it meant to them. Realize you had former students out there as well still coming out to work it and the collapse happened in the middle of the night. There is still a Student Bonfire at A&M but it's off campus, small, and no one from the school can officially participate for liability reasons. They do the best they can and safety is at a premium but it's not the same. Make no mistake though, in it's prime it was the greatest tradition in college football. It's hard to describe the scope of it and importance of it to Aggies.

This is Bonfire from my Senior year, the last time we were undefeated in the regular season. Imagine thousands of students going out and cutting down nearly 10,000 trees by axe (no chainsaws except to clean them up on site) months before the game. They had dorms that focused solely on loading the logs at cut site as well. Then every log was stacked and secured after the Centerpole was raised several weeks prior. Virtually every student got involved and some basically lived on site and the entire project was student led. It was the perfect study break to go out to Stack and help attach some logs. If you had the gumption you could climb up and wire logs in 30 or 40 feet up. The amount of time and energy involved was just insane. Every day around campus seeing the layers get bigger and taller was just so cool, just a slow buildup and excitement.

Then of course you had Burn which was the night before the game when it was at Kyle and 2 Nights before the game when it was in Austin. Crowd estimates vary because it was dark and free but you had as many people there as at the game. It was the culmination of everything A&M is about. They doused the logs with jet fuel and put an outhouse on top with "tu frat house" painted on it and an Austin city limit sign. The Red Pots (the top of the student leadership chain that built Bonfire) would come in with torches and light it and then they had a Yell Practice with the coach and team. I will always remember the feeling of a cold November night where you are bundled up and then after they lit that thing the heat it put off had everyone peeling off their jackets within a few minutes. You had a ton of people that came out just to see the spectacle and had no connection to A&M, the size and scope of it was just hard to describe.

My outfit in the Corps had a tradition that when the game was in Austin we got to run the game ball there in relays all night to deliver it, about 95 miles. The coach threw us the ball, we ran around the newly lit Bonfire 3 times, and then off we went through the night ending up at the Texas campus the next morning where we ran in formation to the stadium. That got some interesting looks btw.

Here is the video. Bonfire is lit at about 7 minutes. RC starts speaking and throw us the ball at about 15 minutes. The Centerpole collapses at about 21:30 which was very fast, typically it took hours.

1992 Aggie Bonfire