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re: Tonight, Texas A&M's campus will darken for Silver Taps
Posted on 2/4/14 at 2:13 pm to Pettifogger
Posted on 2/4/14 at 2:13 pm to Pettifogger
A&M has a million traditions and each one came about in different ways. Silver Taps started because our most influential President, Lawrence Sullivan Ross, died and they had a ceremony to honor him. The ceremony was so well received that they decided to do a similar ceremony whenever a student died. Of course, back then A&M was a very small college of just a few hundred people that were all male and all going in to the military so Silver Taps was a rare and very special event. As time went on and with the nature of having a student body of 50k there is a Silver Taps almost every month now.
There is a saying at A&M, that if you do something twice it becomes a tradition so you have lots of small traditions. That said, there are the "Major" traditions that are on a different level. Those are Silver Taps, Muster, The 12th Man (ie students standing for the entire game), Yell Practice, and of course formerly Bonfire. There are also lots of smaller but strongly followed traditions such as the Aggie Ring, Reveille, Gig'em, saying "Howdy", etc. Then you have a lot of Corps specific traditions.
The main thing is A&M has a truly defined culture that is designed around bringing Aggies together through common threads. It's not the right place for everyone, especially if you are rebellious and dislike authority. I love it though and love the bond that exists between Aggies. It's a special place.
There is a saying at A&M, that if you do something twice it becomes a tradition so you have lots of small traditions. That said, there are the "Major" traditions that are on a different level. Those are Silver Taps, Muster, The 12th Man (ie students standing for the entire game), Yell Practice, and of course formerly Bonfire. There are also lots of smaller but strongly followed traditions such as the Aggie Ring, Reveille, Gig'em, saying "Howdy", etc. Then you have a lot of Corps specific traditions.
The main thing is A&M has a truly defined culture that is designed around bringing Aggies together through common threads. It's not the right place for everyone, especially if you are rebellious and dislike authority. I love it though and love the bond that exists between Aggies. It's a special place.
1
Posted on 2/4/14 at 2:24 pm to aggressor
quote:
There is a saying at A&M, that if you do something twice it becomes a tradition so you have lots of small traditions.
I've never heard this but this is probably what I was getting at the entire time.
Once upon a time, me and my buddies had adopted TAMU as a secondary team. That was partly because we knew a lot of Texas AU students who pulled for Texas, and partly because we thought we were similar schools in that both are conservative and occasionally accused of being cult-like.
Since then, you've joined the conference and aligned with Alabama, so I hate you and think you're weird as shite, but I nonetheless appreciate your cultish nature and I'm glad someone has surpassed Auburn in the SEC in that regard.
I don't know how I'd feel about all of A&M's many traditions, but certainly this one is worthy of admiration. Also, not to lavish too much praise on you, but I think it's interesting that A&M can largely maintain its culture despite its size. I know not everyone participates and that number may grow in time, but that situation certainly isn't replicated in other schools of comparable size.
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