The origin of the cowbell is a better story than the 12th man.

I'm not trying to accuse Texas A&M of copying the "Origin Of The Cowbell" story to draw inspiration for their "Tale Of The Twelfth Man". But the stories sound eerily similar.

My grandfather told me that the old Mississippi State football stadium use to be adjacent to the campus dairy farm and every Saturday when there was a football game in Starkville, they would move the cattle to a pasture further from the stadium so that the cows would not be disturbed by the crowd noise and the marching band.

Well, it was the 1932 Egg Bowl, the entire stadium was shrouded in fog and the ground was incredibly moist and muddy from two weeks of relentless rain. Our salt-of-the-earth football team was undermanned from many of the players being deployed to Pearl Harbour to fight in the Spanish-American war. The only thing left of our football team was just a scroungy ragtag team of mishaps and we were incredibly undermanned.

The game was brutal with Ole Miss, whose rich and powerful families allowed their players to not have to go fight in the war, dominating against our unfortunate injury-ridden team. The hurt but not defeated Mississippi State bulldog team crawled into the locker room at half time, down by 24 points. All hope seemed lost as they sat in the locker room, rendered with injuries, unmotivated, and incredibly hungry(this was during the great depression and all).

And that is when the coach and players heard something knocking around in the back bathroom of the locker room. They ran to investigate it, believing it to be some Ole Miss yuppie fans trying to sabotage their toiletries. But it wasn't, it was a stray dairy cow named Brandy. Somehow during the moving process before the game, this Brandy managed to sneak it's way into the locker room, grazing on a small patch of grass growing beside one of the water fountains. And that was when Coach Robinson had a brillant idea. Due to the team's overwhelming injuries and the possibility of having to forfeit the game from lack of players, they would suit up Brandy and disguise her as one of the players(presumably one who was absent). Brandy nodded in approval.

During the span of the halftime, the football players, using the tools that they had learned as farmers, managed to knit up a uniform and rig a helmet for Brandy the cow. At the beginning of the 3rd quarter, the Mississippi State football team marched out onto the field, the heavy fog shrouding the details that would otherwise alert the opposing team/fans that Mississippi State football team had added a cow to its roster. The immediate offensive drive of the Mississippi State football team saw a touchdown as the bovine hero casually trampled over the Ole Miss defensive line with its cowbell ringing loudly.

The game continued as the Mississippi State football team fought back from its deficit. The ringing of the cowbell struck so much fear into the Ole Miss football players that they would quickly scatter out of the way of anything possessing it and the smart and intelligent Mississippi State football team used this to their advantage. Mississippi State won the Egg Bowl that year, and the National Championship(without the help of Brandy the cow) but both wins were vacated and removed from the record books when it was learned that Mississippi State fielded a dairy cow in uniform. Regardless, the actions and bravery of that dairy cow still rings within every cowbell in the stands today.

Cliffs

- 1932 undermanned Mississippi State Football team is playing in the Egg Bowl and losing.

- Team finds lost cow within the locker room at halftime.

- By promising to return the cow to its rightful pastures after the game, the cow agrees to play football for the team.

- Mississippi State wins the game and national championship.

- Cow tragically dies four days later.