Battle of the Brazos

The Battle of the Brazos is the official collegiate sports rivalry between the Baylor Bears and Texas A&M Aggies. The rivalry is named for the Brazos Rivercite news |url=http://www.sportsline.com/collegefootball/gamecenter/recap/NCAAF_20061028_TXAM@BAY |title=Big-play Bennett keeps Texas A&M a step ahead of Baylor |date=2006-10-28 |publisher=CBS |accessdate=2007-03-25] that flows by the two schools, which are only 90 miles apart. The Battle of the Brazos debuted in 1899, the year the first football game was played.cite web |url=http://www.aggieathletics.com/sports/football/history/opp/baylor.html |title=All-Time Football Scores:Baylor |accessdate=2007-03-25 |publisher=Texas A&M Athletics]

History

In the early days of the rivalry, Texas A&M was an all-male college, and Baylor was the closest college that had female students. Many Aggies dated Baylor coeds. This caused some resentment among the male students at Baylor, who did not have a corresponding pool of young women from Texas A&M to date.

The Brawl

The 1926 football game coincided with Baylor's homecoming. During halftime, Baylor homecoming floats paraded around the field. When a float, actually a car pulling a flatbed trailer with two homecoming queen candidates, neared the section where the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets sat, a cadet raced towards the car to try to steer it away from the space in front of the corps. The motion caused the women to fall off the truck, inciting a large riot. Students used metal folding chairs and planks of wood that had been used as yard markers for weapons. Texas A&M student Lt. Charles Sessums was hit over the head with a chair in the melee, and, although he initially appeared to recover, he died following the game.citation|last=Farmer|first=Neal|title=Baylor–A&M feud romantic, violent/ 'Brazos Brothers' play for 87th time|newspaper=Houston Chronicle|location=Houston, Texas|date=October 18, 1990|accessdate=2007-09-26|url=http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=1990_737358|page=Sports, page 1.]

Adding insult to the Aggies, the Baylor Lariat interpreted a line of the senior statement saying that no "A. and M. man has ever willingly or knowingly harmed a woman" as "no cadet had ever willingly laid hands on a woman."

On December 8, 1926, the two school presidents agreed to temporarily suspend athletic relations between the schools. The schools would not compete against each other in any athletic event for the next four years. Baylor and Texas A&M would not meet in football again until 1931, where Texas A&M won 33-7 in College Station.cite news |url=http://thecollegefootballindependent.blogspot.com/2006/05/baylor-vs-texas-am-remembering-1926.html |last=Wangrin |first=Mark |date=2005-09-29 |accessdate=2007-09-27 |title=Baylor vs. Texas A&M: Remembering a 1926 tragedy |publisher=The San Antonio Express-News]

Pranks

In the 1950s, two Aggie students stole the Baylor mascot, a young bear. While they were driving back to College Station in a brand–new car belonging to one of their families, the bear became terrified. Twenty–miles from Waco, the bear ripped out the inside of the car, and the boys set it free. The young men were caught when they took the car to be repaired.

Baylor students likewise attempted to torment Aggies, often sneaking onto the Texas A&M campus to spray green paint on the statue of Lawrence Sullivan Ross. Ross, the third president of Texas A&M, attended Baylor as an undergraduate. Before the annual football game between the schools, the Corps of Cadets now posts a 24–guard around the statue. In many years, students at Baylor would guard their campus on the night before the game, carrying long ax handles to ward off any Aggie students.

Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was expelled from Baylor after he was in part found painting one of A&M's buildings green. [cite news|url=http://media.www.nyunews.com/media/storage/paper869/news/2006/04/13/Opinionsoped/Tom-Delay.Wont.Be.Missed-2397875.shtml|title=Tom DeLay won't be missed|publisher="Washington Square News"|accessdate=2007-09-27|date=2006-04-13] [cite news|url=http://chronicle.com/weekly/v48/i34/34a02102.htm|title=Open Mouth, Insert Boot|publisher="The Chronicle of Higher Education"|accessdate=2007-09-27|date=2002-05-03]

Football

"Texas Football" magazine voted the 1986 football game between the schools the outstanding game of the Southwest Conference of the 1980s. Baylor led the game 17–0 and was positioned to score again when the Texas A&M defense was able to stop them. The Aggies came back to win the game 31–30 and advance to the Cotton Bowl.

The football rivalry between the Bears and the Aggies had been dormant since 1985, the last time the Bears won a football game against the Aggies before 2004. In 2004, however, the rivalry revived when an underdog Bear team, which was the worst team in the Big 12cite news |url=http://media.www.thebatt.com/media/storage/paper657/news/2004/10/29/Sports/Battle.Of.The.Brazos-786472.shtml |title=Aggies searching for seventh win against Baylor |last=Irby |first=Ryan |accessdate=2007-03-25 |date=2004-10-29 |publisher=The Battalion] at the time, defeated the No. 16 ranked Aggiescite news |url=http://www.baylor.edu/lariat/news.php?action=story&story=42652 |last=Parchman |first=Will |date=2006-10-26 |accessdate=2007-03-25 |title=Rivalry stands test of time |publisher=The Baylor Lariat] 35-34 in overtime at Floyd Casey Stadium. The rivalry again became bitter in 2005 when the Aggies had to complete two fourth down conversions in order to win a home game 16-13 in overtime.cite news |url=http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?p=1292552 |title=Battle of Brazos becoming bitter |date=2006-10-27 |publisher=Sporting News |accessdate=2007-03-25]

The largest football game winning streak made by the Bears is 4, whereas the Aggies' largest is 13. Texas A&M currently leads the football series 65-30-9. The Battle of the Brazos is the second most-played rivalry in Baylor football history. Baylor and Texas A&M have played each other for every season since 1931, except in 1943 and 1944, when Baylor could not field a team due to World War II. [cite web|url=http://baylorbears.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/092407aac.html|title=Bears, Aggies Eye 104th Battle of the Brazos|accessdate=2007-09-26|date=2007-09-24|publisher=Baylor University Athletic Department]

References

External links

* [http://www.aggieathletics.com/ Aggie Athletics]
* [http://baylorbears.cstv.com/ Baylor Athletics]