In our new series SEC Connections, we take a look at coincidences, partnerships and parallels between The University of Texas at Austin and our sister schools in the Southeastern Conference. This week, a school that needs no introduction, Texas A&M University.
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Where to start with this one? Isaac and Esau. William and Harry. Venus and Serena. Sibling rivalries can get intense. But at the end of the day, there’s no denying we’re family.
Texas and Texas A&M are more than siblings; they’re basically conjoined twins who were separated at birth by Texas politicians in the late 19th century, and despite their cultural differences, they have never been far apart.
- Did you know that before UT settled on its school colors, one scheme under consideration was orange and maroon?
And even after 13 years in different conferences, the tribal memory of generations has reasserted itself, and the good-natured mutual disdain is back like nothing ever happened. No other university, not even the despised OU, is mentioned by name in the official lyrics of UT’s fight song: “And it’s goodbye to A&M.”
The Aggie War Hymn reciprocates by including “Good-bye to texas university / So long to the orange and the white.” Written in 1918 while its composer sat in a trench in France, its original title was actually “Goodbye to Texas University.” Aggies link arms and legs and sway left to right to “saw varsity’s horns off.” And on it goes.
Other rivalries may ebb and flow for both universities, but these lyrics tells us who the top rival — the eternal rival — is and ever will be.
Love knows no boundaries, and when lovers unite in marriage across taboo lines, like a Montague and a Capulet, suddenly there are “houses divided” on game day. But battle lines can be generational too. Married alums of one school regularly have children who rebel and attend the other: When the offspring of a Longhorn couple aspires to be a veterinarian, little can be done.
When the high school-aged children of friends announce their decision to turn to the dark side and head east, or west, depending on your allegiance, we respond in measured tones: “Well … it’s a good school … for some things,” a grudging, understated acknowledgement of the truth that both schools are great at most everything. When a photo on social media shows that these children or godchildren have arrived in Fish Camp or at Camp Texas and donned the rival colors, we politely “like” the photo, but we do not “love” it. We all have our limits.
But of course there is more to our proximity than just sports and ribbing. There has been collaboration in countless areas, and support in times of sorrow.
In 1999, after the A&M Bonfire collapsed during construction killing 11 students and one former student, Longhorns united in a show of support, transforming the traditional Hex Rally into a massive candlelight vigil, a Unity Rally, in front of the UT Tower. Just as UT student leaders had traveled to College Station to pay respects, Aggies came in several busloads to the Forty Acres to join in the grieving.
More than 20 years later, during the winter storm that crippled the Texas power grid for days in 2021, Aggie and Longhorn student leaders collaborated to provide relief through a joint fundraising campaign. The communities donated through the Spirit of Giving and HornRaiser crowdfunding platforms, respectively.
This so-called “Maroon and Orange: Texas Tough” campaign helped students replace spoiled groceries from power outages and personal items destroyed by burst pipes and helped with bills. The effort came out of discussions between A&M’s student body president, Eric Mendoza, and his UT counterpart, Anagha Kikkeri, who recognized that Aggies and Longhorns alike were in crisis.
And throughout the years, the alumni associations of both universities, which unlike those at many other schools are both independent associations, have partnered to show their support for the Texas research universities during Orange and Maroon Days at the State Capitol.
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In anticipation of the first matchup between both football teams in 13 years, The Drag Audio Production House at UT collaborated with the Communication Media Lab at A&M on Howdy and Hook ’Em, a nine-episode sports rivalry series. With alternating producers, this season covered the origins of the rivalry, current key players, divided households, Southern game-day spirit and adrenaline-pumped college traditions. It also included segments that were student projects from Kathleen McElroy’s sports journalism class. McElroy herself has degrees from both A&M and UT.
UT and TAMU both are charter sponsors of the Giant Magellan Telescope. The telescope, now under construction in Chile’s Atacama Desert, will be 30 meters in diameter. When it’s completed in the early 2030s, it will be the largest public-private-funded science project in history and will revolutionize humanity’s fundamental understanding of the universe.
With a grant from the Office of the Governor’s Sexual Assault Survivor’s Task Force, Beth Willhite, a UT doctoral student in the School of Nursing, works at A&M’s Center of Excellence in Forensic Nursing, where nurses train to be sexual assault examiners. They partner with rural facilities and perform telehealth forensic exams. Willhite partners with forensic programs around Texas to improve patient care.
Both universities have Presidential Libraries. The Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum opened on the UT campus in 1971 and was the first such archive on a college campus. The George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum opened on the Texas A&M campus 1997. Neither president attended the university where their library resides: Johnson attended what is now Texas State University, and Bush attended Yale. But each had deep ties to the state (Johnson, of course, being a native Texan) and represented Texas in Congress. And just as UT includes the LBJ School of Public Policy, Texas A&M hosts the Bush School of Government and Public Service.
