Jordan Schneider, Graham Schneider, & Katie Clifford? This one’s for you. You too Chris Coburn and Cindy Weaver Schaufenbuel.
I attended to a preschool in College Station, TX in the early 1970s called “Wee Aggieland.” We actually had a fight song. Yes, it’s true. The lyrics were unique, but the tune was not. The lyrics were set to the tune of Notre Dame’s “Victory March,” one of the most famous in the country. Years later when hearing the fight song of the Fighting Irish in South Bend, my dumb brain actually thought “Hey! Notre Dame stole the Wee Aggieland fight song.” C’mon Marc. Think this through. Take your time.
The Notre Dame fight song was so good, Wee Aggieland had simply borrowed it. Hey, that’s fine. It happens all the time.
AC’s next home football game is today, November 3rd against historic rival Trinity. The Tigers have gotten the better of the Roos in the rivalry lately, but AC has had a moment in the sun. The 2013 Roos finished the season winning 5 of 6, and wrapped up the campaign with a 35-7 shellacking of Trinity at Louis Calder stadium. When I asked Coaches Tre Stewart and Nathan Packard about that game, they just looked at me and said “well, we just took it to them.” There’s a youtube video of those same Roos singing “On Ol’ Austin” on the field after the win.
We D3 Roos are fans of D1 schools around the country. Our hometowns are near this one, we got our Masters Degrees from that one, our kids have been accepted to the other one. Whenever a fellow Roo is celebrating a major event at a D1 school, I like to go online, find that school’s fight song, and post it in the comments to celebrate. Yup, even Boomer Sooner.
The Kangaroos? Hey, we got a fight song too. “On Ol’ Austin” has been sung since long before I was a student 30 years ago. It was sung recently in Mississippi after a big win on the road against Millsaps. The song is a story, and the story begins in the land of Jordan, Graham, Katie, Chris, and Cindy. In Wisconsin.
William T. Purdy wrote a fight song for another Big 10 school in 1909 and was planning to submit it in a competition. That was, until a former Wisconsin Badger student named Carl Beck convinced him to submit the song on behalf of Wisconsin. Beck also provided the football-themed lyrics, and the name of the tune: “On, Wisconsin.” The song became so popular on campus that it was eventually adopted (unofficially) as the state song in Madison. Imagine for a moment! Republicans and Democrats at the Capitol singing “The Eyes of Texas.” Hard to envision. “On, Wisconsin” has been a staple at Camp Randall Stadium for over 100 years.
John Philip Sousa called “On, Wisconsin” the “finest of college marching songs.” He would know. The song made its way into the 1973 Hollywood film Robin Hood, and keeps popping up in both high and low culture on a consistent basis. “On, Wisconsin” was so good that its popularity began to slowly fan out across the country. Today, roughly 2,500 schools in the U.S. have adopted and modified the tune as their own. It’s by far the most widely borrowed fight song in the country. Most of these 2,500 are of the Junior High or High School variety. But there are a number of colleges too. Austin College is one.
The story of Pat O’Dea makes AC’s adoption of “On, Wisconsin” entirely appropriate. O’Dea was a sensation for Badger football in the late 1890s, when AC was one of only four teams in Texas playing the sport. He was a kicker, and his punts and field goals were mentioned by sports writers with incredible description. His 62-yard drop kick field goal in 1898 against Northwestern in the driving snow was talked about for years. His 116-yard punt also earned him a good deal of ink. For his efforts, O’Dea was selected as a member of the All-American team in 1899. O’Dea sits in the College Football Hall of Fame.
O’Dea was from Australia. His nickname was the “Kangaroo Kicker.” Yeah, I’d say we picked the right song.
I like posting fight songs from other schools for Roos when appropriate, but I’ve always been annoyed that Austin College does not have its own for me to use on youtube. Well, no longer. I’ve taken a version of “On, Wisconsin” and have paired it with AC for anyone to use. Maybe I’ll post it when someone announces their kid is headed to Sherman.
But what I REALLY want to do…………….is post a video of AC football singing the song after a win over Trinity. Hey, it’s the Tigers. We’re aware of the athletic heights they’ve achieved in this century while maintaining their high academic standards. We know and respect their program.
But they had a great program in 2013 too. And as Coach Stewart and Coach Packard would say, any program can fall when you just “decide to take it to them.”
Wisconsin is at home at Camp Randall, so “On, Wisconsin” will be heard today in Madison. Maybe Sherman too. Good luck Roos. Plunge right through that line.
Still to come, Fight Song! Part #2 of 2.
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