The photo comes from a Texas A&M yearbook. It’s found on the first of many pages dedicated to Aggie football that season. It has a caption: Initial Kick-Off.
What does “Initial” refer to? The beginning of a particular game? Maybe. Or perhaps it refers to the initial kickoff of the football SEASON?
If the latter, then you are looking at a photo of the Austin College Kangaroos vs. the Texas A&M Aggies at Kyle Field. The date of the game is October 5, 1917.
One hundred years ago TODAY.
Texas A&M claims three national titles in 1919, 1927, and 1939. They might as well claim four. The 1917 Aggies were undefeated and unscored upon, and were retroactively awarded a national championship by two separate entities. Members of the 1917 team left for war in Europe a year later, returning in 1919 to repeat their earlier success.
The Kangaroos, not surprisingly, fared poorly that day against Dana X. Bible’s squad. But it wasn’t the worst loss of the day in college football. Over in Kentucky, Centre College was routing Kentucky Military Institute 104-0.
Centre College is a school that traces its roots to the antebellum south and has strong ties to the Presbyterian church. That probably sounds familiar to Roo fans. One Centre graduate who walked in 1859 decided to join the ministry and head to Texas. In 1871, he accepted the presidency of a Presbyterian college in Huntsville, facilitated its move to Sherman in 1876, and officially sanctioned athletics in 1896. Centre graduate Samuel Luckett is today synonymous with Austin College. Many of us old timers called his dormitory home.
AC athletics was born on a playing field not far from campus in 1896, when the Aggies of Texas A&M came to Sherman to take on the Roos. It was A&M’s first football game against a college opponent, and the beginning of a rivalry that covered nine football games up to that 1917 game in College Station. AC was an all-male military school at the time, and the cadets of Texas A&M won a 22-6 decision from the cadets of Austin College. A recap of the game was printed in the Austin College newspaper, “The Reveille.”
Two years later, the Kangaroos journeyed to College Station and became the first visiting collegiate opponent to score a touchdown against the Aggies at home. AC never beat the Aggies, though they often came close. The most dramatic game was in 1913, when Charley Moran’s A&M team just edged Cecil Grigg and the Roos by a score of 6-0 at Kyle Field. By 1917, At a time when SMU and Rice were mere babies, and Texas Tech, the University of Houston, and a dozen other Texas colleges did not yet exist, the Roos & Aggies had already been competing for nearly a quarter century.
The post WW1 period was a golden age for both Austin College and Centre. While the Kangaroos were competing with some of the best teams in the Southwest Conference, the Colonels were doing likewise against teams from the east. The highlight of that period was 1921, when Centre shocked the country by defeating Harvard 6-0 in Cambridge, MA. It was Harvard’s first loss ever outside of the Ivy League, and the game has been ranked as the #1 upset of all time by the AP and the New York Times. The “impossible formula” of “C6H0” is still a common sight on the campus of Centre.
One week before the Harvard-Centre game, Austin College had traveled to Fair Park stadium in Dallas and had defeated SWC member SMU by a score of 17-7. By the end of that season, it was Centre’s turn to visit Fair Park Stadium and take on a SWC power. At the inaugural Dixie Classic, the undefeated Colonels arrived in Dallas to face Dana X. Bible’s Aggies.
Centre was coached by former Aggie Charley Moran, who had barely bested the Roos back in 1913. When A&M began to endure a significant number of injuries, Bible asked student E. King Gill to come down from the stands, suit up, and be ready to enter the game. His services were never needed, A&M held on for a 22-14 upset win, and a new tradition at Texas A&M was born.
Centre College and Austin College have much in common. They are both Presbyterian schools with tremendous history. They are small D3 schools with sports stories to tell. And neither school has ever defeated the Aggies on the gridiron. But their contributions to the history of that school in College Station, which by some measures is the largest university in the nation, are unique. You might even call the Roos and Colonels historical 12th men in the story that is Texas A&M.
AC and Centre are once again conference rivals, now that the Roos have joined the Southern Athletic Association (SAA). The SAA is something akin to a D3 SEC, full of schools with tremendous athletic history in the region. Austin College’s decision to join Centre in the SAA is a re-orientation towards the southeast. Sounds like that school in College Station with which we are all familiar.
In 1924, the Austin College Kangaroos traveled to Waco and beat the undefeated SWC champion Baylor Bears. That same year, the Centre College Colonels traveled to Birmingham and shocked the undefeated SEC champion Alabama Crimson Tide. Austin College and Centre face off this weekend in Kentucky. The Aggies meet the #1 ranked Crimson Tide at Kyle Field.
Defeating the best team in the nation is a tall order. But nothing is impossible at Kyle Field, with 100,000 E. King Gills at your back. Go Roos, beat Centre. Gig ‘em Aggies, beat ‘Bama.
