The ties between Austin College & Texas A&M? They run deep.
I’ve been working on the “Roo book” for most of 2020. It’s almost done! I’ve also been writing weekly stories as a part of my College Station high school’s centennial committee. Those stories will also become a book. This week’s story was about the 100-year relationship between my A&M Consolidated Tigers and Kyle Field. You can read that story in the comments.
Yeah, but 100 years is child’s play for a school like Austin College. 1920? Please. We can do better than that.
AC football competed at Kyle Field five times between 1909 & 1917. The 1913 team nearly upset the defending conference champions, losing 6-0. After the 1917 team lost decisively to the Aggies, AC decided to end the series. But there’s no shame in that loss. The 1917 Aggies were undefeated, unscored upon, and Southwest Conference champions.
The first season of football at Kyle took place in the fall of 1905. Aggie Professor Edwin Jackson Kyle donated land given to him by the university for athletics and paid for a grandstand using his own money. A&M won that first football game at Kyle in October of 1905. Two weeks later, the Aggies traveled to Sherman and beat the Roos 18-11 at Luckett Field.
Luckett Field was located a good walk north of campus, on the corner of Lewis & Grand; when you drive over the bridge towards AC, it’s the triangle of land to the right next to the railroad tracks. The location of Luckett Field was in part determined by its proximity to the tracks. The nearby “college station” for AC allowed teams like A&M to disembark by train right by the field and get ready to play. Kyle Field also had its own “college station” for the Roos to use; it was later borrowed to name the town incorporated in 1938.
The funny thing about Kyle field is that the first games were not football. Edwin Jackson Kyle’s donation of land was ready by April of 1905, and Roo baseball was one of a handful of collegiate teams to face Aggie baseball that month at Kyle. A&M’s baseball team was managed by Edwin Jackson Kyle, and Kyle’s squad defeated the Roos in the inaugural month of Kyle Field.
Very few colleges can claim to have competed against the Aggies in College Station BEFORE Kyle Field. One is Austin College. In 1898, the Roo football team traveled south and faced the Aggies on the Simpson Drill Field. The photo I have shared shows the Simpson Drill Field, with Kyle Field in the background. Edwin Jackson Kyle did not play football, but in 1898 he was a senior, class president, and highest-ranking member of the Aggie Corps of Cadets. I’m willing to bet good money that Kyle was there, cheering on his Aggies against the Roos.
Texas college football was born in 1893, when the University of Texas & Austin College both organized teams and played games on Thanksgiving Day. The next day’s Battalion, the newspaper of Texas A&M, suggested that the Aggies should do the same and offered up a potential opponent:“
A game will perhaps be arranged with Austin College at Sherman or Georgetown. In either case, the cadets will have a happy task in attaining victory, but with proper practice should put up a stiff game.”
The next time you head to Kyle Field, remember. Aggie athletics was born in a year when Kyle Field did not yet exist, Edwin Jackson Kyle had yet to set foot on campus, and Texas A&M was hoping to kick off the program with a game against Austin College.
The ties between Austin College & Texas A&M? They run deep. And you’ll find a lot of those ties in the “Roo book,” which is almost done! Just gotta finish up some loose ends and get that baby published. Probably by the early fall.
