A Former Aggie Band Member Recalls The Day A&M And UT Almost Came To Blows

He says then-Gov. Ann Richards wanted a “kumbaya” moment, but UT football players and Aggie band members weren’t interested.

By Laura RiceAugust 31, 2018 1:13 pm,

Richard Hay is a half-Chilean Texan, a Google engineer and a former member of the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band at Texas A&M University in College Station.

In his freshman year, the band marched onto Kyle Field in the shape of a longhorn. When the band reached the lyric in thier song that goes “saw varsity’s horns off” – a dig at A&M’s rival, the University of Texas at Austin – Hay led the countermarch on the left horn so that it stayed put while the “head” of the longhorn moved away.

“When I made that step into the countermarch, the crowd goes wild,” he says.

When he was a senior, he says then-Gov. Ann Richards wanted to calm the rivalry between the schools. At the A&M-UT football game, she planned for both schools’ bands to play “Texas, Our Texas” during halftime – but it didn’t go as planned.

“About 20 members of the Texas football team, and the flag guy, start making a beeline…heading right for the Aggie band,” Hay says. “Some of the football players, they actually start hitting people that are in the Aggie band.”

Luckily, Hay says UT’s coach quickly diffused the situation and threatened to kick the players off the football team if they continued.

“Fortunately it didn’t devolve, but of course, this is what came of Ann Richards’ desire for rapprochement,” Hay says.

Written by Caroline Covington.