Portable Fish Pond to Hit the Road Next Season
With the 2014 Texas A&M football season coming to a close, many Aggie fans are looking forward to a promising fresh start—one equipped with a new defensive coordinator, a fully renovated Kyle Field, and the number one high school quarterback recruit in the nation–which all serve to indicate great things to come. However, among the many exciting changes that will be gracing Aggieland next fall, one proposed change has many students concerned.
The Texas A&M Traditions Council recently signed off on a proposition that creates and permits the use of a mobile Fish Pond: a large, inflatable pool that will accompany the football team on all away games. The “Porta-Pond”, as it’s been dubbed, will serve as a stand-in following road victories in which travelling members of the Corps of Cadets will subdue the Yell Leaders and toss them in.
“This is an opportunity to expand one of our campus’s most beloved traditions,” said Alexandra González, chairwoman of the Traditions Council. “An A&M victory truly is not complete without sealing it with a Yell Leader swim. We do not see any reason why this tradition should be restricted to home games.”
Supporters of this new tradition cite Texas A&M’s impressive win record in road games over the last three seasons with head coach Kevin Sumlin leading the Aggies to a remarkable 14 away wins—11 of which were against top 25 ranked teams.
While there is no denying A&M’s laudable away record, some students are concerned that broadening this tradition will hold negative consequences.
“Winning at Kyle Field is a special and rare experience,” said Thomas Hundley, a sophomore agricultural business major who opposes the Porta-Pond. “And I would hate to water down that treasured moment by diluting this tradition.”
Discussions are expected to continue throughout the offseason, but for now it seems to be the case that if we cannot bring the Yell Leaders to the fish pond, we can certainly bring the fish pond to the Yell Leaders.
-Riffety Raff
Riffity came to The Mugdown the same way he came into this world: crying, wet, and naked. We still aren’t sure why. In the seventh grade, he ran for class president on the platform of a winning smile, that is, until the platform fell over breaking both his arm and his dream of winning. He spends most of his time raking sand and listening to alternative post punk.