Aggies - Wordsmith.org

Wordsmith.org

WARNING: SPORTS RELATED

I wish to indulge my interest in the juxtaposition of two of my favorite subjects: words and sports. I am fascinated by the stories behind the nicknames adopted by sports teams, and the traditions which they represent. Having had abysmal luck interesting anybody on a sports board with the subject, I shall proceed here.

Beginning, uncreatively enough, with the A's, the first subject is AGGIES. Not surprisingly, the nickname arises from a university's function as an agricultural college.

"Aggies" is the nickname for at least 5 college sports teams in the US:

California - Davis (NCCA II)
New Mexico State (Sun Belt - West)
North Carolina A & T (Mid-Eastern Athletic)
Texas A & M (Big Twelve)
Utah State (Big West)

Michigan State teams were referred to as the Aggies during the early 1900s, when MSU was still the Michigan Agricultural College.

Today I detail California - Davis:

Founded as the "University Farm" amid the fertile fields of the state's Central Valley, UC Davis has emerged an acknowledged international leader in agricultural, biological, biotechnological and environmental sciences and is gaining similar recognition for excellence in the arts, humanities, social sciences, engineering, health sciences, law and management.
The campus owes much of its strength to its deep traditional roots in agriculture, the impressive diversity of academic programs that emerged from this foundation, a distinguished faculty of scholars and scientists, a treasured sense of community and a dedication to the landgrant values of creative, responsive and innovative teaching, research and public service.

http://facts.ucdavis.edu/UCDhistory.html

In 1905, the California Legislature approved the establishment of a state agriculture school. Three years later, in 1908, the University Farm School opened at Davis, where students from the first UC campus in Berkeley learned the latest in agricultural methods and technology. Today, UC Davis offers a full range of undergraduate and graduate programs, along with professional schools of law, management, medicine and veterinary medicine. Our agricultural roots are still honored, however, in our nickname�the �Aggies.�

UC Davis is the largest of the nine University of California campuses, with 5,200 acres, second in total expenditures and third in enrollment. UC Davis stands 24th in research funding among universities in the United States, according to the most recent information from the National Science Foundation. U.S. News & World Report has repeatedly ranked UC Davis among the top public universities nationally, placing it 12th in 1999. And UC Davis is one of only 62 universities admitted to the prestigious Association of American Universities.

The Davis campus has undergraduate colleges of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science. Undergraduate enrollment is more than 19,400 students. Graduate Studies administers graduate study and research in all schools and colleges. Professional studies are carried out in the schools of Law, Management, Medicine and Veterinary Medicine; more than 5,600 students are engaged in graduate or professional study.

http://www.ucdavis.edu/campus.html

Historical Milestones
1905 Legislation approved for establishment of a state agriculture school
1906 Purchase of 778-acre site once known as the Jerome C. Davis farm
1908-09 University Farm School opens with first students
1922 College of Agriculture established
1948 School of Veterinary Medicine welcomes first students
1951 College of Letters and Science founded
1959 UC Davis designated a comprehensive campus
1962 College of Engineering given full college status
1966 School of Law holds first classes
1967 College of Agriculture renamed College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
1968 School of Medicine admits first students
1970 Division of Biological Sciences established
1981 Graduate School of Management opens its doors

http://facts.ucdavis.edu/timeline.html

After years in barley and alfalfa, the campus Quad became a lawn in 1932. Now the oak tree-lined heart of the campus, the Quad offers a welcome spot for concerts, speeches, festivals, fairs, Frisbees and picnics.

The first editions of the student newspaper California Aggie rolled off the presses in 1915. The paper now publishes 13,000 copies daily.

http://facts.ucdavis.edu/campus_trivia.html

The school colors appear to be blue and gold, and the school also uses a mustang as a symbol. Apparently, there has been some debate regarding replacing the mustang with something more obviously connected to an agricultural theme -- a scarecrow was proposed -- but the mustang still prevails.

Having had abysmal luck interesting anybody on a sports board with the subject

Hey, Sporteye, that's a shock

so, just let me check - you are going through the entire alphabet like this....?

c'mon guys, can't we club together for some sort of humane treatment, it must be possible surely?

I was gonna say, why would a team want to name itself after marbles?

Dear Faldage: when I was in grammar school, there was a very wide social difference between an "aggie" and a "marble". Only the lowest of the plebians bothered with marbles,which, despite the name were to us half inch clay spheres, often unglazed. The aggies were multicolored glass spheres with brilliant internal swirls of color.
You really had class if you were willing to risk "popping" with "aggies". And a loaf of bread sized bag of "aggies" was proof of social superiority.

this from correspondence with one of my faithful readers:

> Mike.... Not sure you know what an "Aggie" is.... but a favorite Aggie
> joke goes....
>
> An Aggie, after his usual opening line.... ("Baby I love nobody but
> you!) assumed his usual license to "explore" his girlfriend's anatomy.
> She quickly said, "Oh no you don't.... now cut that out!"
>
> Next day, he asked his Aggie friends,...... "You guys ever seen one of
> these up close?"
>

in my (admittedly provincial) view of things, an aggie is a type
of playing marble...wait...hmmm...I also recall it being applied to
students at NDSU, which before its elevation to a State University
was just a lowly agricultural college. neither of these would
seem to add substantively to your story, except that Aggies were
generally looked upon as stump-jumpers.

>Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College was established as part of the
>state system of higher education..... student body was, indeed,
>originally composed of higher-stump-jumpers, but a bellicose and
>defensive sub-culture evolved (the.... CORPS) so the local
>Polock...Blonde...Dweeb joke-target has become the Aggies.....

Dr bill, to me an aggie is also a marble-- but not a glass cats eye-- pretty as they are, or any other glass marble. an Aggie is a stone shooter--made out of agate.. (shooter are larger than regular marbles. )

without trying, i have managed to collect 50 or glass marbles.and some aggies, including a beautiful golden orange aggie. i haven't played marbles in years. i keep my marbles (all of them!) in glass box on a display shelf.

I'll jump ahead in the alphabet and mention the nickname of my alma mater: the Tufts University Jumbos. So named because of one of the school's early benefactors: the one and only P.T. Barnum himself (there is also a Barnum Hall on campus). The stuffed carcass of the majestic pachyderm himself (herself?) graced the Quad until a fire nearly destroyed him. The tip of the trunk and tail remain in an old peanut butter jar in the Athletic Director's office, and a concrete elephant now stands watch over the studentry.

According to past issues of The Sporting News and Sports Illustrated, Tufts
University has one of the most unique college nicknames in the country. In a 1992
poll taken by the National Directory of College Athletics, "Jumbos" placed 18th,
wedged between the Gorillas of Pittsburgh State and the Nanooks of
Alaska-Anchorage, but far behind the first-place Banana Slugs of California-Santa
Cruz.

...

In 1949, Jumbos place at Tufts was threatened by the University of Bridgeport,
who also wanted to claim the enormous pachyderm for its own mascot because
Bridgeport had been home to Barnum and his circus. This challenge was based on
the grounds that Barnum owned only half of Jumbo (with Bailey owning the other
half), and he could only bequeath his half of the elephant to Tufts.

President Leonard Carmichael answered Bridgeport's request by gracefully stating
that since Tufts had been good stewards of Jumbo, the college had the right to
choose which half of the elephant it wanted and naturally decided upon the front.
Bridgeport declined to take Jumbo's rump, but as a gesture of goodwill Tufts gave
the albino elephant that stood beside Jumbo to the Connecticut school.

And though Sparteye's team has won a national title, note that
The Tufts football team was one of the sport's first. Some historians point to a
game between Harvard and Tufts at Jarvis Field in Cambridge on June 4, 1875 as
the first game of American football between two American colleges.

Next day, he asked his Aggie friends,...... "You guys ever seen one of
> these up close?"

Dear tsuwm: and now I don't dare even comment on this. (rhetorical device)

For misleading it would be hard to beat the UConn Huskies.

Jumbo was a male, if I remember correctly. He was insane, so that's why Barnum got him from the English, (they didn't want their kids on him) but he calmed down while in the States.

In reply to:
Next day, he asked his Aggie friends,...... "You guys ever seen one of
> these up close?"

Dear tsuwm: and now I don't dare even comment on this. (rhetorical device)

but, see, bill, I was quoting a *lady.

I was quoting a *lady

Must is they defines lady a bit differmints up there in Minnisoda.

well, actually, she's an ex-teacher from Texas.
http://mycroft.mexia.com/~judihar/tdesk2.html

Re: but far behind the first-place Banana Slugs of California-Santa Cruz.

I have visited UCSC, and the Banana Slugs are well named. the real things are easy, way to easy, to find on campus. even the floor pots on second floor decks could be found to harbor them.

I have never heard the term "Aggie" applied to Cornell, though it has a very wide range of agricultural science. They have always had formidable football teams, despite the attitude of an early president:

On this day in 1873, Cornell president Andrew White refused to let his school's football team go to Chicago to play,since he said 400 miles was far too far for 30 men to travel "just to agitate a bag of wind."

Dear tsuwm: you quote the male Aggie studying anatomy in Braille, and then the next day, he is showing something to his friends. Surely not tissue removed in an unauthorized operation? What did the *lady from Texas tell you? The URL you gave had no clue I could find.

>What did the *lady from Texas tell you?

I quoted the joke in full. that was sort of the point, see -- the joke left quite a lot to the imagination.
-ron o.

The Texas Aggies are notorious for their lack of a sense of humor and their fierce loyalty to A&M. I had a friend who was paired off with an Aggie at a UT-A&M football game--many years ago. A&M lost, and the Aggie spent the rest of the evening moping in the corner at the party following the game. Finally, he threw his cap across the room and said "If there were just some damn reason for it all". My friend made some excuse to avoid having to spend the next day with him. One of my favorite Aggie stories is about the Aggie who won the gold medal in the javelin catch--he had it bronzed.

New Mexico State:

New Mexico State was originally known as New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. In 1959, after two years of state-wide discussions, the school�s Board of Regents voted to change the name of the institution to New Mexico State University as a symbol of progress, growth and stature.

http://nmstatesports.fansonly.com/trads/nmst-trads-name.html

These days, when people think of "Aggies" they think of New Mexico State University athletics. Historically, we're called Aggies because NMSU started out primarily as an agricultural school. We first opened our doors in 1888 and were long known as the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. Now New Mexico State is a major university, offering undergraduate and graduate programs and conducting important research in a wide range of fields. But for many years, NMSU was one of the few schools in the country that had separate nicknames for its men�s and women�s teams. Men�s teams were known as the Aggies while the women�s teams were known as the Roadrunners. When the women�s program first began at NMSU, it was a separate entity from the men�s athletic department, and thus, decided on a different mascot. When the two departments merged in the 1970s, Roadrunners was kept as the women�s nickname. Today, all NCAA athletic teams at NMSU are proudly called "Aggies."

http://nmstatesports.fansonly.com/trads/nmst-trads-mascot.html

New Mexico State�s mascot, known as Pistol Pete, roams the sidelines at Aggie games. But the name Pistol Pete comes from a real western gunman in the late 1800�s named Frank Eaton. As a child, Eaton�s father was killed by the four Campsey brothers and the two Ferber brothers, all members of the Regulators. By the age of 15, Eaton had become a quickdraw and a marksman, but went to Fort Gibson, a cavalry fort in the northeast part of Indian Territory, to improve his shooting skills. It was at the fort where he gained the nickname Pistol Pete. In a fair gunfight in 1881 in Albuquerque, Pistol Pete killed the last of the six men responsible for his father�s murder.

http://nmstatesports.fansonly.com/trads/nmst-trads-pistolpete.html

"A" Tradition

In 1920, students of then New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts scouted for an appropriate place to display their school letter. Tortugas Mountain, located three miles east of campus, seemed a natural spot. Brave males gathered enough stones to form a big "A" easily visible from campus and the surrounding area. On the following day, April 1, students trudged up the mountain side with their five-gallon cans of whitewash and splashed it on the stones, turning them into a gleaming white "A".

For many years, giving the "A" its annual fresh coat of whitewash was an all school effort. The seniors mixed lime and water at the foot of the mountain � freshmen and sophomores toted the mixture up to the juniors who splashed it on the "A." With the growth of the university through the years, the tradition was taken over by the Greek Council.

http://nmstatesports.fansonly.com/trads/nmst-trads-a.html

Previously, New Mexico State�s men�s athletics logo has been a caricature of Pistol Pete, while the women�s teams have used a Roadrunner. Recently, NMSU introduced an androgynous logo that represents both the men�s and women�s programs.

http://nmstatesports.fansonly.com/trads/nmst-trads-logo.html

NMSU was founded in 1888, and has an enrollment of 15,000. Its colors are crimson and white.

the joke left quite a lot to the imagination.

Aha! Honi soit and all that.

Dr. Bill has never heard the term "Aggie" applied to Cornell.

And well he mightn't have. While Cornell has a wide range of agriculture science they have a wide range of just about everything else. Our Motto: I would found an institution where mostly men teach practically everything
The school nickname is Big Red.

North Carolina A & T

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University was created as a land grant university in 1891. http://www.ncat.edu/campus/

Its colors are blue and gold.

Texas A&M was opened in 1876 as a land grant college. At that point, the student body adopted a military structure, and the traditions of Aggieland took their roots.

http://sports.tamu.edu/traditions/index.html

The university has an enrollment of 44,081, and its colors are maroon and white. Its mascot is Reveille VII, a collie. http://sports.tamu.edu/facts.html

Texas A & M has its own lexicon, a glossary can be found here: http://sports.tamu.edu/traditions/terms.html

The Aggie fight song celebrates the military prowess of agricultural peoples (*heh*): The Spirit of Aggieland was written in 1925; the words by Marvin H. Mimms, a student, and the music by Col. Richard C. Dunn.

Some may boast of prowess bold
Of the school they think so grand,
But there's a spirit can ne'er be told
It's the spirit of Aggieland.

Chorus

We are the Aggies -- the Aggies are we.
True to each other as Aggies can be.
We've got to FIGHT boys,
We've got to FIGHT!
We've got to fight for Maroon and White.
After they' ve boosted all the rest,
They will come and join the best.
For we are the Aggies --
the Aggies so true,
We're from Texas A. M. U.

Second Chorus

T--E--X--A--S, A--G--G--I--E,
Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Fight! Maroon!
White--White--White!
A--G--G--I--E, Texas!
Texas! A. M. U.
GIG 'EM AGGIES! 1! 2! 3!
FARMERS FIGHT! FARMERS FIGHT!
Fight -- fight --
Farmers, farmers, fight!

http://sports.tamu.edu/traditions/spirit.html

Dear Sparteye: Some time, just for a change of pace, listen to the fight song Tom Lehrer wrote for Harvard.

Fight Fiercely, Harvard!

Fight fiercely, Harvard, fight, fight, fight!
Demonstrate to them our skill.
Albeit they possess the might,
Nonetheless, we have the will.
How we will celebrate our victory,
We shall invite the whole team out for tea (how jolly!)
Hurl that spheroid down the field,
And fight, fight, fight!
Fight fiercely, Harvard, fight, fight, fight!
Impress them with our prowess, do!
Oh, fellas, do not let the crimson down,
Be of stout heart and true!
Come on chaps, fight for Harvard's glorious name,
Won't it be peachy if we win the game? (Oh goody!)
Let's try not to injure them,
But fight, fight, fight!

Let's not be rough, though,
Fight, fight, fight!
And do fight fiercely,
Fight, fight, fight!

http://www.keaveny.demon.co.uk/lehrer/lyrics/index.htm

I certainly would have expected the blokes at Harvard to know that a football isn't a spheroid, at least in today's world. Back when the fight song was written the American football was closer to a spheroid than it is now, but I believe it still had pointed ends, which a true spheroid lacks.

Somewhere I have a picture of my father dressed in his football uniform from Menominee, Michigan, HS, circa 1917 and you can see the rounder but still pointed ball. This was before the era of the forward pass, which only became feasible with the skinnier ball.

According to family legend, The Old Man used to play HS football on Saturday afternoon, then get on a train to go 50 miles south where on Sunday he played semi-pro ball under an assumed name for a company team called the Green Bay Packers. He had to use an assumed name because accepting $20 a game would have lost him his amateur standing to play HS ball. Later, when he went to college he backed up some Swedish guy named Grange at U. of Illinois.

TEd

I certainly would have expected the blokes at Harvard to know that a football isn't a spheroid

I've always heard the football shape defined as an "oblate spheroid." Is that any more accurate?

Green Bay Packers.. and .....some Swedish guy named Grange at U. of Illinois

Great story!

My Dad told me the Green Bay Packers' game seats were so sought after a ticket that season tickets were actually willed to heirs! Those were the days!

And "Red Grange" - wow! ..."The Ice Man" "The Galloping Ghost" - the man who made professional football a national sport..... a great player.
Ah, the good old days!

http://www.co.dupage.il.us/heritage/yps/grange.html
with photos of Grange then (top of page) and 1980 (near end.)

he played semi-pro ball under an assumed name for a company team called the Green Bay Packers.

According to a not so recent issue of Smithsonian magazine (the same magazine that enticed me onto this board) the first team to beat the Green Bay Packers was a team called the Beloit (Wisc) Fairies. A little research (http://www.jsonline.com/packer/stat/history/alltimerecord.asp) indicates that this is not quite accurate. The team was known as the Beloit Professionals the year they first beat the Packers. They weren't known as the Fairies until the next year when they beat the Packers again in their second game with them.

And the last Aggies ... Utah State

Utah State University is a four-year, state university founded in 1888 on a 400-acre site overlooking Logan in Cache Valley, northern Utah. It is the state's only land-grant university. More than 20,000 students are enrolled on campus or at education centers throughout the state. About 76 percent of students are working on undergraduate degrees. Typically, some 80 countries and every state in the nation are represented in the student body. http://www.usu.edu/About/home.htm

USU's colors appear to be blue and white.

USU's colors appear to be blue and white.

If that's what they appear to be then I say that's what they are, for what is color but appearance?

I am fascinated by the stories behind the nicknames adopted by sports team

Now if you want to find the really oddball nicknames, you should look at high school team.

Just this morning I learned of a local team called the Caxi's (singular form rhymes with "taxi"). The name stumped me, and I finally gave up and had to ask where it came from.

Anyone out here able to figure it out? If needed, I'll drop some hints.

But there's the Hoyas of Georgetown University.

Ah, Faldage, that too is a classic poser. (hint) Have you run into a solid wall?
Dr. bill will be enthused with each of the answers. (hint)

I am utterly at a loss. Maybe another hint or 10?

Chicago Area ...

durn dittography!

hint: Their mascot is a frog. Hyla, does that help?

hint: caxi is not a Gilbert & Sullivan reference, but:
when the character Major General Stanley (in The Pirates of Penzance) recites samples of his esoteric knowledge, it is clear that he would understand "caxi".

Dr. bill will be enthused with each of the answers

Then I'm not sure I want to know.

>> I certainly would have expected the blokes at Harvard to know that a football isn't a spheroid

> I've always heard the football shape defined as an "oblate spheroid." Is that any more accurate?

No, an oblate spheroid is sphere-shaped but with one plane (like the earth's equator) that is a little bit wider than the plane that goes through the poles. The earth's rotation causes its "middle" to bulge out a bit. Hell, I don't even have to rotate to do THAT!

Asphere is a geometric figure whose shape is such that any two points on its surface are equidistant from the center. A ball. It can be generated by rotating a circle on an axis that goes through the center of the circle.

A spheroid is generated by rotating an ellipse around one of its axes. And an ellipse is a conic section (a slice through a cone) which slice is not parallel to an element of the cone and is not parallel to the axis of the cone. The other way to draw an ellipse is to put two pins into a tabletop, then use a loop of string to draw a figure on the tabletop with the string held tight. The string has to be more than twice as long as the distance between the two pins. As the string gets longer and longer in relation to the pin distance the ellipse approaches a circle. The shorter the string the more eccentric the figure is (meaning its "width" and "height" have a much greater ration than approaching 1:1.

A bird's egg is usually "ellipsoidal", though not a perfect ellipse, but in no case does a spheroid have points like a football. Ever.

TUBI

Bear with me on this, it does come back to words.

The mathematical equation whose graph is an ellipse is:
a * (x to the 2nd power) + b * (y to the 2nd power) = 1,
where a and b are any constants. a and be determine the size of the ellipse and how elongated it is. If a=b the result is a circle; thus a circle is a particular kind of an ellipse.

About 20 years ago a Dane, Piet Hein, experimented to see what kind of shape you'd get if you graphed a similar equation but change the 2's above. He found that if you change that number to about one-and-a-half, you get an esthetically pleasing shape, a compromise between an oval and a rectangle: one would roughly describe it as a rectangle with the corners cut off.

The term for that shape is "superellipse" Furniture in the Danish Modern style furniture often uses superellipses as, for example, the share of a tabletops. Danish traffic engineers design traffic ellipses in that shape, to minimize the sharp curves at the ends of the ellipse.

Hein has also authored numbers pithy poems, called "grooks".

The response to "Caxi's" leaves me empathic with Dr. Bill's plaintive plaint, "Suppose they gave a word-post and nobody came?" I am underwhelmed.

Last hint, combining two hints above: one need merely google Gilbert & Sullivan to find out what Major General Stanley knows about frogs, and then, googling further, check the reference cited by that illustrious Major General.

Public message to Sparteye: Northwestern 27, Michigan State 26

I do not comment; I merely report.

But to keep this word-related: this of course deals only with the "Spart" part of "Sparteye", and next weekend we are likely to suffer an-eye-for-an-eye from the buckeyes.

U of M 38
Illinois 13
I don't watch, I merely report.
For Sparteye: Aenigma suggested Ubiquitous of Mabel for you-know-who and spasm for Sparteye!

"Suppose they gave a word-post and nobody came?" I am underwhelmed.

Well, Dear, I did Google the things you suggested, but still no luck. I am completely unfamiliar with both of the things, and probably would have had to read at least the second one in more depth than I have the time for right now.
Sorry.

and next weekend we are likely to suffer an-eye-for-an-eye from the buckeyes.

I'll be at the game, so I'll make sure to let you know.

Though, I don't think OSU will be trying to get revenge for the Sparts. They're not exactly allies if you recall the '98 season.

<<"Suppose they gave a word-post and nobody came?" I am underwhelmed."

The second rule of writing: to know your audience.

Audience? Geez, why didn't somebody tell me. I'm still in my bathrobe

Well, i'peter, now we know where this audience's attention was!