AGGIE BAND: Rice Drill 1989 - "Attack of the Owl"

On October 28, 1989, the Aggie Band traveled to Houston to play the Rice Owls. Normally this was a somewhat non-eventful game, however, it is Rice, and when the MOB (Marching Owl Band) is present, anything can happen... But on this day, none of us saw this one coming...

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the antics of Rice and the MOB, here's a little history lesson for you... If you listen closely to almost any performance of the Aggie Band, you will hear the Drum Major give whistle commands. These commands must be precisely executed at the absolute time or disaster can occur... This unfortunately happened on October 24, 1981 at Rice Stadium. Allegedly, a member of the MOB blew whistles during the drill which was mistaken for the Drum Majors whistle... The drill subsequently fell apart... So, because of that incident, the Aggie Band does not use whistles during the Rice halftime drills, except for step-off at the beginning of the drill and the step-off of the Block-T at the end of the drill...

Throughout the years, there have been numerous other incidents, but nothing during our drill, and especially not on the field... Watch the Owl during the drill. She starts to pace up and down the sidelines. When the Band countermarches and heads back north she runs onto the field behind the Bass Rank... This is when I caught sight of her coming from my right as she cut behind us on the Bass Rank. I glanced back to see the Yell Boys apprehend her. Why do I keep saying her and how do I know the mascot was female..? Because when the Yell Leaders grabbed her, she screamed like a girl..! It wasn't until after reviewing the video that I realized, she wasn't coming behind us to mess with the Basses, she was headed toward Head Drum Major Mike Sammis '90... She was mocking us on the sidelines, and got a little crowd reaction... So, she went for it all and attempted to get behind Mike so she could mock him as he was marching down the field. But that didn't quite work out so well for her...! The retaliation which followed was classic..!!!

If you notice when the camera pans back at the end of the drill, the stands aren't even close to being packed. However, 70% of the people in the stands are all Aggies..! When we came off the field and were discussing what had happened, the MOB was starting to take the field. It was at this point, Head Yell Leader Waylan Cain '90, approached the stands in front of the Band and proceeded to wave a Gig'em sign. We all stood up and began a Yell Practice. With over 30,000+ Aggies in the stands, the noise was so intense that the MOB could not perform, and walked off after about 5 minutes in protest...

The lesson here is that, when you are out numbered 3 to 1, and your adversary is a large mass of Aggies, is in your best interest not to attack..! Stomping on a fire ant bed while barefoot, will be much more enjoyable...