Gentlemen,

Would you kindly describe your schools traditions that do not have anything to do with football? I am curious if there is anything from your schools that you may be proud of aside from that glorious gridiron game we all love.

For Texas A&M, if you are ever on campus on the first Tuesday of the month, attend Silver Taps. It's one of the most somber experiences you will have: thousands of people gathered to silently honor the life of a fellow student who passed away the previous month. "Silver Taps is that final tribute paid to a student who, at the time of his or her death, was enrolled in graduate or undergraduate courses at Texas A&M..."

Another similar ceremony is called Muster. The main campus Muster is a roll call of Aggies (former students current students) who have passed away in the previous year. We fill up our basketball arena, turn down the lights, ignite candles, and read the names of the Aggies (going all the way back to graduates from the early 1900's) who died since the previous muster. There is a 21-gun salute, and if you know or knew a person whose name is read, you are obliged to answer "Here" in his or her place for the Muster Roll Call. Again, very somber, but also a glad occasion because you honor the life & death of a fellow Aggie, but at the same time you come together as an Aggie family to reminisce about bygone days. I am honored to know my name will one day be called, but hopefully not too soon.

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Anyways, are there any cool or lesser-known traditions from the other SEC schools that don't hinge on football? If so, will you please share them so if I am ever in the area at the right place and right time, I can check it out?

Be proud of your school and brag about her traditions here.

Gig'em
Mike '03 / '09

Speaking for the University of Arkansas graduates I know of one that is kinda cool. After you graduate they engrave your name in the sidewalks on campus. However, I believe they are a couple of years behind.
I'd like to see some good feedback to your post.

Some Ag should bring up Elephant Walk. Back in the day, it always ended at the Bonfire site with yell practice.

As a Gamecock who moved to Aggieland in 1985, I remember being astounded by the number of really great traditions on the A&M campus. Bonfire (the cut and the burn), Muster, Silver Taps, Elephant Walk, Midnight Yell, traditions involving Rev (including the graves), the Yell Leaders and the yells, hats off in the MSC, no walking on the grass around the MSC, Sully's statue, the Century Oak, the importance of the Aggie Ring and its design, kissing your date when the Aggies scored, playing t.u. on Thanksgiving, greeting each other with a "howdy".... the list seemed endless. Yet, these traditions meant something because Aggies didn't let them die. They practiced them, fairly religiously.

And then there were the Corps-related traditions-- Flight of the Great Pumpkin, fish wildcatting, senior boots, football game march-ins, Corps trips, March to the Brazos, Final Review (two pass-bys).

It was all good, and as a newcomer, if you took part in these traditions, you began to understand Aggieland.

Modern day Aggieland is a little less traditional-- fewer howdies, no on-campus Bonfire, and no t.u. game on Thanksgiving. Still, I can remember NO traditions at South Carolina-- none at all, at least in the early-mid 1970s. So when I look at my University of South Carolina ring, I see history. When I look at my Texas A&M ring, I see enduring traditions.

Thank you Strong Men.

Gig'em, Ole Army Class of '70

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fewer howdies

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I blame Apple.

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Senior Walk

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Every graduate gets their name in the walk. They are always a year behind I guess, because they wait until you graduate before putting your name on it. Mine was up about a year after graduation. Construction projects happening at the time, etc determine exactly when and where the walks are built.

Its pretty cool, especially if you have family who also attended Arkansas. I knew where my parents' names were on their walks, and passed their names almost daily walking to class while I was at Arkansas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDQpk5ryWnE&feature=player_embedded

That's pretty cool, wmr

That is a really cool tradition. Can you pay to group people together? Like if you had friends or roommates and wanted to be listed near each other? Then you could "meet up at your bricks"

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fewer howdies

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I blame apple

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100% on this

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Can you pay to group people together?

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No, you are listed alphabetically with the class you graduate in. Everybody is listed.

The sidewalks are concrete, not brick. The commercial is supposed to show and old school way of doing the names, and for a while they were stamped into wet concrete. The engineering dept developed a sandblast machine combined with a type-set thing that carves the names into the cured sidewalk.

There are a lot of weird things about the names, or maybe interesting. You can find famous people, family, people who passed away, people who do something bad later in life, and while in school, if someone passed away, you know where their name would have been had they not died.

A common threat is to "find and chisel your name out of Senior Walk" for message board bad-asses. :lol: A lot of people will have a picture or a rubbing (like you'd do at a cemetery) of their name on the Walk framed with their diploma, etc.

Per wiki:

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The names of University of Arkansas students, starting with the first senior class of 1876, are carved into one of the concrete walkways or sidewalks on campus. This tradition was started by the 1905 graduating class of students, who drew their names into the walkway in front of Old Main, the oldest building on campus. Following classes added their names for more than a decade and then the university took over responsibility for adding new classes, as well as adding the names of students who graduated prior to 1905. Through most of the 20th century, the names were impressed in wet cement using brass letters. As the campus grew, and the graduating classes got bigger, the operation became unduly time-consuming. In 1986, the university's physical plant developed a special machine called the "Senior Sand Hog" to engrave the thousands of names required each year.[60] School superstition states that it is bad luck to step on the Class of 1900; additionally it is said that if one steps on the name of the first graduating class, you will never graduate from the University of Arkansas.

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[This message has been edited by wmr (edited 7/25/2012 12:10p).]

[This message has been edited by wmr (edited 7/25/2012 12:11p).]

Thanks wmr, would you say that is the best/most well known? Others?

Very cool! And interesting that the first one we hear about, and most don't know about, comes from one of our old SWC-mates.

I can't think of anything really to compare. We don't really emphasize rings, although some people have them. We point to Old Main at the end of the fight song. Spoofer's Stone is a popular place to propose to a fiance.



Il Porcellino statue on Maple Street is supposed to give good luck if you rub his snout.



Related to football...We have pep rallies the night before football games at the Greek Theater, which I've realized in the SEC is kind of unique because most schools don't do that kind of thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6f27aEjcIk

And here's the Greek Theater minus people:







[This message has been edited by wmr (edited 7/25/2012 1:59p).]

That is really cool at Arkansas. All those years of pretty much hatin' the 'Pig-People' while we were in the SWC, I never heard anything about that tradition.

I think we have enough room as of right now to go through at least 2025 or something. Enrollment growth might put a damper on that, but I guess they could always go back and make double sidewalks at some of the more trafficked areas of campus.

All of the Senior Walks so far are in what is conidered the "historic core" of campus. They'll have to abandon that and start putting them all over the place soon.

Mine is near the Greek Theater.

http://planning.uark.edu/campus_planning/content/seniorwalk.pdf

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Related to football...We have pep rallies the night before football games at the Greek Theater, which I've realized in the SEC is kind of unique because most schools don't do that kind of thing.

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vmr, we have something similar to your "pep rally" known as Midnight Yell. It takes place in our stadium, Kyle Field at 12am before home football games and at various out of town locations before away games.


You should definitely come check it out sometime.

That's a big damn picture.

I've been to Kyle 3 times. Never been to yell.

Fran

The sidewalk thing is really cool.

I had to look at Fran, but I also go a little cleavage with the chick to the left of him.

Yeah, the sidewalk is really awesome! I've got an old razorback at work - I'll have to ask him about that tomorrow.

A Greek Theater?

Good lord.