Friday Follies: That’s What She Said

Posted on April 8, 2016 by Melissa Kean

I feel sure one of you miscreants can date this photo for me.

Football security guards UA155 170 7 066

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20 Responses to Friday Follies: That’s What She Said

  1. Rick Sheridan says:
    April 8, 2016 at 2:50 pm

    That looks like Sparky from 1981. Lost his overcoat at some point.

    Reply
  2. radbob48 says:
    April 8, 2016 at 3:10 pm

    this MOB halftime prop produced some interesting Dad-daughter conversation for me after the game – maybe early 80s?

    Reply
  3. grungy1973 says:
    April 8, 2016 at 3:25 pm

    Not a MOB prop.
    Rally Club, perhaps?

    Reply
  4. James Medford says:
    April 8, 2016 at 4:56 pm

    This was at the Rice-A&M game my freshman year, 1981. The “prop” was Sparky, which some Rally types from Wiess managed to sneak into the stadium. This was the same day the Aggie band lost their way at halftime and had to cut their performance short. One of the funniest football games I’ve ever attended.

    Reply
    • Karen says:
      April 8, 2016 at 6:38 pm

      There was a little more to that story. The Aggie band lost their way when doing their logo. The Mob did it, and perfectly. The Aggies accused someone in the Rice stands of blowing a whistle to throw them off. It was obviously our fault. The Aggies were already annoyed about the large ATM sign on Sid Rich with the extra Es on it. Those were the days of real Aggie-baiting!

      Reply
    • Charles says:
      April 10, 2016 at 12:28 am

      I remember this happening again in the late 80s or early 90s. I was watching the Aggies march and nothing seemed to be making sense and then they all just ran off the field. Did they manage to do it to them twice? I was definitely not there in 1981.

      Reply
  5. loki_the_bubba says:
    April 8, 2016 at 8:03 pm

    That was a fun day.

    Reply
  6. Michael Ross says:
    April 9, 2016 at 1:06 am

    That infamous Aggie game and halftime antics were the subject of several articles, letters and a centerfold photo spread (including two photos featuring “Sparky”) in the Oct. 31, 1981, issue of the Thresher (https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/67446/thr19811031.pdf?sequence=1).

    Articles and more letters about the aftermath and administration and public reaction are in the next several issues: November 6 (https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/67449/thr19811106.pdf?sequence=1), November 13 (https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/67451/thr19811113.pdf?sequence=1) and December 4 (https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/67454/thr19811204.pdf?sequence=1).

    Reply
  7. francis eugene 'gene' pratt says:
    April 9, 2016 at 3:31 am

    “The Aggies were already annoyed about the large ATM sign on Sid Rich with the extra Es on it.”

    I saw that sign on one of my trips to a Rice FB game, having graduated years before.
    I was NOT amused by the sign: I thought it was in poor taste, a bad reflection on the University, and more consistent with a bunch of high school adolescents.

    I neither am nor was a prude. I raised my share of hell at Rice, drank more than my share of booze, took a “Blue Book” test or so while hung over. But I was embarrassed by Rice that day.

    There are limits.

    Reply
  8. Randy Wile says:
    April 9, 2016 at 7:45 am

    Much of the other shenanagins referenced in the reader comments were indeed conceived and executed by Sid Rich men, with one very creative mind at the helm that day. Today, that guy, a former military man, is one of the most respected educators in his field in the country – actually, in the world! I think any SRC guys who were there would agree.

    Reply
  9. Dan McCormack '82 says:
    April 9, 2016 at 9:33 am

    Melissa- if you’ll check the President’s Office calendar for the Monday following the Aggie game in ’81, you see that the SA president, RPC president, Wiess Rally Club president, and all eight college presidents (every student with “president” in his/her title) were summoned to Lovett Hall for a meeting with President Hackerman and Dean Brown. It was a minor reading of the riot-act: he blamed the Aggie band’s foul-up on their own mistakes, and was okay with the Rice student section chanting “Sieg Heil” (salute included) as the Aggie band took the field, because he felt it was genuinely spontaneous. But he was definitely not happy about Sparky. Dean Brown was wonderful. She described her reaction (and you have to imagine this in her voice) like this: “At first, I thought that someone had brought a rocket to the game as a prop for the MOB show. And then I realized, Oh! That’s not a rocket!”

    Reply
    • marmer01 says:
      April 12, 2016 at 10:05 am

      President Hackerman (mostly through Carl McDowell) really hated to see MOB members and show assistants going barefoot. If someone didn’t wear shoes, we heard about it.

      Reply
  10. Marty Merritt (Hanszen '84/85) says:
    April 12, 2016 at 10:04 am

    I was there. I remember one of my MOB-mates saying “That’s right, officer. Speak softly and carry a big d***.” We analyzed the video of the Aggie band (we still had a fair number of precision-marching geeks in the MOB) and determined that one of their line leaders turned five yards too early. No one in the MOB except the drum major and minor had whistles.

    Reply
  11. Randy Wile '83 says:
    April 12, 2016 at 10:38 am

    The SRC guys moved the yard markers.

    Reply
  12. marmer01 says:
    April 12, 2016 at 11:43 am

    Also, this was not all that long after the infamous MOB show of the mid-70s when the Aggies barricaded the MOB in the Rice Stadium tunnel after they made fun of the recently deceased Reveille. Well within recent memory, and we were actually kinda scared.

    Reply
  13. Bill Martin says:
    April 12, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    It was definitely no later than 1981, because I was there and the aforementioned former military man/prominent educator was still at Sid, as were we, as Co-Masters. Somewhat to my disappointment, since it remains a high point in my Rice Stadium, when I credited him years later with having blown the whistle on the Aggie band, he denied it convincingly. I don’t think it was to save his reputation.

    Reply
  14. Marty Merritt (Hanszen '84/85) says:
    April 12, 2016 at 4:34 pm

    There is zero evidence of anyone at Rice blowing whistles or moving yard markers. And we looked at that video over and over. Now, in ’83 or ’84, next time the Ags came to town, there was some discussion of giving everyone in the MOB a cheap whistle on a lanyard, but I think cooler (or saner) heads prevailed.

    Reply
  15. grungy1973 says:
    April 12, 2016 at 8:59 pm

    No one in The MOB blew a whistle during the FTAB halftime show.
    Rebecca Hammond (my ex) had one of the whistles.
    She knew better, and did not.
    Ken Dye had the other, and I was right behind him during their show.
    He didn’t.
    One of Rebecca’s high school classmates, who was a trombone player in the FTAB during that show, told us at their 10-year (HS) reunion that they simply turned too soon.
    No whistles…
    Sadly, the tape of that show has vanished, and the only copy we know of was worn out by the Longhorn Band.
    There is a fabulous shot of the “Flying Gamma” the Aggie band formed, just before they gave up, taken by Wiley M. Sanders.

    Reply
  16. Randy Wile '83 says:
    April 13, 2016 at 9:11 am

    Here’s the Thresher issue which covered the “game within the game”: http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245484/m1/1/ Be sure to look at the photo spread on pages 10 & 11.

    Reply

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