Letter from the Committee on Outdoor Sports to Freshman Week Coordinator, September 24, 1963:
From Minutes of the Committee on Outdoor Sports, October 24, 163, after request for reconsideration:
From Minutes of the Committee on Outdoor Sports, October 29, 1963:
From Minutes of the Committee on Outdoor Sports, December 10, 1963:
I have no idea what happened at the A&M game (if pressed I’d guess a brawl) but it must have really been something.
Bonus: Sidewalk along Alice Pratt Brown=closed!
It WAS a brawl on the field. The entire A&M brigade left the stands and went to the field. At some point, the A&M band started playing the national anthem — or something of the genre, don’t recall exactly — resulting in the cadets coming to attention, and eventually giving it up returning to the stands.
Hmmm. I wonder if I still have the beanie we had to wear while bowing to Sammy during the games :). Think I do, somewhere …
Thanks! I’ll see if I can find anything about this when I get back to campus on Monday.
A&M games were always an opportunity for some scuffle, but I remember brawls with LSU were usually in the stands, involved dodging stadium seats, but were in a peculiar way, more jovial. Yes, alcohol was involved.
Details of the altercations between Rice & A&M fans at the Nov. 16 football game were described in a front-page article in the Nov. 20, 1963, issue of the Thresher
(https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/66367/thr19631120.pdf?sequence=1) (excerpted below):
> > >
A&M played Rice Saturday with no football and free substitution rules as several hundred students from both schools clashed at halftime.
The latest in a long series of Rice-A&M incidents began as the senior Aggies formed near the goalpost to escort their football team onto the field.
ONE RICE student in a group passing through the Aggies to form a line of their own mistook an Aggie battle helmet for a freshman beanie and tossed it high into the air.
Fists flew as students plus several men of questionable affiliation touched off the half-time show supplement.
STULENT (sic) LEADERS from both schools moved among the students to restore order. The fight flared again as the crowd returned to the stands. A flying wedge of policemen attempted to divide the two groups and herd them back into their seats.
When order was nearly restored the Aggie Band played the Star-Spangled Banner, bringing the Aggies to attention and the audience to its feet. At its conclusion the students filed back into the stands.
. . .
The fight was given impetus when one of the senior Aggies attempted to appropriate the “B” from the “Beat A&M” sign at the south end zone.
FOLLOWING A brief struggle over the letter, Rice cheerleader Kenny Wynn called the male Rice students down onto the field to make a receiving line for the team. The Aggies were already there.
No arrests were made, though several people were escorted from the field
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A sidebar article reviewed a number of previous Rice-A&M altercations and A&M's role in the creation of a Southwest Conference's first sportsmanship code.
This happened my freshman year. When the teams came back on the field after halftime, the Aggies formed a double line for their players and we did also for ours. When the students returned to the stands, the Aggies had to pass through us. I’m pretty sure that it was Don Davis who grabbed the Cadets hat and threw it up in the air, thereby starting the brawl. I was 5′ 9″ and 155 lbs. and right in the middle, only wishing to return to my seat. A much larger Aggie threw a punch at me, I ducked and elbowed him in the Adams apple and ran like Hell, stopping only when I was back in the stands outside the police cordon that was attempting to break up the melee.
FTR: That Saturday was also Parent’s Orientation Day (“470 proud parents gathered in the Grand Hall of the Memorial Center for the opening ceremonies … “), which concluded with attendance at the Rice-A&M football game;
Rice lost the game, 13-6;
… and a headless effigy of AD and football coach Jess Neely hung from the Chemistry Building town on Sunday.
.. Chemistry Building tower …
PS This may have happened when the teams came on the field before the start of the game