College Football

Dos Equis Tour: Texas A&M mascot Reveille embodies the school's deep sense of tradition

Updated Oct. 8, 2021 4:46 p.m. ET

share

facebookxredditlink

By Charlotte Wilder
FOX Sports Columnist

COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The sun wouldn’t come up for two more hours, but the quad at Texas A&M was already buzzing. Actually, it was yelling.

Shouts echoed off the brick buildings surrounding the brick walkways, and they were coming from groups of students running with their hands above their heads. 

"Those are freshmen," Gunnery Sgt. Chad Parker told me. "They’re wildcatting. Whenever they’re in formation, they have to run with their hands above their heads and yell anytime they go from point A to point B. But they don’t know it before they get here. It’s a fun surprise."

We were standing by the flagpole, where two students in full fatigues were stationed with their heads bowed. One of them held a perfectly folded American flag. The other was there to help him correctly attach the corners to the halyards that would raise it above the campus, as a bugle played Reveille into a megaphone that’s permanently fixed about a hundred yards away. Shouts from each company conducting roll calls bounced off the buildings before the flag went up, just as loud but less chaotic than the freshmen had been. 

Speaking of Reveille, that’s the reason I was there at 5:40 in the morning – I had to see about a dog. She is a Rough Collie and a version of her has been the mascot of Texas A&M since 1931, when a group of cadets accidentally hit a dog while driving. They took the pup back to their dorm to nurse her back to health, which was strictly against the rules – dogs were forbidden on campus. 

But their cover was blown right when the bugle was. The dog (a mutt – the collie tradition started a bit later) started barking as Reveille was played, earning her name. The cadets were allowed to keep her, and ever since, a female dog has been the mascot of the school.

She’s probably the most pampered dog outside of those who compete in the Westminster Dog Show. Each year, a sophomore in the Reveille Corps of Cadets Company E-2, known as the "mascot company," competes to be the person in charge of the dog. The process is a secret, but this year’s handler is Lucas Scroggins, so he’s the first one to care for Reveille X.

His brother Jacob cared for Reveille IX before she retired last year, and loved her so much that he asked to keep her when her duties at A&M ended. As is tradition, however, the former mascot now lives out her days at the Stevenson Companion Animal Life-Care Center. But the dogs do go home with their handlers for three weeks every summer. Parker is the constant – he’ll take her one weekend out of every month to relieve the mascot corporal of dog duties every once in a while. 

All dogs go to heaven, obviously, but if you’re Reveille, you go to the nicest dog cemetery in the world. It’s located near the stadium, and each dog has her (they’ve all been female) own tombstone. The mascot Coro visits the graves before each game, and when the stadium was redeveloped a few years ago, a new wall went up that blocked the view of the scoreboard from the cemetery. So the cadets put up a smaller one that updates throughout the game.

The dogs of yesteryear can still see how their Aggies are faring on the field.

For more up-to-date news on all things Texas A&M, click here to register for alerts on the FOX Sports app!

It’s all very moving, but it’s also all very strange. A&M is unlike any school I’ve ever been to. It was a military school for years, and all-male until 1963. The military tradition is still strong – I had to learn an entirely new language of corporals, corps, cadets, ranks, and formations to be able to even understand what these students were telling me. 

Only about 40% of the members of the cadets – essentially an ROTC program – go into the military. Scroggins, for example, isn’t planning to enlist. But many involved like the sense of organization and community the program provides. All 2,200 of them wear their uniforms to class, get up early five days a week to raise the flag and complete rigorous workouts, and then gather again in the evening. Reveille is present for all of this, and she represents the program itself – its dedication to taking care of each other and the school, its punctuality, and its deep ties to tradition. 

She is, in fact, the highest-ranking member of the corps, and is addressed as Miss Reveille. If she jumps up onto Scroggins’ bed, he has to sleep in hers (don’t worry, it’s memory foam and might be even nicer than the dorm beds). Miss Rev goes to breakfast and class with Scroggins, and I was lucky enough to accompany her to "chow" before the sun came up, and then to attend a Naval Sciences class. There was an exam that day, but Reveille was exempt from taking it because she has no thumbs, and therefore cannot hold a pencil or use a computer. 

She can, however, get students out of class. The tradition goes that if she barks during a class, the class is dismissed. Not all professors abide by it, and the rule doesn’t usually apply to exams, but the practice is honored more than it isn’t. 

Tradition is the lifeblood of A&M, and even though this season hasn’t gone the way fans hoped, the tradition of excellence among the football program is no exception. Some of the greatest recent players to have come out of here include Von Miller, Mike Evans, Myles Garrett, Johnny Manziel, Ryan Tannehill and the list goes on.  

But everyone here readily admits that it’s a weird place. The word "cult" is thrown around, especially when talking about the student section at football games. Kyle Field is the fourth-largest stadium in college football, fitting in 104,000 people on game day. But the 36,000-person student section is the absolute largest in the country, and the group is so dedicated to cheering that they practice yelling at midnight on Friday nights before games. 

Miss Rev is a huge part of the football tradition. She runs out onto the field with the mascot corporal before each home game. Even handling her runs through lineages: Scroggins followed in his brother’s footsteps, and the second leash (which is what they call the cadet who is second-in-command of Reveille), Robert Gottlich, has even deeper ties. His grandfather was a student at A&M during Reveille I’s later years. 

History connects people to this place in ways that those of us who didn’t go here can’t quite fully understand. There is a huge sign above the entrance to Kyle Field that says HOME OF THE 12TH MAN. It’s a reference to a story from 1922, when A&M was playing a game in Dallas. The team was badly depleted from injuries and called upon E. Gill King to suit up in case he was needed. King had been covering the game in the press box and was a member of the basketball team, but he used to play football, so he put on the uniform without a second thought. 

The idea is that everyone in the stands is ready to stop everything and jump in at a moment’s notice if their help is needed. 

The statue of 12 students outside Kyle Field is no longer as white or as male as the school's history – there appear to be women and people of color represented in the bronze Aggies who are forever frozen with their arms around each other. But the school has still held onto the stories and practices that set it apart from every other school in the country. 

The cutest one just happens to be a dog.

For more up-to-date news on all things college football, click here to register for alerts on the FOX Sports app!

Charlotte Wilder is a general columnist and cohost of "The People's Sports Podcast" for FOX Sports. She's honored to represent the constantly neglected Boston area in sports media, loves talking to sports fans about their feelings and is happiest eating a hotdog in a ballpark or nachos in a stadium. Follow her on Twitter @TheWilderThings.

share

Get more from College Football Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more

in this topic

College Football

Texas A&M Aggies

Charlotte Wilder