At Texas A&M University football games, fans twirl around white towels while shouting to distract the opposing team. A closer look will show that printed on the towel, in maroon letters, are the words “Texas A&M 12th Man.”

The 12th Man started with Earl King Gill, an Aggie backup running back who left the team halfway through the 1921 season to focus on basketball. 

A&M football was playing an undefeated Centre College in Dallas. Gill was at the game — watching as injuries brought players to the sidelines — when Texas A&M head coach Dana X. Bible motioned Gill down to the sidelines. 

After Gill changed into a uniform behind the bleachers, acting as the football team’s “12th man,” the Aggies pulled away with a 22-14 win without Gill entering the game. 

“A lot of the things that Texas A&M does is built around the 12th Man, the willingness to stand ready to enter the game like E. King Gill,” said Brad Marquardt, Texas A&M assistant athletic director. 

Now, the student body, composed of over 70,000 students in Aggieland, is referred to as “The 12th Man.”

Since opening in 1876, Texas A&M University has had strong engineering and agricultural programs. Its petroleum engineering program is ranked No. 1, while biological and agricultural engineering is ranked No. 3, according to U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings. 

Their athletic programs are ranked nationally as well. 

Texas A&M was ranked No. 6 for the Learfield Directors’ Cup, awarded to the best athletic program each year. A&M got its ranking by having top programs such as its women’s tennis team, which took home its first NCAA title this year and its baseball team, which made it to the World Series. 

But it isn’t success that defines Texas A&M. It’s tradition. 

From the Century Tree where hundreds of Aggie proposals take place every year to placing pennies at the base of the Sul Ross statue for good luck on a test, Aggies love their traditions. 

The “Keepers of the Spirit and Guardians of Tradition” are the Corps of Cadets, the oldest and largest student organization on campus. 

The “Guardians of Tradition” guard the Aggie mascot: a full-blooded American Rough Collie named Reveille. Reveille X became the 10th collie to be mascot in 2021. A primary caretaker is chosen within Mascot Company E-2, and if Reveille barks in their class, the professor is supposed to release class for the day. 

“Just like Texas loves Bevo, we love Reveille,” Marquardt said. 

Members of the Corps are often yell leaders, who stand on the sidelines of football games and start the yells. The student body practices at Midnight Yell the night before the game. 

“Midnight Yell is a big deal around here,” Marquardt said. “You got as many as 40,000 plus people who can come to the football stadium at midnight. Nobody else does anything like that.”

Midnight Yell takes place at Kyle Field, the largest stadium in Texas and the SEC with a maximum occupancy of 102,733 people. 

“People don’t just graduate from Texas A&M and then go on and forget,” Marquardt said. “Aggies love their alma mater. They love coming back to College Station and the traditions that we have are probably a big part of that.”