As Texas A&M prepares to move into its new conference home, the Southeastern Conference’s bylaws threaten to break up the student section on the East side of Kyle Field, interrupting a tradition that dates back decades.
SEC rules require that the section immediately behind the opposing bench — between the 30-yard lines in rows 1 through 25 — cannot be for students. At Kyle Field, this segment of the first deck has traditionally included the Aggie Band. University and student officials will meet on the issue as early as next Monday to discuss options moving forward.
Jason Cook, A&M vice president of marketing and communications, said the University is aware of the issue and that contact has been made with SEC officials on the topic. He could not confirm whether A&M had officially submitted an appeal.
“I don’t know whether there was a formal appeal or not. We’ve had discussions with the SEC that it’s very important to us that we maintain Texas A&M as the home of the Twelfth Man,” Cook said. “We’ve talked to the conference office about the uniqueness that we have and the fact that the entire East side of our stadium is all students and that’s something that’s special to us and unique in all of college football.”
Texas A&M Student Body President Jeff Pickering has been active in consolidating a uniform student stance on the issue.
“This came to our attention a little over a week and a half ago. … Our first reaction was, ‘This is not good.’ We were upset,” Pickering said. “I asked people to start thinking of scenarios for, ‘If we have to adapt, how can we adapt?'”
In a Student Senate bill passed Wednesday night, student government took a formal stance on the issue. The bill maintains that “any reduction of student section seating as a result of compliance with the Southeastern Conference’s seating regulations is detrimental to the ‘traditions and pageantry the 12th Man brings to Kyle Field.'”
The seats taken from the student body would likely be allocated to the Twelfth Man Foundation, to be sold to season ticket holders who make contributions to the athletic program. The Senate bill implies an expectation that the student body would receive seats elsewhere in the stadium equal in number to the ones lost, estimated by Pickering to be at least 500.
The Foundation declined to comment in advance of University action.
During Senate debate of the issue, Sen. Mark Womack expressed disappointment that University administration withheld knowledge of the issue from students during the push to join the SEC.
“Frankly, I think this should have been brought to students earlier,” Womack, a graduate student at the Bush School, said. “This is an egregious failure on the part of the University.”
Womack argued that students and administration officials shouldn’t accept that the change is inevitable and should push for an exception to be made.
Pickering hopes, in the event changes must be made, that the sentiments expressed in the bill are upheld by school officials. He plans to express those sentiments in a meeting with A&M President R. Bowen Loftin on Monday and will meet with student leaders including the Corps commander, yell leaders and a student athlete representative Thursday to cement a unified student message.
Mark Jessup, head drum major of the Aggie Band, said moving the band and some students will not compromise Kyle Field’s game day experience.
“A&M is just engrained in tradition and when you start moving things left and right or compromising the reality that we’ve come to accept that, ‘This is Kyle Field’, people are going to get upset,” said Jessup, who also serves in the Student Senate and sponsored the Kyle Field Student Seating perseveration Bill. “Do I think it will compromise the atmosphere? No I don’t. I think that the Twelfth Man isn’t the Twelfth Man because of where they’re standing. I think the Twelfth Man is the Twelfth Man because of what they’re standing for.”
Jason Cook said the administration is not presently considering reducing student seat allocations.
“We know the impact that the Twelfth Man has and we are going to work diligently to ensure we don’t lose that significant home field advantage that we have,” Cook said. “There are no discussions about decreasing the amount of student seating that we have at Kyle Field.”