This Show Must Go On

Texas plays at Texas A&M; on Friday in a game rendered unimportant by last week’s bonfire tragedy in College Station that left 12 Aggie students dead, others injured and a community forever scarred.

So, why play the game?

Because it needs to be played.

No, it has to be played.

Not because bowl berths are at stake, or because anything remotely significant has to be settled in the 106th meeting of these bitter rivals, but because the game is the first important step toward something better.

They say football is religion in the South, and it has been argued football stadiums are quasi-spiritual structures. And while it might be a stretch to compare the gathering of 80,000 people at Kyle Field at 10 a.m. on Friday to a memorial service, well, maybe it’s not a stretch.

“I wouldn’t use the words ‘religious experience,’ ” said Rick Rigsby, Texas A&M;’s life skills coordinator and an ordained minister. “But it’s going to be very emotional. It’s going to be cathartic for fans. It’s going to be a time for healing. You’re talking about a family reunion, about brothers and sisters, moms and dads and cousins getting together. The table happens to be football. People will talk, and remember, and cry, and laugh, and cheer.”

In times of despair, Rigsby says, when the alarm clock rings to the reality of tragedy, you have to fight the numbness, dress in the darkness, put a comb through your hair and force yourself out the door.

Rigsby, a communications professor, learned that lesson from his young sons a few years ago when his first wife died.

“It was just me and my two boys,” Rigsby said. “I wanted to stay in my place of grief. It was my boys who said, ‘Dad, we don’t have driver’s licenses, we can’t take us to school.’ When I finally started moving on, the healing process began.”

The game must go on, if only to occupy space and time, to provide a gathering place.

“You don’t forget,” Rigsby said, “but you’re diverted. You don’t forget, but you’re entertained. You don’t forget, but you can laugh a little bit.”

Rigsby has ministered to dozens of Texas A&M; football players trying to cope with the tragedy. This week, he presided over a funeral for one of the students killed. Rigsby said, to a man, the players want to play Texas because they feel it is their obligation.

“Bonfire,” a 90-year tradition, is constructed each year to inspire the team in its “burning desire” to beat archrival Texas.

When the log foundation collapsed a week ago, members of the football team were among the first on the scene.

“Our whole team ended up being there,” Texas A&M; Coach R.C. Slocum said. “We were trying to move logs out of the way. These logs are really big and heavy, and they were moving them back as they were trying to dismantle the bonfire stack to free some of the still-trapped victims.”

Outsiders who discount the significance of pomp, pride, loyalty and honor will never understand Texas A&M.; It may, in fact, be the college most deeply steeped in tradition.

Founded in 1876, Texas A&M; quickly took on a military structure; once the entire student body was made up of its Corps of Cadets.

In its most famous tradition, “12th man,” Aggie students stand for the duration of home games just in case the team needs them in a pinch.

The history: With the Texas A&M; squad depleted by injuries in the 1922 Dixie Classic, E. King Gill, a member of the basketball team, rushed down from the press box and dressed in the uniform of a fallen player.

He was never needed, but he was ready.

To this day, walk-on members of the Aggie student body vie for the right to run down on kickoffs at home games.

The number “12” will now hold a more somber place in Aggie lore.

Cancel the game?

No, never.

Games must go on.

They continued through World War II, when Aggies were falling in fields overseas. They were played in the aftermath of John Kennedy’s assassination.

In America, we play through the pain. When a space shuttle mission ended horrifically, we sent up another as soon as possible.

When an earthquake wreaked destruction and rocked the 1989 World Series in San Francisco, we played ball as soon as it was safe.

And so it must be Friday, Texas at Texas A&M.;

“This rivalry has remained a very strong rivalry for a long, long time,” Slocum said this week. “It will continue to do so.

“We’ll move forward from this. We’ll never forget this, never forget the young people, but as life goes on, we’ll all have to go on. And this game will go on.”

And, so too, should “Bonfire.”

As investigators sift through the wreckage and seek answers to this calamity, Texas A&M; officials must decide whether the tradition should live or die.

It has been a field-day subject for Texas talk radio.

No question: “Bonfire” must live.

Should they make the bonfire ritual safer? Absolutely. Do whatever is necessary to ensure this will never happen again.

Scale down the bonfire, but don’t dismantle tradition or take students out of the equation.

Traditions are the lifeblood of college football, what separates it from the rank professional ranks.

“Traditions are like glue,” Rigsby said.

The chant for Stanford-Cal should always be “Give ‘em the ax, give ‘em the ax.” Clemson players should never pass through Death Valley without touching “Howard’s Rock.”

Rigsby attended Oregon, where the annual game against Oregon State is known as the “Civil War,” but he says his understanding of tradition changed when he arrived in College Station in 1992.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Rigsby said of Texas A&M.; “You don’t walk on the grass here, it’s a living memorial to the people that have died in service. You take your hats off in buildings. You say ‘howdy’ to each other when you pass by. It’s an amazing place.”

Rigsby says those who think “Bonfire” should be discontinued should spend time with the family of the victims.

“It’s hard for me to listen to people say there shouldn’t be a bonfire while I’m staring into the face of a man who lost his daughter,” Rigsby said, “and he says to me, ‘If there’s no bonfire in future years, then my daughter has died in vain.’ ”

Play the game. Keep the bonfire. Honor the dead by living.

Texas A&M; players will wear decals on their helmets Friday and dedicate the game to fallen comrades.

In the least, tragedy has muted the petty hatred that has sometimes accompanied this rivalry.

This week, Texas canceled its annual “Texas A&M; Hex Rally” and replaced it with a memorial service.

There have been blood drives in Austin to help the wounded in College Station.

At the core, Texas Coach Mack Brown said, “Rivalries are usually built around respect.”

This week, Brown showed his by affixing a ribbon to his car antenna.

“The game on the same level as life and death is obviously not worth talking about,” Brown said. “But if you’re going to play the game, then you need to play, you need to play hard and you need to play with spirit.”

BCS MATTERS

Beating the pants off your opponent has officially become big business.

In the race to become Florida State’s dance partner in the Jan. 4 Sugar Bowl, No. 2 Virginia Tech leads No. 3 Nebraska by .63 in this week’s bowl championship series rankings.

Virginia Tech actually lost ground after last week’s 62-7 win over Temple because the Owls’ 2-8 record hurt the Hokies’ in the strength-of-schedule component.

A disturbing scenario has unfolded.

To have a chance of overtaking Virginia Tech, assuming the Hokies beat Boston College on Friday, Nebraska not only has to defeat Colorado on Friday and Texas in the Big 12 title game Dec. 4, it has to try to run up the score.

Here’s why: Nebraska essentially is capped out in three of the four BCS areas: The Cornhuskers can make up ground only in the computer component. Seven of the eight computers used in the BCS factor margin of victory into the equation.

Let’s say Nebraska has a 22-10 lead on Colorado in the final minute. The Cornhuskers have the ball on the Buffaloes’ one-yard line, but Colorado has no timeouts remaining.

In most cases, the Nebraska quarterback would take a knee, run out the clock and not embarrass the opponent with a meaningless touchdown.

With a possible national title berth at stake, however, Nebraska would be compelled to tack on the extra touchdown.

“I think if that’s the way it is, and that’s what you have to do to get your team there, then you have to do it,” Colorado Coach Gary Barnett said this week. “Unfortunately, sometimes what we might call ethics get laid aside in that situation. But I think everybody understands it.”

The BCS is not only confusing, it has put coaches in uncomfortable positions.

Nebraska Coach Frank Solich may have no choice but to try to run it up on two conference foes.

“It’s probably not the way any coach wants to look at approaching a game,” Solich acknowledged this week.

“To say we’re going to go in and try to win it by a certain margin, I think that is not accurate. It’s not even something we think about at this point in time. We’re going to try and just win the game.”