Texas A&M ready to yell for the SEC

            They say everything’s bigger in Texas, so it makes sense that one of the state’s flagship schools would want to join one of the most elite athletic conferences in all of college sports.

“That was the biggest draw – the SEC wins championships,” said Adrian O’Hanion, sports editor of Texas A&M’s student newspaper, The Battalion. “All of the students that I’ve spoken with think that that’s the athletic conference to be in.”

Aggie fans know all about the history and tradition of SEC football, but not many down south know a lot about Texas A&M.

So what are they all about in College Station, Texas?

For one, the school doesn’t have male cheerleaders – technically, at least.

“We call them yell leaders,” O’Hanion said. “We don’t cheer for our team, we yell for them. We used to be a strictly male university way back in the day and so they felt like it was more masculine to yell than to cheer.”

A&M is known as one of the more hostile atmospheres in college football, and the yell leaders play a big role in creating that environment.

But the Aggies will be competitive in more than football. The school’s men’s basketball team has made the last six NCAA tournaments.

Texas A&M is also ultra-competitive in track and field. Both men’s and women’s outdoors have won the last three national titles

And is there something the school needs to improve on to compete with the best of the best in the SEC?

“Some of the students, they say, ‘We need to get our greek life going,’” O’Harion joked. “That’s a lot of what goes down out there.”

Missouri coming to a new home

            After flirting briefly with the Big Ten last summer, the Tigers will find themselves a little bit farther south next fall when the new athletics season begins.

The Tigers are looking forward to joining the SEC and finding solid ground outside of the shaky Big 12.

“I think it ultimately will be a good move for Missouri,” said Pat Iversen, sports editor of The Maneater, Missouri’s student newspaper. “They’re looking for stability, and that’s something the Big 12 couldn’t offer long term.”

So what does Missouri bring to the conference, besides a perennially competitive football and basketball program?

While many schools celebrate homecoming with a parade and a football game, it’s taken very seriously in Columbia, Missouri.

“Homecoming is a huge tradition here,” Iversen said. “We were the first school to start homecoming. Any SEC school that’s going to be coming here for homecoming next year should be prepared for a wild celebration and a pretty intense atmosphere.”

And the intense atmospheres don’t stop at football games. The school’s basketball cheering section, The Antlers, makes life tough for any opposing team.

“[The Antlers] exist solely to taunt the other team mercilessly in fairly rude and obnoxious ways,” Iversen said.

Case in point: last season, a Kansas Jayhawk player had been arrested, so students blew up his mug shot and put it on a sign that they held up when the player went to shoot a free throw.

“It kind of encapsulates the passion that Mizzou fans have,” he said.

Passionate fanbase? The Tigers should fit right in with the SEC.