458: A New Day Dawning

Part Three: A New Day Dawning

Move-in day is always a uniquely emotional experience for new college students and their families. The students are teeming with anticipation of a long and exhilarating new journey. Parents and siblings look back at 18 years of growth and recall the demanding path it took to prepare their loved one for the inaugural voyage into adulthood. Tears are shed. Hearts ache. Minds long for days past. 

In Aggieland, that experience is often seasoned with triple-digit temperatures, humidity that quite frankly should be illegal, swarms of hundreds of people and ungodly traffic on University Drive. The process is often arduous and tempers flare at times, but at the end of it all, when families say their final goodbyes and the dorm or apartment door closes, none of that seems to matter. The sun has set on childhood, and the opportunities of adulthood glisten just above the horizon. 

Behind the pomp and circumstance of an athletic event; behind the gameday experience or any of the fun activities that define a day at Blue Bell Park, Davis Diamond, Ellis Field, E.B. Cushing Stadium, or the Mitchell Tennis Center; there is a similar spirit of reflection and recollection. Every time a Texas A&M student-athlete takes center-stage at their facility, they personify almost two decades of a nonstop grind that places them on a pedestal of excellence that few others have ever reached.

All of their work, indeed all of OUR work culminates in these special moments. Move-in day, graduation, a National Championship—different ways of saying the same thing. It is in those moments when we remember what we all worked so hard for.

If you were to head outside today and stand for a couple of minutes, it’s highly likely that the first thing you’ll notice is the unbearable heat. It’s kind of crazy to think about how, not even six months ago, the whole state was plastered with layers of snow and ice.

That frigid week of winter weather had a noticeable effect on Texas A&M softball, which was looking forward to opening its season on Valentine’s Day weekend. The icy blast ultimately cancelled the season-opening tournament, pushing the first action of the 2021 campaign back to February 20. It was a grand total of 345 days since the first COVID-19 related cancellations in March of 2020. When the lid was finally lifted, one Aggie responded by demolishing every ball tossed her way. Haley Lee, a junior catcher from Kingwood, Texas, launched three home runs in the first game of the season against Central Arkansas, and just for fun, added yet another in the nightcap versus Colorado State. 

Four home runs in a single day. It’s safe to say Haley was ready for primetime. 

It was an utterly dominant season from Lee, one in which she set the Texas A&M single-season home run record with 25 dingers and recorded an astronomical .422 average in the batter’s box. She finished as a NFCA All-American and Softball America’s 2021 NCAA Most Improved Player. With additional support coming from Makinzy Herzog, Bre Warren and Shaylee Ackerman, head coach Jo Evans’ squad finished with a 32-23 overall record coupled with the program’s 19th consecutive NCAA Regional appearance. 

Although we are by no means through with the Coronavirus pandemic, the hope afforded by the arrival of multiple new vaccinations that received Emergency Use Authorizations from the U.S. Federal Government in the spring did lend itself to some much-needed optimism. After the ice had thawed at Davis Diamond, the hope for a somewhat-normal future gave us all something to fight for.

It would be a little over a month before we would arrive at the biggest fight of the 2021 spring athletics season. It was the evening of March 30. For many people, it was just another Tuesday night. For Aggies, it was time to beat the hell outta t.u. 

In a socially distant Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park, with the nationally famous Section 203 relocated to right field, nine Aggie baseball players took to the diamond led by All-American Will Frizzell and freshman pitcher Nathan Dettmer. The National Anthem played. The Longhorn dugout attempted to sing “The Eyes of Texas,” but it was a little hard to make out the lyrics over the sound of hundreds of Aggies beating mercilessly on their seatbacks. The War Hymn assumed its original meaning, and for the first time in a long time, it felt as though we were getting back to normal. 

It’s hard to pick out a single moment that you loved about that game. Was it Logan Britt’s homer in the bottom of the fourth? Could it be Mikey Hoehner’s left field smash in the seventh? What about the ovation for Dettmer as he left the mound after seven shutout innings? Or was it when Section 203 chanted the Longhorn right fielder’s batting statistics AT him (he went 0-for-4, but who’s keeping track)?

I couldn’t blame you if your favorite moment was the iconic video of relief pitcher Chandler Jozwiak flashing the “horns down” following the 2-0 win to a national television audience on ESPNU. That one went crazy on Twitter. 

With all of that being said, the thing that I will remember most, and the thing that Texas A&M Director of Athletics Ross Bjork remembers the most, is the feeling of thousands of Aggie voices, people of all ages with very different backgrounds, singing “so long to the orange and the white.” Sports bring people together. The Texas rivalry brings Aggies together, and seeing Olsen Field teeming with people reminded us all of the bright new future that lies ahead.

“I really haven’t seen Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park full,” Bjork recalled. “I wasn’t here in 2019. We had a shortened season in 2020 with a lot of cold weather games. I was really waiting for a moment like that Texas game this season, and obviously we still had limited capacity even then, so I can’t wait to see it back 100% full with that place shaking. Even with all the limitations, that Texas game shows you how important the 12th Man is, and what kind of an impact our fans have on the game. That’s what we want it to be like every single night, and we want the crowd to have an impact. With Coach [Jim] Schlossnagle coming in next year, and all of the restrictions being lifted, I can’t wait to see our home-field advantage in full force.”

And what a home field advantage it is. 

Meanwhile, the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center housed two of the most successful programs on campus last season, as both the Aggie men’s and women’s tennis teams made a significant amount of noise en route to historic postseason campaigns. 

On the men’s side of the clubhouse, head coach Steve Denton guided his team to a 19-9 season that featured a top-four seed in the Southeastern Conference and an Elite Eight finish in the NCAA Tournament. Senior Valentin Vacherot made history as Texas A&M’s all-time record holder in singles victories with a whopping 122 wins over the course of his storied career. Vacherot finished as an All-SEC First Team honoree, an ITA Singles All-American and SEC Player of the Year, landing at the No. 4 position in the final ITA Singles rankings. Senior star Hady Habib also made waves, holding the No. 1 ranking for large portions of the year, also garnering ITA Singles All-America honors. The doubles team of Juan Carlos Aguilar and Bjorn Thomson finished as a top-10 tandem and garnered their own set of All-American accolades, punctuating one of the most decorated years in program annals.

Aggie women’s tennis also saw success pour in across the board. Despite a variety of weather and COVID-related speedbumps, the team managed to come together and produce a 21-8 season that saw the Maroon & White battle for a SEC Championship. Despite being one of the nation’s top-10 programs, the team was sent to Evanston, Illinois for the opening rounds of the NCAA Tournament. After dismantling Drake in the first round, the Aggies squared off with the host-Northwestern Wildcats and came away with a thrilling 4-2 win that booked A&M’s trip to Orlando, Florida for the seventh Sweet 16 in Aggie history. Tatiana Makarova led the way, earning ITA All-America honors in both singles and doubles, coupled with an All-SEC First Team selection. With four starters set to return next season in addition to the No. 2 recruiting class in the country, the sky is the limit for Texas A&M women’s tennis.

Fans at Ellis Field were on a wild, albeit different ride of their own. A sport that is notoriously played in the fall, Aggie soccer is one of the most entertaining gameday experiences in all of college sports. You have the scarves. You have the Yell Leaders. You have the Hullabaloo Band. You have exciting soccer and legendary coaches like our very own G Guerrieri. Texas A&M soccer under the lights in the fall is a must-see experience, but due to the ever-changing nature of the Coronavirus pandemic, the season got split in two. 

The first half—an eight match schedule that featured all-SEC opponents—took place during the usual months of September, October and November. That part of the year ended in an SEC Regular Season Championship and saw the Maroon & White land a berth in the SEC Tournament Semifinals in Orange Beach, Alabama. Team leaders Jimena Lopez and Addie McCain each received All-SEC and SEC positional awards, but following the NWSL Draft in January, both players elected to forgo their remaining collegiate eligibility and turn pro. The Aggies would return their remaining starters from the fall, but the losses of Lopez and McCain left significant holes in the lineup that would have to take on the non-conference and NCAA Tournament portions of the schedule in the spring.

But that’s when the magic happened. 

Despite losing two cornerstones in the lineup, despite splitting the season in half, despite months and months of adversity and uncertainty, Texas A&M soccer clawed its way to a spectacular postseason finish. After earning a first-round bye and breezing past USF in the second round, the Aggie eleven took the field in Cary, North Carolina, against the Oklahoma State Cowgirls. A&M took a 2-1 lead into halftime, but OSU was able to respond and keep pace with the Maroon & White, leaving the match deadlocked at 3-3 at the end of regulation. The score remained tied through extra time, and the match came down to penalty kicks. 

Both teams made each of their first three shots, and missed their fourth, giving way to an absolutely critical matchup in the fifth stanza of the shootout. Oklahoma State’s player missed, and Laney Carroll drilled it. The Aggies were going to the Elite Eight for the seventh time in program history. 

“Obviously it was an unprecedented season, especially when you consider that they had to split the season in half,” Bjork stated. “They won an SEC regular reason championship in the fall, took some time off and ran through the non-conference schedule in the spring. One thing through it all that impressed me was how G [Guerrieri] managed the roster, because there were a couple of players that went on to professional careers after the fall that didn’t stay for the spring, so he had some newcomers that had to make an immediate impact. To me, Coach G did a great job of managing the dynamics of a split season, roster changes in the middle of the year and gearing up for a historic postseason run. Now, we have all the weapons coming back, so it’s starting to look like a very exciting season in 2021.”

When you take a minute to just sit back and consider how far we’ve come since the earliest shutdowns in March of last year, the thought is a little overwhelming. We’ve gone from completely normal, to a global disaster, to some sort of hybrid lifestyle, all in a span of less than a year and a half. It’s been extremely hectic to say the least. 

Now imagine you’re a Texas A&M track & field athlete. You woke up this morning absolutely amped for the NCAA Indoor Championships that will be taking place later in the day. You’ve battled for years and years anticipating a moment of this magnitude to put your name in the national spotlight. You arrive at the facility, lace up your shoes and start warming up. Sure there’s a group of officials off in the corner talking in hushed tones, but you pay them no mind.

Until you have to. 

That’s what happened to Aggie track & field on March 12, 2020. They were literally warming up on the track in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when the NCAA shut their season down. The men’s year was over. The women’s year was over. Holding an outdoor season, even at that time, seemed like an impossibility. It’s one thing to have your legs swept out from under you when you’re in the comfort of your own home. It’s another thing entirely when you’ve already made the trip and started warming up.

Flash forward to January of 2021. The indoor track & field season began in the friendly confines of the Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium, as the Maroon & White took to the oval for the first time competitively since that fateful spring day in Albuquerque. Led by legendary head coach Pat Henry, anticipation had been building for a remarkable year, and the first day of the season certainly did not disappoint. It was on January 16 when you learned the big names—Bryce Deadmon, Tyra Gittens, Athing Mu—names you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

The men’s program got out of the gates with an exhilarating 45.68 second performance from Deadmon in the 400 meter event at the Ted Nelson Invitational, a world-leading result at the time. A week later, the men’s program saw Deadmon break a school record in the 300 meter, finishing in 32.73 seconds. The remainder of the men’s indoor season was punctuated by multiple Texas A&M records, All-SEC honors for Brandon Miller and Mason Corbin and USTFCCCA All-America laurels for Deadmon, Omajuwa Etiwe, Moitalel Mpoke, James Smith Jr, Darius Clark and Allon Clay. 

At E.B. Cushing Stadium, the men continued to see measures of success, ultimately culminating in a sixth place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon. Deadmon joined dual-sport athlete Devon Achane (yes, the same Devon Achane who was named Orange Bowl MVP) as the only two Aggie men’s athletes to garner THREE All-America designations in the outdoor season, an impressive accomplishment to say the least. In addition to the accomplishments of Deadmon and Achane, six other Aggies drew seven more All-America distinctions, bringing the men’s total number of outdoor All-America awards to 13. If that wasn’t enough, the Southeastern Conference also granted its highest honor, the H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award, to Aggie graduate and distance runner Jon Bishop.

The Texas A&M women’s indoor track & field season was absolutely iconic. Athing Mu was undeniably the greatest mid-distance runner in America on the track, Tyra Gittens and Deborah Acquah were lights-out in the field events and Coach Henry’s squad finished with the accolades to match. They collected 13 USTFCCCA All-America designations, saw Mu finish as the SEC Indoor Runner of the Year and Freshman Runner of the Year, landed Gittens as the SEC Women’s Indoor Field Athlete of the year and placed both Mu and Gittens on the All-SEC First Team. It was only fitting that they finished as the No. 2 team in the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

With it all said and done, Athing Mu currently owns six collegiate records, eight Texas A&M records, three NCAA Championships, three SEC Championships, and most importantly… two Olympic gold medals. Tyra Gittens can say that she is the greatest indoor pentathlete in collegiate history, the owner of six Aggie program records, three NCAA titles and five SEC titles. Their greatness is practically unmatchable, and neither of them have yet reached their prime. 

The women finished the outdoor season with 14 All-America honors overall. They rattled off 10 different All-SEC honors. When it comes to accomplishments and accolades, rest assured, Aggie track & field has them in droves. All of their efforts were celebrated throughout the year, but the biggest event was the one coming in June. The anticipation had been building for quite some time, and when the lid was finally lifted off the pot of boiling water, your Aggies definitely didn’t disappoint. 

When the sun rose on the morning of June 12, 2021, we had finally made it. It was a new day dawning. It was day 458. 

The Maroon & White finished in second place in the hunt for the NCAA Championship that day, but the national runner-up finish wasn’t the only thing to be proud of. When the last athlete crossed the finish line, Texas A&M athletics also crossed its own finish line. From the starting gun in cross country way back in September, to the final event in June, we had done it. We had finished a race that was 458 days in the making, and that alone was a catharsis none of us can begin to describe. Through it all, you were there. The 12th Man never wavered in its support, and Aggie athletics never wavered in its success.

In P.H. DuVal’s classic poem about Texas A&M, “The Last Corps Trip” he describes in four lines what took me three feature stories…

I’ve seen them play since way back when,

And they’ve always had the grit;

I’ve seen ‘em lose and I’ve seen ‘em win,

But I’ve never seen ‘em quit.

We never quit. We never backed down. Through tragedies and triumphs, we kept fighting. And now, in the bountiful light of a brand new day, we turn our gaze to the future.