12th Man Magazine

Editor
Homer Jacobs

Contributing Writers
Rusty Burson
Jim Molony

Contributing Photographers
Kevin Bartram
Glen Johnson

Inside the Aggies | Boys to Men | No Sweat

Inside the Aggies.

The Program

By Homer Jacobs

Quick, name the only athlete at Texas A&M who is a lock as an All-American this season. Name the only A&M team that is a top 10 staple and the only program with legitimate thoughts of playing for a national championship.

And while you're at it, name the only A&M team that can beat Nebraska this fall.

Dat Nguyen? The Aggie volleyball team? The A&M football team?

Nguyen isn't a lock as an All-American, although he should be. Ohio State's Andy Katzenmoyer is in far too bright a spotlight to give any of the limelight to Nguyen on a national level.

The Aggie volleyball team is a national program very capable of going deep into the NCAA Tournament this fall. But a shot at a national title is a reach for Laurie Corbelli's squad.

And can the Aggie football team beat Nebraska? I suppose. After all, Texas did it. But the Aggies have to get to San Antonio first to even have a chance.

No, the answers to our questions are easy. In fact, there's no doubt to them at all.

Introducing Bryn Blalack and your Aggie soccer team, the 1997 Big 12 champions. Well, actually they were introduced to the crowd at Kyle Field during the halftime of the Oklahoma State game, and the ovation the Aggies received was well-deserved indeed.

For the first time since the 1994 men's tennis team shared a Southwest Conference title, A&M can house the hardware of a conference champion. And the drought has been long and wearing.

The Aggies - although they won the unofficial 1994 football title but were on probation - were not only expected to win a conference crown in 1995, but perhaps contend for a national title as well. The two-week stretch of losses to Colorado and Texas Tech ended the hopes quickly.

The A&M baseball team was one of the favorites to win the first Big 12 baseball crown, along with Oklahoma State, but neither took home the trophy, as Texas Tech and its ineligible band of junior college transfers sneaked into the winner's circle instead.

And even soccer over the last three years has been close to claiming a conference crown.

In the last year of the SWC, A&M finished second to SMU in both the regular season and in the conference tournament. And then in the inaugural year of the Big 12, A&M held a No. 6 ranking for most of the season.

Unfortunately for the Aggies, Nebraska occupied the No. 5 spot and took two games from A&M to win the conference trophies.

Until this year - the year the Aggies broke through with a soccer team that features just four seniors, one superstar and six freshmen in the starting lineup.

It took a 1-0 victory over Nebraska on Sept. 14 in College Station to really secure a shot at an outright title. A tainted loss to Baylor on a controversial goal put a tad of doubt as to whether A&M would have to resort to a co-championship.

But on Oct. 26, A&M left no doubt, shellacking Colorado, 5-0, before another packed crowd at the Aggie Soccer Complex (see related story on pages 18-19). For Aggies everywhere - soccer fans or not - it was a moment that was a long time in coming.

"I think it's a big confidence booster for any Aggie," A&M coach G. Guerrieri said. "This albatross is now gone from the school. We can kind of move forward with this thing in all of our sports."

And the Aggies didn't have an easy road to the title. The Big 12 features two top 10 teams and rapidly improving programs like Texas and Baylor.

Of course, in this superconference, championships may come around about as often as snowstorms in College Station.

Nebraska and Texas dominated the all-sports crowns after the first year of the conference, with A&M relegated toward the bottom in several sports.

"It is a huge accomplishment," Guerrieri said. "You can look at us last year. We finished the year sixth in the nation, but No. 5 in the nation won the championship. But the same can be said for volleyball and for football. To win the conference championship, it seems you have to be the No. 1 team in the nation.

In fact, Nebraska is No. 1 in football, while Texas and Nebraska have spent most of the season in the top 10 in volleyball. The days of gimme games with Rice and TCU are long gone.

"Just because you won the Southwest Conference in the past... the ante has been raised," Guerrieri added. "It's quite an accomplishment to win this in any of the sports."

The Aggies' first class of seniors that graduated a year ago laid the foundation for the program and were not able to celebrate on the field with their former teammates who beat Colorado for the crown.

But after the win earlier in the year over Nebraska, several of the seniors of 1996 called their friends to let them know how excited they were for the Aggies of '97. A&M had lost the original ties, but the train was still rolling down the track.

"They were as happy about it as we were," Blalack said. "They know they were part of the success we had this year. They started it all, and it stems from them. They're just as proud of us as if they had been part of this team still."

Make no mistake about it, Blalack is the key cog in the Aggie machine.

The senior from Carrollton and the school's all-time goal scorer is on track to hold just about every possible soccer record. And she likely will be one of A&M's representatives in a new women's professional league set to start up in 1998.

Blalack and Nguyen are arguably the school's most premier student-athletes, with Blalack up for national Player of the Year honors as she was a year ago.

And this week's 12th Man Magazine covergirl admits it was an emotional day for her when the Aggies finally broke through to rule the Big 12.

"We've done a lot of things with this program," she said. "But (the title) is something now that we our stamp on. It's ours. It's the first Big 12 championship at A&M, and we're really proud of it. It's really exciting."

The soccer program at A&M, in just its fifth year, has become perhaps the athletic department's model program. A&M schedules national title contenders (losing to superpower North Carolina 2-1 this fall) and has shown it can compete with any team in the country.

And academically, the soccer girls' grade-point average of 3.1 is the highest in the athletic department.

The next step for the program on the field will be to do some damage in the NCAA Tournament. The Aggies won one game two years ago in the NCAAs, but lost last year in the first round at home to San Diego.

It was a major upset, considering A&M is nearly unbeatable in College Station.

But this fall, if A&M can win the upcoming Big 12 Tournament, the Aggies should land one of the tournament's top four seeds, assuring A&M of hosting the first three rounds of the 32-team tournament.

"Now it sets up for the next challenge," Guerrieri said. "I'm excited we're in a position to make that step (as a national title contender). Last year, we were set up really well, but it's just one of those things. We've had just two losses this year: North Carolina is a fantastic team, and there were incredible circumstances in the Baylor game."

Yes, this bunch of Aggies has a legitimate shot at the soccer Final Four in December, with possibly three home games along the way.

And when fans head to the Soccer Complex, you'll see a goalie with yellow hair (Melanie Wilson), the school's premier student-athlete in Blalack and some of the most hard-nosed, amazing women's soccer in the country.

But, most of all, you'll see a first at Texas A&M: The 1997 Big 12 champions.

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