R.C. Slocum will be honored as the 34th recipient of the Touchdown Club of Houston's Touchdowner of the Year Award at a luncheon on Thursday, Sept. 9 at 12 noon in the Grand Ballroom of the JW Marriott Hotel at 5150 Westheimer.

Bum Bright, Ray Childress, and Mickey Herskowitz will be among the many guests who will help honor Slocum, who is being honored for his many contributions to football. Previous winners of the Touchdowner of the Year Award include Bear Bryant, Gene Stallings, Johnny Unitas, D.X. Bible, Earl Campbell, and Jack Pardee.

It will be the Aggies' only chance to see Slocum in Houston before the

Touchdown Club's annual A&M/UT Luncheon on Nov. 24. Tickets for the

Touchdowner of the Year Luncheon are $35 each and can be purchased by

sending a check to the Touchdown Club of Houston, PO Box 272911, Houston, TX 77277-2911 or by calling 713-349-0744.

NEW AGGIE INTERNET SITES AVAILABLE

Aggie football fans can now sign up now for Inside Texas A&M Football, a free newsletter written by The Dallas Morning News' Al Carter and delivered straight to your e-mail. Log on to dallasnews.com, The Dallas Morning News' web site, for details.

"Planet Aggie" also has arrived on the internet and is ready for the 1999 sports season for all Aggie fans. http://www.planetaggie.com/ has links to everything for Texas A&M Aggie fans including football, baseball,

basketball, recruiting, shopping, personal pages and a few links to the

other schools in the Big XII.

This is a valuable resource for all Texas A&M fans, alumni and supporters.

KICKOFF CAMP RAISES $60,000

Texas A&M Head Coach R.C. Slocum presented a check to the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band for $30,000 and an identical $30,000 check to the

Sterling C. Evans Library as the record edition of the 1999 Kickoff Camp started to wind down.

"We presented the checks to the Aggie Band and the library in front of the squad to reinforce that we are a part of this University," Slocum said. "As a football program, we appreciate the support we receive at Texas A&M. The Aggie Band is the best in the country and the library is such an important part of any institution."

There were 124 kickoff campers this August who went through player meetings, watched practices and viewed scouting reports.

A&M-KANSAS GAME PART OF "BIG MONDAY"

Texas A&M will play host to Kansas on Jan. 17 at Reed Arena as part of ESPN's series of nationally-televised "Big Monday" match-ups, highlighting the Aggies' 1999-2000 schedule.

The game is scheduled for an 8 p.m. tipoff and will mark the first nationally-televised game at Reed Arena, which opened last season. A&M's last "Big Monday" appearance was an 81-80 loss to Texas at G. Rollie White Coliseum in 1998.

The Aggies will play all five south division schools in the Big 12 on a home-and-home basis while playing north division teams Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska at home and Missouri, Kansas State and Iowa State on the road.

The 26-game schedule includes 11 games against teams that advanced to postseason play last season, including eight games against teams that played in the NCAA Tournament. The Phillips 66 Big 12 Tournament will be March 9-12 in Kansas City.

"We hope this schedule gives the young kids we have coming in a chance to get their feet wet," A&M coach Melvin Watkins said. "The schedule gets progressively tougher and hopefully by January and February our players will have logged some minutes and have gotten a taste of what college basketball is all about."