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Tell Me About Texas a&m

MrPhlegm

By MrPhlegm
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Walden Ponderer

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6 minutes ago, SwanderedTalent said:

I guess to analogize, that would make Texas Tech Iraq

Nah. There's a fundamental flaw in that analogy. Iran has never, in 7,000 years of having settlements, been dominated for 80 years. Only Alexander ever truly dominated them, and that was for a very short duration.

And Iraq and Iran are roughly co-equal.

I would say it's more like Tech is Colombia, and aggy is Panama. Cool canal and all, but you know you're just being used, right?

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Dennis Taylor

Dennis Taylor 19389

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1 hour ago, EastTexan said:

Mr Clary's little aggy baseball book will get a helluva boost when Looch has him on his radio show to pimp it. Bunch of aggy clones out there that'll eat this shit up.

"Order yours in the next 20 minutes and we'll throw in a free maroon rubber dog turd with the aTm and SEC logos- a $12 value!"

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Cairn Horn88

Cairn Horn88 8502

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4 hours ago, DFW Horn said:

According to this guy, aggy baseball is "elite", but we're delusional for not recognizing their greatness.

This must be found in short-story fiction.

Image

So, this clown has this book title, that he's had in his head since he was in high school (all it takes is everything you've got)....and finally puts it on a book.  That portion of the title, per se, is not bad...just that aggy is not elite, has never been elite....and will never be elite as a baseball program, and the rest of that pile of crap can now be used as fire starter.  I'm sure he'll depend on aggy nation for the several hundred books that will be sold.

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Vic Mackey

Vic Mackey 48034

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"

For over a decade, head coach Rob Childress has built Texas A&M into one of the elite college baseball programs in the country. All it Takes is Everything You’ve Got takes you behind the scenes of the Aggie baseball program, allowing you to meet the players, coaches, and others responsible for that success. 

Given unrestricted access to the inner workings of Texas A&M Baseball, Heath Clary takes you into the dugout, the coaches’ offices, and inside the locker room to chronicle one season of big-time college baseball. This book combines personal profiles with coaching decisions, baseball strategy, and much more to show fans what it’s like to go through the ups and downs of a 56-game schedule.

Heath Clary is a recent graduate of Texas A&M, Class of 2019. He worked in sports media while pursuing his degree in finance and still lives in College Station. This is his first of what he hopes will be many books in his career."

aggie.png

 

Bio of the author: Spoiled for long cat:

Spoiler

Ever since I was a young boy, I have been obsessed with sports. I played baseball, basketball, and football growing up, but when I got to high school I began focusing exclusively on baseball. It was the one I was best at, and it was also the one closest to my heart. I loved everything about it: the one-on-one competition between the pitcher and hitter, the chess matches that take place between the managers throughout the game, and the effervescent beauty of witnessing fundamentals in action that are honed with countless hours of practice that the fans in the stands will never see.

Through hard work, dedication, and only a little bit of talent, I developed into a solid high school player, but when my high school career was complete, I hung up the spikes for good and headed off to college at Texas A&M. It felt weird at first not playing sports anymore; gone were the days of waking up early to take batting practice before school, and for several months I replayed my high school’s upset defeat in the state playoffs over and over in my head. What went wrong, what my team and I could have done differently, etc. 

However, because of my lifelong obsession with sports – some of my friends in high school referred to me as a “sports encyclopedia” because of my ability to recall players and statistics – I knew I still wanted to be involved in sports in some way. So early in my freshman year, I sent in an application to The Battalion, Texas A&M’s student newspaper, and within a few days I was an official sportswriter! That was the genesis of my relationship with Aggie Baseball, and also when the idea of my first book, All It Takes is Everything You’ve Got, first began to formulate in my head.

As a freshman, I covered Texas A&M baseball for The Battalion, and I got to see firsthand one of the best teams that longtime head coach Rob Childress has fielded in his tenure. The Aggies had a school-record 13 players drafted in that year’s MLB Draft – TCU head coach Jim Schlossnage calls the 2016 Aggie squad “as good of a college baseball team as I’ve seen in a very long time” − and I was fortunate enough to build relationships with some of the people responsible for that success. I was always incredibly impressed with the way the players and coaches carried themselves on and off the field, and it was fun to write about them because they always treated me with great respect and answered all my questions. 

I continued writing about Texas A&M baseball as a sophomore and junior, and during that time I moved over to TexAgs.com, a subscriber-based website dedicated to A&M sports, to increase exposure and reach a larger audience. But when my senior year came around, I wanted to do something different. I didn’t just want to sit in the press box, watch the game, and then write a quick recap of what transpired. I wanted to go inside the program and see what it’s like to play big-time college baseball. I wanted to see what really goes on behind closed doors, at practice, and in the coaches’ meetings. What goes into certain coaching decisions, how the players handle a losing streak, and what it’s like being a part of one of the elite programs in the country. 

As a 21-year-old, I had never written a book, but I had read plenty of them. I had always been enamored with “a season inside”-type books, the kind John Feinstein popularized when he spent the 1986 season with Bobby Knight and Indiana Hoosier basketball and authored A Season on the Brink. I wanted to do the same for Texas A&M baseball and so, heeding the advice I had received from several wise men and women over the years, I went in and simply asked if I could do it. The first person I approached was assistant coach Justin Seely. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction of my book where I recount how I got permission to pursue this project:

I felt like the coaches respected me enough to hear me out, but I was still a little nervous as I met with Seely in his office at the beginning of the fall 2018 semester. “I have something I want to ask you about,” I said. “If y’all say no then y’all say no, but I have to ask.”

Seely gives me an understanding nod. “I want to write a book about this year’s team,” I continue. Without skipping a beat, Seely asks me some follow-up questions about what I would need in terms of access and time from them, and my answers seem to pass his test. Then Will Bolt, the Aggies’ hitting coach, walks by in the hallway. 

Seely calls him in and tells me to share my idea with Bolt. I repeat the things I told Seely a few minutes before, and after a few more minutes of discussion, they are both on board. However, there is another step: I have to get Coach Childress’ stamp of approval. 

“Coach’s time is valuable,” Seely said. “Type out what you need from him on one piece of paper so he can easily read it and sign off if he wants to.”

So that’s exactly what I do, and I head into the boss’s office a few days later. I show him my outline, and Childress reads through it in about five seconds. “You know if you do this you’re going to have to be around a lot, right?” he asks.

Like my first-ever encounter with him, I am stunned. I was confident he was going to give the go-ahead, especially after the response I got from the assistants, but I thought it might come with some caveats. Instead, he wants to make sure I am going to be all-in, which was my entire plan in the first place.

“I’ll be around as much as you’ll let me,” I respond.

“Well okay then,” he says. “I think this can be really cool. I hope we can give you a special season to write about.”

Just like that, the book was in process.

And what a year it was. The Aggies had their share of ups and downs and ultimately did not win the championship that the program and fanbase desperately craves, but spending the season inside the program and writing a book about it was the opportunity of a lifetime. I was going to nearly every practice, watching games from right behind Coach Childress in the dugout, and interviewing whoever I needed to interview to help my book reach its fullest potential. 

It was a privilege that hardly anyone will ever get to experience, and I hope everyone will enjoy reading my book as much as I enjoyed writing it. I followed the Aggies for this book, but it has all the features of a season for any college baseball team in the country – dealing with injuries, superstars going through slumps, surprising emergences of players not initially expected to contribute, and much more. 

I believe fans of Texas A&M, college baseball, and sports in general will enjoy this book. It mixes personal profiles with in-game commentary from the players and coaches, baseball strategy, and coaching decisions. I look forward to hearing feedback from the people who read it, and I will be back in the future with another book you can enjoy!

 

Heath Clary

Texas A&M Class of 2019

 

 

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Valmy77

Valmy77 13626

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Building an elite College Baseball Program without ever even winning a game in Omaha is quite an achievement. I have to wonder how many other coaches have managed to achieve that since 1947 in College Baseball? Precious few I am sure.

Edited by Valmy77
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gyroprotagonist

gyroprotagonist 2597

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4 minutes ago, 4Pete said:

I don't understand why he would write a book about a team that has exactly as many College World Series championships as I do?  It's puzzling?

Did he write the book just to use that title?

Best team within a 1 mile radius of his dorm room?  aint no body got time for drives to Lubbock, Austin or Waco to cover a better team.

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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As the old adage goes...write what you know.  And Heath Clary knows mediocrity.  Nothing wrong with going through life with a .550 winning percentage, a 165 pound wife, clipping $92,500/year, considering Olive Garden to be fine dining, and to be a Texas Aggie thru and thru.  But it's nothing to write a fucking book about.  Know your station.  The world is mostly in the middle, know your place. 

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DFW Horn

DFW Horn 6671

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1 hour ago, Vic Mackey said:

Given unrestricted access to the inner workings of Texas A&M Baseball, Heath Clary takes you into the dugout, the coaches’ offices, and inside the locker room to chronicle one season of big-time college baseball. This book combines personal profiles with coaching decisions, baseball strategy, and much more to show fans what it’s like to go through the ups and downs of a 56-game schedule.

So, Heath got to see aggy get knocked out of the NCAAs by TCU once or twice?

Edited by DFW Horn
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Longboard Horn

Longboard Horn 41403

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Got kicked out of a bar last night for pissing off all the aggys. In fact, the bar was full of aggys. I told them that the corps of cadets is a national joke and are fake military while analyzing why and giving real facts. The uproar was hilarious! The owner told me it was in my best interest (and for my safety) to leave because half a dozen aggys were about to jump me. Such children. They can't accept the truth about their inferiority.  

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Hagbard Celine

Hagbard Celine 11296

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21 hours ago, Auto Driller said:

This page is gold.

aggy baseball is even shittier than Western Michigan and Maine, but somehow are “elite”.

Another fucking lost ring story - do they ever get tired of this shit??

aggy educator network looks exactly like you’d expect.

sulking in peart misery on a grey wet morning.

WELP THERE'S aggy GOING FULL aggy SIMPLY BY POSING FOR THE CAMERA EYE.

TIME FOR COFFEE!!

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C-Man

C-Man 27836

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Got kicked out of a bar last night for pissing off all the aggys. In fact, the bar was full of aggys. I told them that the corps of cadets is a national joke and are fake military while analyzing why and giving real facts. The uproar was hilarious! The owner told me it was in my best interest (and for my safety) to leave because half a dozen aggys were about to jump me. Such children. They can't accept the truth about their inferiority.  


Dude. Not cool making fun of special needs people.
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Chopper

Chopper 17451

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11 hours ago, 4Pete said:

I don't understand why he would write a book about a team that has exactly as many College World Series championships as I do?  It's puzzling?

Did he write the book just to use that title?

Some aggy was stupid enough to set up a website to exclusively feature Hamm. Those fucktards will resort to anything.

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closetojumping

closetojumping 65540

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20 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

Book idea for 2020: The Maroon Wave (The Coming Dominance of Texas A&M Athletics, Why the 2020s Will Be Known As The Aggie Decade, And Why There's Nothing Anyone Can Do To Stop It)

First I would spend a chapter or two on why A&M has traditionally exceeded expectations despite sabotage by UT, the SWC/Big 12/NCAA and self-imposed burdens like winning World War II and delaying coeducation, and why only the parts of the past that reflect well on A&M matter. So the national titles in 1919, 1927, 1939, and all of the best years in A&M history since (like 1992-93-94 and 2012) are relevant to what will happen in the next ten years, but the rest of it is tainted by things outside A&M's control that no longer exist or that A&M has grown too powerful to be affected by. 

Then I would lay the groundwork for my "theory" by talking up Jimbo Fisher, Buzz Williams, and whatever idiot is in charge of A&M baseball, along with any other sports A&M is even moderately competitive in. Like women's basketball, I guess but don't care?

Lastly I would spend the latter half of the book choosing the best current college sports programs regardless of what they have in common with A&M, and then predicting A&M will be the 2020s version of that. Clemson in football, Duke in basketball, etc. 

And to really juice things, the last chapter would be an epilogue from April 2, 2030, where a comically perfect tri-sport high school athlete (baseball, basketball and football) is sitting on a lakefront home's front porch, listening to his wise grandfather explain how much has changed for A&M over the past ten years of winning national championships in everything. It will be heavily implied that the athlete can go anywhere in the country and is considering other schools, maybe Texas and Ohio State and Alabama, whatever. But after listening, the athlete says, "Gramps, I know I'll never really understand Texas A&M from the outside, and I know A&M is the pinnacle of athletics. That's where I'm going to college!"

Dumb it down to a fourth-grade reading level and it'll sell a hundred thousand copies easy.

I’ve read a lot of business plans, and I can tell you that this is easily the best one I’ve ever seen. You need to get on this now. Take a sabbatical from your job as a bouncer or corporate scalawag and start punching the keystrokes. There’s a pot of gold for you at the end of this rainbow. 

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SwanderedTalent

SwanderedTalent 5761

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3 hours ago, Longboard Horn said:

Got kicked out of a bar last night for pissing off all the aggys. In fact, the bar was full of aggys. I told them that the corps of cadets is a national joke and are fake military while analyzing why and giving real facts. The uproar was hilarious! The owner told me it was in my best interest (and for my safety) to leave because half a dozen aggys were about to jump me. Such children. They can't accept the truth about their inferiority.  

Something like that happened to me once. I was in a bar and said to the bartender, "You wanna hear an Aggie joke?" and he said, "Son, you see that guy at the end of the bar? The biker with the eyepatch? He's an Aggie. You see that huge bouncer at the door? He's an Aggie. And me, I'm six-foot-three, three-hundred-pounds of Aggie pride. You still wanna tell us an Aggie joke?" And I'm like, "oh, hell, no, I'd have to explain it three times."

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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 55893

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15 hours ago, Vic Mackey said:

As a freshman, I covered Texas A&M baseball for The Battalion, and I got to see firsthand one of the best teams that longtime head coach Rob Childress has fielded in his tenure. The Aggies had a school-record 13 players drafted in that year’s MLB Draft – TCU head coach Jim Schlossnage calls the 2016 Aggie squad “as good of a college baseball team as I’ve seen in a very long time”

Didn't go to Omaha -- lost to TCU in Supers -- but this was the year they won the SEC Tournament and dogpiled:

Day6_SEC_Championship_3220.JPG?width=192

Edited by Beau Vine
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Updawg

Updawg 2388

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I’ve read a lot of business plans, and I can tell you that this is easily the best one I’ve ever seen. You need to get on this now. Take a sabbatical from your job as a bouncer or corporate scalawag and start punching the keystrokes. There’s a pot of gold for you at the end of this rainbow. 
It really is especially if you release it during peak off-season, like August.

If you need filler just throw in a bunch of SEC bullshit and talk about the 100 year decision and Johnny football beating bama
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Armybrat

Armybrat 41454

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2 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

Something like that happened to me once. I was in a bar and said to the bartender, "You wanna hear an Aggie joke?" and he said, "Son, you see that guy at the end of the bar? The biker with the eyepatch? He's an Aggie. You see that huge bouncer at the door? He's an Aggie. And me, I'm six-foot-three, three-hundred-pounds of Aggie pride. You still wanna tell us an Aggie joke?" And I'm like, "oh, hell, no, I'd have to explain it three times."

An oldie but goodie. Lulz

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Deej

Deej 77894

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6 minutes ago, Jkwellborn said:

Went to a Criss Angel show last night. Chick I. The audience is asked her favorite color. She replies maroon. The dozen or so dumb ass aggys whooped. Fucking losers.

You're the one hanging out with the aggy.

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