I realize that most of these blogs are attempts at humor or just me venting, but tonight I have something a little more serious to say. I realized this week that I wasn’t done on my journey of truly being a part of the Aggie Family. I think for most Aggies there are a few stages between “hey, I could see myself at A&M” and walking across the stage at graduation. But this week I found a new step, one that I never realized was so important until now.

Tonight was Aggie Muster. If you know me you’ve heard me talk about it before because it’s easily the best Aggie Tradition there is. If you don’t know what it is click here to learn the history. I’ve only gone to one Aggie Muster outside of College Station, and that was in Kerrville. The Kerr County A&M Club has a tradition where they invite graduating high school seniors that are attending A&M to come to the Muster. So the only other one I’ve been to was when I didn’t even really know what Muster was.

The experience at Muster tonight was, simply put, amazing. Our Houston Muster speaker was Pam Johnson, the mother of our Fightin’ Texas Aggie Quarterback Jerrod Johnson. And when they say that the Johnson’s story is “the great Aggie story never heard,” boy are they right. Though it won’t be long before more people know it. The Johnson’s not only have two sons of their own, but have taken in more than 12 foster children as well over the years. John Lopez wrote a great article about the story of Jerrod and his family (you can read it here.) But the part that stuck with me tonight was that Jerrod Johnson, now the starting quarterback of a Big 12 Football team, was the one who held the candle and said “here” when his dad was honored as Muster 2008. Makes me proud that he’s the one representing our university on the field.

But here’s what I realized this week. Along the step to truly being a part of the Aggie family there are a few required steps. Your first yell practice, your first Silver Taps, getting your Aggie Ring, graduating, etc. But the new I experienced this week was truly, finally, really getting Muster.

I lost a friend this year named Chris Cooper (class of ‘97.) He was the VC Coordinator that hired me as a student tour guide, a position that more or less shaped the rest of my time at A&M. He was also a namesake for Fish Camp 2006, and he was one of the best people I’ve ever met. I still haven’t been able to watch an Aggie Basketball game without thinking of Coop, and I often think about what he would say about things. (Basketball season didn’t feel like it was really over because I didn’t get my “gah… trash… guess it’s time to figure out who’s on the football team…” text.) But tonight I finally felt like I understood what Muster was about. 

It’s not about helping the loved ones get over their grief, it’s about showing those friends and family how much of an impact on the lives of others than they had, and because of that their loved one can never really be gone. If we touch just one life, and that person can touch just one life, and another and so on, our impact on the world never really ends, and that’s really what Muster is all about. It’s about getting together with other Aggies and realizing the impact on each other that we all have.

Coop will always live on in any of us that knew him, and in different ways. It can be something as big as picking up a phone call from a friend that is having a hard time even though you might “have something better to do” because that’s what Coop would have done. Or it can be as small as calling someone a “mullet” or carrying your Fantasy Football trash talk into halfway through the next season. It doesn’t really matter what it is, they are all parts of the people we love.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you haven’t taken that next step yet, but you’ll get there. Knowing someone who’s being honored at Muster really changes your perspective, and it makes you realize that our friends haven’t left us behind. Through our actions and memories, they will always be…

“Here.”