On Sept. 22, 2001, about 70,000 Aggies donned red, white and blue T-shirts for the "Red, White and Blue Out" during the first football game after the Sept. 11 attacks. This movement was deemed "the greatest act of symbolic patriotism in the history of organized sports" by senior history and political science major Kevin Capps, whose parents - Debbie and Oral - were in the Twin Towers when the planes hit, but managed to escape.
The 12th Man Student Foundation planned to initiate a similar event - a Red White and Blue Towel Out - for Saturday's game against Wyoming, but after an overwhelmingly negative response from polls taken on Texags.com, as well as individual input from survivors of the attacks, the Foundation changed its mind, said Linda Salzar, vice president of publicity and promotions for the 12th Man Student Foundation.
"It's just not something you can do if (...) 100 percent of people (don't participate)," Kevin Capps said. "We're very afraid of tarnishing the memory of (the original Red White and Blue Out,) but we have supreme confidence in the ingenuity of the Aggie family that we can come up with something else that expresses our feelings and does not harm the cherished moment in our school's history."
Debbie Capps said she was on the 16th floor of the World Trade Center when the first plane crashed. Her husband, an agricultural economics professor, was scheduled to have a breakfast meeting on the 102nd floor, but the meeting had been moved to the lobby instead. After the planes crashed, she and her husband escaped, leaving behind all of their belongings - including Debbie's wedding ring - and it took the couple almost a week to travel back home to Texas from New York City.
"The Red White and Blue Out game that occurred in September after 9-11 was our family's first outing since we got home," Debbie said. "Only at A&M could you hope to achieve that kind of participation. (Our family) holds (the event) so dear that until we could have something that would rival that or come up to that standard, I (worry) that the students set the bar very high."
Tonia Grigg, class of 1998, wrote a mail call that ran in The Battalion Thursday, expressing her disappointment that the Red White and Blue Towel Out was canceled.
"I remember thinking that there's got be something else behind (the canceling of the event)," Grigg said. "Certainly knowing what that reason is - we need to back off. (The victims and survivors) are the ones who have every right to tell us please don't do it."
Grigg said she is currently working as an instructional designer with an anti-terrorism class that teaches that memorializing and commemorating is the best way to help victims of terrorism get closure.
The Red White and Blue Towel Out was originally planned by Freshman Aggies Spreading Tradition (FAST) who decided to seek the help of the 12th Man Student Foundation. After learning about the Sept. 11 survivors' opinions, FAST passed their idea off to the 12th Man Student Foundation, which opted to promote new 12th Man towels that simply had a commemorative ribbon on them.
"We wanted to bring back the 12th Man Student Foundation towel," said Jacob Scher, director of FAST. "It's not really cheapening anything, just honoring (those affected by the tragedy)."
Debbie said she has "some very sweet memories" of the event and that she is appreciative of all the support that Aggies give. The Capps family has also started a fund that will help firefighters pay for their education. She said her family decided to start the scholarship to honor the memory of those firefighters who helped rescue the Trade Center victims.
"I guard the memory of what was accomplished on Kyle Field," Debbie said. "The last thing we want to do is have anyone's feelings hurt or feel like we're not supportive of them. Believe me, we are. Our hearts are on our sleeves this week. We know that (all their efforts) are all done with the best intent in our mind."
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