We love a throwback.
On Thursday, ESPN published a great retelling of “the most famous moment in the history of one of the most famous college football traditions” — the Texas A&M towel heist at the 1988 Cotton Bowl.
Aggies are renowned for their traditions — and one of the biggest is the 12th Man. That’s when a walk-on (aka non-scholarship) football player takes the field during a game to help cover a kickoff. But back in the ‘80s, things were a bit different — the entire kick coverage unit was made up of walk-ons. They were legendary underdogs and, incredibly, really good at football. At the Cotton Bowl Classic, A&M met perennial powerhouse Notre Dame, which was at the time led by Tim Brown, one of the best receivers in the country. In the fourth quarter, when A&M was leading comfortably, Brown — sporting a decorative, impressively bedazzled towel from his waist — fielded a kickoff from A&M.
Brown subscribed to the Deion Sanders theory of, “look good, feel good, play good.” As he put it: “You got to have a towel, the long towel that comes out to your knee, absolutely. It’s old-fashioned, has no other value to your game at all. It’s all about how good do you look when you pass that mirror in the locker room? You give yourself a thumbs up, a thumbs down, and if you didn’t have a towel, you definitely got a thumbs down.”
A&M safety Chet Brooks recalled: “I just knew taking his towel from him was going to piss him off and get him off his game.” It was Brooks’ birthday and he told his teammates to grab Brown’s towel “for my birthday present.”
Soon after, walk-on 12th Man Warren Barhorst did just that, tackling Brown and snatching the towel. A melee ensued, as Brown subsequently tackled Barhorst, reclaimed his towel, and was ejected from the game for unsportsmanlike conduct. Here’s the play where you can see Barhorst (#11) swipe the towel (he’s misidentified by broadcaster Brent Musburger, who calls him freshman “William Thomas,” who also wore #11).
The whole thing became immortalized in Texas A&M lore; there’s even a painting of the play titled, “Led By The Spirit.” Because, really, who doesn’t want to side with an underdog player against a Heisman Trophy-winning star?
Barhorst said of the painting, “What that all tells you is that the 12th Man guys all played for the name on the front. We weren’t really playing for the guy on the back.” He told ESPN that he’s asked about the play nearly every day of his life.
Meanwhile the tradition continues with A&M student Nana Boadi-Owusu, an engineering major, handling 12th Man kickoff duties this Saturday against — you guessed it — Notre Dame. “It hasn’t really hit me yet that I’m the 12th Man,” Boadi-Owusu told ESPN. “When I put on that jersey and I see myself in the mirror, then I get to come out to over 100,0000 people in Kyle (Field), I think that’s what was going to hit me like, ‘Oh yeah, this is real life.’” I, for one, am hoping he snatches a towel.
