Wes & Walker- Fire or Fizzle

In this edition of Fire or Fizzle, Wes tells you if some of the mascots for the teams playing in the first round of the College Football Playoff are fire or fizzle.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
And the first round college football playoff team mascots. We
got five of them. We don't have all of them.
I know that your favorite team might just be left
off of this list. Yes, but you know, fire fizzle,
fire fizzle for five. That's all it is. Okay, So

(00:25):
the first one up, it's the Texas A and m Aggie's.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
One thing that people have also become accustomed to with
fire and fizzle is we lead off with fire most
of the time. I gotta tell you, I know what
I would say. I would go the opposite direction. It's
not my fire fizzle, though, it's yours. I hope I
hear one. I hope I won't hear one in particular.
You tell me West fire fizzle, Texas A and m
AGAs well. An Aggie is a student at Texas A

(00:49):
and M. In the early nineteen hundreds that students were
called farmers. The term aggie, reflecting to their agricultural roots,
was first used in the nineteen twenties and teen forty nine,
the yearbook changed its name from the Longhorn to Aggie Land.
At that point, Aggie became the official student body nickname. Now,
Aggie is a common nickname for students at Land Grant

(01:12):
schools focused on farming and agriculture, with the term evolving
from farmers to the official Aggie nickname.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
As we just stated.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Earlier, when you talk about all of the traditions, Hilefield
one of the toughest places to go in and win
a football game.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Very very loud crowd.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
They like to say gigam among some of the things
that they use when in the fight of a big
time football game. So as we start out this fire Fizzle,
the Texas A and m Aggie's they will get the
designation of straight fire to start this thing off.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Des fight. What what Walker Mill had to say?

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, but the prob like even with the dances and
the what is it the call that they do, it's
just like something I think it's some good pageantry. Oh
my god, that's so late, Wes, you would be caught
dead duty of that.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Can you imagine, Wes Bryant. What is a very unique
tradition that they have. So I'm here for okay number two.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Oklahoma Sooners, Yes, Sooners Fire Physicle.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
West Pioneers, known as Boomers, vigorously campaigned to settle the
Unassigned land, which were later incorporated into the Oklahoma Territory,
and so the Oklahoma and Indian territories became known as
Twin territories. It was open for settlement through land claims, races,
or land runs, and in eighteen eighty nine, thousands made
their way to the Twin Territories to participate in the

(02:31):
first of these dramatic events. Later, Indian Territory was open
for non native settlement, and in nineteen oh seven the
twin territories were merged into one state, Oklahoma, which is
the joining of two chop toaw words Oakla and Homa,
meaning red people or American Indian. Due to the enthusiasm
of many pioneers and their descendants, the Sooner became. It

(02:54):
came to denote energetic, can do individuals. O U athletic
teams were later called the rough Riders or Boomers for
ten years before the current Oklahoma Sooner nickname emerged in
nineteen o eight and taken together, Oklahoma Sooners reflects the
state's American, Indian and pioneer heritage. You talk about this

(03:14):
team right here, they like to say Boomer Sooner, so
now we know what that means. They come out with
the horse and buggy racing across that field. And this
is another place that's awfully tough to come in and
get a win, but Alabama will try. But nonetheless, the
nickname for Oklahoma, the Sooners, gets a.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Straight fire from me.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
What are the great traditions in college football and what
are the great nicknames?

Speaker 1 (03:39):
This is one of my favorite nicknames of all time
in all of college sports period. The two lane green Way.
This is usually Fizzle territory. I've been here before. Doesn't
mean I'm right all the time, but I've been here before.
I'm scared West Fire Fizzle Greenway. From eighteen ninety three.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
To nineteen nineteen, the athletic teams of Tulane were known
as the Olive and Blue, and in nineteen nineteen, in
the Tulane Weekly, one of Tulane's many student newspapers, began
calling the team the Greenbacks. So on October of nineteen twenty,
Earl Sparling, the editor of the Tulane Hulla Baloo, wrote
a football song which was printed in the newspaper. The

(04:19):
song was titled the Rolling Green Wave. Although the name
was not immediately adopted, it began to receive acceptance. A
month later, a report to the Tulane Mississippi A and
M game in the Hullabaloo referred to the team as
the Green Wave. By the end of the season, they
were using the term the green Wave to refer to
all of Tulane's athletic teams, as were many daily papers,

(04:41):
although as late as nineteen twenty three the name Greenbacks
was still in use. In its infancy, Tulane's mascot was
depicted as a Pelican riding on a surfboard. The surfing
pelican image lasted for more than fifty years. The angry
looking wave was adopted in nineteen sixty four, and the
block tea with waves became the Tulane athletic logo in
nineteen eighty six. So Walker Male he talked about how

(05:04):
he likes the name the Greenway, and certain names trigger
certain things from us. When I think about green Wave,
I played back when Ashbrook High School was in our
commas and they were the Greenway, and we lost in
the playoffs to the Ashburg Greenway, and we lost to them.
Even more than that, they were one of the banes

(05:27):
of my existence. That they were always a tough, rugged
bunch that gave the vand school is a hard time
and would ultimately defeat US. So which way am I
going to go with this one? Because Walkers wells, he
knows which territory that we're in. The Tulane Green Wave
one of the dark courses of the college football playoffs.
They have a monumental task ahead of them. Their coach
John Sammara, he's still hanging in there all the way

(05:48):
to the end.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
So the Tulane Green Wave and their angry.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
Mascot will get a straight fizzle from me, man, because
you're too close to Ashbrook, so you get no older. Okay,
you know when I hit Green Wave, I just don't
have good thoughts associated with.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
It, even with Riptide is the man, I know, man,
But you know that logo is bonkers. It is fantastic.
All right, Let's move on. I don't give nothing, all right,
what happened there?

Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah? I was about to.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Say I don't give a belief about nothing but the tide,
and it just didn't come out as much as I
wanted to do. Goodness, gracious, what a botch job that was.
Tell me Alabama fire Fizzle West.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
In early newspaper accounts of Alabama football, the team was simply
listed as the varsity or the Crimson White, after the
school's colors. The first nickname to become popular and used
by headline writers was the Thin Red Line. Imagine that
the Alabama Thin Red Lines. The nickname was used until
nineteen oh six. The name Crimson Tide is supposed to
have first been used by Hugh Roberts, former sports editor

(06:53):
of the Birmingham Age Herald. He used Crimson Tide in
describing the Alabama Auburn game played in BURMANCA in nineteen
oh seven, the last football contest between the two schools
until nineteen forty eight, when the season or the series
was resumed.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
The game was played in a sea.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Of mud, and Auburn was a heavy favorite to win,
but evidently the Thin Red Line played a great game
in the red mud and held Auburn to a six
to sixth tie, thus gaining the name Crimson Tide. Zip Newman,
former sports editor of the Birmingham News, probably popularized the
name more than any other writer. When you talk about

(07:31):
names that strike fear, when you talk about names that
just evoke blue blood, when you talk about names that
just sound the part the Alabama Thin Red Line, that's
not scaring anybody, but when you talk about the Alabama
Crimson tied, I mean, Crimson alone makes you think of blood,
blood and guts, violence on the football field. So the

(07:54):
Alabama Crimson Tide gets an automatic straight fire that's one
of the coldest stick and all of college football roll time.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
I love the elephant, I really do. Last one. I
also love Sebastian the ibis. It's the meanest looking bird
I've ever seen. Yeah, Miami Hurricanes, last one on the list.
Fire Fizzle West.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
I mean it began in some controversy, reports say the
nineteen twenty seven football team held a team meeting to
select Hurricanes, hoping that they would sweep away opponents, just
as the devastating storm did on September sixteenth or nineteen
twenty six. Another version holds that Miami News columnist Jack
Belle asked in Porter North of the nineteen twenty sixteen

(08:35):
what the team should be called, sold that the local
dignitaries and university officials wanted to name the team for
a local flora or fauna. Nor said the players would
not stand for it, and suggested Hurricanes, since the opening
game had been postponed by such a storm. From time
to time, opposition has arisen to the name that would
reinforce Miami's negative reputation as a weather beaten community living

(08:58):
constantly under of destruction. But as one UM official rationalized
in the sixties, does anyone think Chicago is overrun by
bears just because the town has a football.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Team by that name? End quote?

Speaker 3 (09:11):
That is a strong way to say that we will
be called the Hurricanes. And when I think of Miami,
what are their traditions running through the smoke? Great football players?
Recently though they have been known for chokin in big spots,
but they are in the playoffs. And then when you
talk about one of my favorite cities in the world,
the vibes, the women, Okay, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have

(09:32):
put that in. I know this is a family show,
the food, all of the things that encompass Miami. But
when you talk about the Hurricanes, the Canes one of
the great nicknames in college football. As we close out
this fire fizzle, the Miami Hurricanes will get a straight

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Fire day long Flounder cut the music off.