Aggie Flashback: Former longtime A&M basketball SID Colin Killian

Key quotes from Colin Killian interview

“I was at the A&M SID department for 23 years and did football for Coach Sherrill for the first two. When he resigned, I actually got fired and Alan Cannon (AC) brought me back a few months later and I started doing basketball for Shelby Metcalf in his last season. For the next 21 years, I was there for pretty much every Aggie basketball game, good and bad.”

“If it wasn’t for Billy Pickard, I wouldn’t be here with y’all today. After Jackie Sherrill resigned at the end of that '88 season, a few weeks later eight other staff members were let go because of their association with Jackie. I was one of those. They said I could stay on through the end of May while I looked for another job. I don’t think they expected me to keep coming to work, but I did and kept working hard. I was out at track meets hauling stuff around and Pickard saw that. He and I had gotten into a huge brawl at the end of the Alabama game and Leo Gertz had said that everyone on that end of the stadium had stopped watching the game and were watching us. We were getting beat, Jackie was suspended, wasn’t even on the sideline. I don’t even remember what we argued about, but it was a screaming match.”

“When AC wanted to rehire me, some of the higher ups were against it. They said the decision had been made and thought it would make them look bad. Some of the other coaches, Ted Nelson in track and Bob Ellis in golf, along with of all people, Billy Pickard came to bat for me. I think it was Pickard that really swung the gate for me. I wouldn’t have met my wife or been here and had my awesome son without Billy Pickard.”

“SID lives revolve around the game notes package. It takes about five or six hours, every game, to put those together. I do not miss those at all. All those years when we were bad, having to do that knowing nobody even cared ... you’re basically doing it for TV guys, so they have something to talk about. Suddenly, people are actually using those notes and you actually have good notes and aren’t just pulling things out of a hat. Not stats like in Melvin’s last year where we were third in the nation in attendance for teams with a losing record.”

“One of my favorite games is that Louisville game in Lexington. We’re 80 miles form their campus. It is full of Louisville fans, not a lot of Aggies there. We almost blew that game. They had a freshman, Edgar Sosa, and he was unbelievable with 31 points. He went to the line late and was 15-15 at that point. He missed both and that opened up the door for us. I remember walking off the court and going to the locker room. Before I got there, I’m standing outside and Billy Gillispie is talking to someone down the hall. He comes up and I just have tears rolling down my cheek and he says, 'What is wrong with you?' I said, 'You don’t understand where I’ve been.' To think, three years prior we were 0-16 in conference and then lost in the conference tournament. Now, three years later, we beat Rick Pitino and Louisville to get to the Sweet Sixteen. It was surreal.”

“When we played Syracuse, they had just won the Big East tournament. Gerry McNamara was the MVP, hottest player in the game. He doesn’t score until the last minute of the game when he has a couple of free throws. Dominique Kirk and some other guys just did an incredible defensive job on that guy, he just couldn’t breathe.

One of the most disappointing things is the next one versus LSU, I think they were a three seed and we had them. We had blown a lead and come back, it was a nip and tuck game and it looked like we were in control. LSU was 1-11 on three pointers. Darrell Mitchell was 1-7 and couldn’t hit the side of a barn. They run a fake pick and roll and Antanas (Kavaliauskas) switches from Big Baby to Mitchell. It is 6’10 Antanas onto 5’8 Mitchell. He gives him a little room and Mitchell throws up a prayer. He said afterwards it was a prayer. I had already left my spot with the bag over my shoulder and I was ready to celebrate. I had met him before on a recruiting visit. We were second on his list. If he didn’t go to LSU, he was coming to A&M. The irony of that.”

“In Coach Barone’s first year and in typical Barone’s fashion that year was just total bad luck. He had a good freshman in Damon Johnson that was tearing it up. Broke his foot and out for the year. We go up to Waco and before the game, there just starts to be a weird atmosphere. Coach Barone comes running out of the locker room with a panicked look on his face. I’m doing radio with Dave South and I said, 'Dave, I have to go.'  Barone said 'One of our assistant coaches was passed out in the locker room. Radar (Mike Ricke), the trainer, was in there working on him. Radar saved his life; a lot of people didn’t know that. Radar isn’t there and Mitch dies.

I open the door to try and get air in, not knowing that there is a gas leak that is causing it. When I open the door, it rushes past me, so I’m getting a big hit but you can’t smell it or see it. Meanwhile out on the court, our players are dribbling off their foot and air balling layups. They said the Baylor team had stopped warming up and were looking at us and laughing. Everybody knew we were bad, but they were thinking, 'Man, you’re that bad?' Eventually, our guys started sitting down on the court and everybody knew something was wrong. The officials locker room had it bad too. Everybody had to be on ventilators in hospitals and I had to go with an official, a couple players and Mitch to a hyperbaric chamber in Dallas for a couple days to get purged of the poison. The poetry of it is, we went back up there and won the game. One of the few we won that year.”