Jackie Sherrill, Tom Bevins discuss 12th Man KO Team 35th Anniversary

Key notes from Jackie Sherrill

• I wish I was smart enough to have realized how important it was to everybody what we did with the 12th Man kickoff team. I'm talking abut students and former students. When you really study the 12th Man, you're talking about 1922. I wasn't smart enough, but I got lucky I would say.
   
• You go through life with a team and you go back and apologize to the players for working them too hard. These original 12th Man guys had to earn their stripes. They had to compete. There were 252 people originally signed up for tryouts. Every day in practice they were competing for the spot on the 12th Man kickoff team. There were days when they probably left the practice field and never wanted to come back.
   
• When you look at the original guys and how much they helped the guys after them and the amount of goodwill they do for Texas A&M and the amount of money they've given back to A&M, it's been over 15 million dollars. It's been very rewarding. Those guys have represented Texas A&M for a number of years and are representing what A&M stands for, which is standing tall and helping others in need. 
   
• It's not going to be easy against LSU. The way the kids are playing. I would hand it to number five, Trayveon Williams, 30 times. There is no question you have an uphill battle, but you're playing at home. Anything can go or change at any minute.

Key notes from Tom Bevins

• I counted on the RSVP list this morning. It looks like there is about 90 of us there this weekend. Some of the original group isn't coming, but the original group is very tight knit. We are a very close group of brothers.
   
• Coach Sherrill, when I was 20, if you told me to jump off a bridge, I would have. I was in Squadron 1 in the corps for the first two years. We got 252 people to sign up to tryout, and two of those trying out were ladies. In one of those first meetings, I was a non-believer so I did not go out right away. One of my friends told me I could do it well. I went for it and I got penciled in. That's how it started.
   
• One of my favorite stories is we were trying to raise a ton of money to help kids come to A&M that couldn't pay. Then I asked Coach what we could do for kids who were too sick to come to A&M. In 2010, Coach and I set something up for a kid named Brian and we took him to the Dixie Chicken. Coach took him around to all of the facilities. He went to the women's basketball practice and Coach took him out to the coin toss that day. Brian left us in 2012 and I was honored to do the eulogy at his funeral.
   
• Anyone can go to 12thmankickoffteam.org. It talks about our mission and our vision. We're about halfway to our goal and then we can permanently endow 12, $5,000 dollar scholarships.