History and Traditions
The First Cheers of Texas
The first recorded collegiate yell occurred at Princeton University in the early 1860s, based upon the ‘skyrocket cheer’ of the Seventh Regiment of New York created at the beginning of the Civil War. It included the legendary phrase ‘siss-boom-ah’, which mimics the sound of a firework and the reaction of its audience.
​
“Hooray, hooray, hooray! Tiger siss-boom-ah, Princeton!” is how it went. In 1892 Rudyard Kipling quoted the phrase in his story A Matter of Fact as ’Sizz! Boom-ah!.’
In those days there were no bands and no public address system, so cheers played an important role in college athletics. Over the next decade student cheers evolved into the ‘locomotive’ style, which starts slowly and speeds up. This began to catch on across the country, with ‘fight, team, fight’ appearing soon after.
​​
​According to Jim Nicar on his blog The UT History Corner, UT’s first yell came about in 1892 for a baseball game. There was a monthly student literary magazine called The Texas University , and Ed Blount, exchanges editor of the magazine, had read of eastern university students using school colors and yells. Blount organized a meeting of students in the history room of the Old Main Building to create a yell for the upcoming game with the highly rated San Marcos team. Blount enlisted fellow students Jim Bailey and Hans Hertzberg for ideas prior to the meeting, in which Bailey remembered a yell he heard at Phillips Exeter Academy. Blount reported they stole the yell and changed the last three letters. The trio performed for the assembled students, it was an immediate hit, and ‘was shouted until all were hoarse.’
​
Hullabaloo! Hooray! Hooray!
Hullabaloo! Hooray! Hooray!
Hoo-RAY! Hoo-RAY!
Varsity! Varsity! U! T! A!
Then heard great crowds approving sing,
And cheer on cheer make heaven ring…
Their comrades found when the game was o’er,
That sixteen to nothing was the score,
Then rang the Varsity’s proud “hooray,”
“Hooray! for the foot-ball of U.T.A.!”
For thee we raise the unearthly yell,
As with pride our bosoms swell….
The game was played in San Marcos on March 21st, San Jacinto Day, which was an official UT holiday back then. Most of the 365 enrolled students made the trip by chartered train, practicing their new yell with enthusiasm. Underrated UT baseball won the game 19-12, the new yell became the first tradition of UT athletics, and was the first time a cheer could be credited with inspiring a team.
​
In the very first Cactus yearbook, ca 1894, was published The Foot-Ball Game, a lengthy poem about UT playing it’s very first football game in 1893. The opponent was the Dallas Football Club and the game was held at the Dallas Fairgrounds (now called Fair Park and home to the Cotton Bowl stadium). In those days UT was called ‘Varsity (short for University). A record crowd of 1200 spectators watched the game. The poem totals 58 lines and includes the excerpt on the left.
‘Varsity played two games in the fall, and two games in the spring, going undefeated and shutting out all four opponents. Thus began the illustrious winning tradition of UT football. The UT Athletic Association, begun in 1892, then created the “Rootatorial Committee” tasked with inventing yells and songs for all sporting events. In 1895 they introduced the first football yell:
Rah! Rah! Rah!
Who are we?
Texas! U. of T.!
Rough, tough,
We’re the stuff.
We play football,
Never get enough.
RAH!!
Over the years, yell books were published, and as enrollment grew, so did the number of fans at games. In 1899, Rent Creagor was chosen as UT’s first yell leader.
​
The 1903 Cactus yearbook published yells and songs. "The Eyes of Texas" is included on the list of three songs, famously introduced that year at a fundraiser for the track team’s travel to the national meet in Atlanta. That was followed by three yells, the first being the aforementioned ‘Varsity Yell, and the second being Long Horn Yell, which was introduced in 1896.
Rattle de thrat, de thrat, de thrat, Rattle de thrat, de thrat, de thrat, Long horn! Cactus thorn!
Texas! Texas! Texas! Moo—o—o! Texas!
‘Varsity became officially known as Longhorns in 1904. Bevo became the official mascot in 1916. This 1896 cheer appears to be the first published Longhorn reference. Imagine doing that cheer today, with one hundred thousand voices Moo-o-o-ing in unison. You might think that sound is funny, but I once crossed a Longhorn in the wild and was lucky to dodge its two-ton charge and eight feet of horns. That animal’s angry moo-o-o was terrifying.
​
Over the decades cheers have come and gone. Some cheers were invented for a specific game and never used again. Some early cheers lasted up until the 1940’s. The famous Whisper Yell was introduced in 1950 but has not been heard in Memorial Stadium for decades. In the 21st century sideline cheers have virtually disappeared, thanks to our giant scoreboard, and all that’s left is the stadium yell, which still brings goosebumps when performed at the right moment, one hundred thousand strong, magically swinging momentum to our home team like no other cheer in Texas history. At least, that’s how I remember it.
Many thanks to Jim Nicar, the unofficial historian of UT, who graciously provided facts and images from his blog at UTHistoryCorner.com.
To hear some of the old cheers, visit jimnicar.com/audio/2007-the-big-yell.
Photo Gallery
