Rentfro Creager

It’s a return to old school rivalry this week with Texas football traveling to Aggieland to renew our century plus cross state contest for bragging rights. The schools first met in 1894, when UT was called Varsity and A&M was called College.

The big question of the week: which school had the first Yell Leader? The Aggies have for decades been know for their yell leaders, one of the only universities in America with an all male cheer squad in the 21st century. You might be surprised to hear that UT had male yell leader squads all the way through the 1940’s.

But to get back to the 19th century and answer the question of the week, I had to visit the Briscoe American History Center, conveniently located next to the LBJ Library. There are stacks upon stacks of boxes containing all sorts of Texas memorabilia and documents. Among these I found the original song sheet of the “Varsity Rootatorial Club” handed out in 1897. It had been folded up into a small square to fit in your pocket. It is a collection of school songs written to the tunes of popular music. The club also had various school yells, the first and most popular being the “Varsity Yell” from 1892, which I wrote about last year in this column.

The Rootatorial Club was the first Texas spirit program, made up of students and faculty as part of the UT Athletic Association, which organized athletics and also printed the Cactus yearbook. Yells and songs became a competition at the football games and eventually someone was going to have to lead the yells. It was in 1899 when the Club created the position of Chief Yell Leader and chose a law student named Rent Creager.

Texas football went 6-2 that season, beating A&M 6-0. A few bleachers on the west side of “Athletic Park” (at 24th and Speedway) accommodated around 200 spectators, but most of the fans stood along the sidelines several persons deep. The Chief Yell Leader was eye to eye with his fellow students and I’m sure his training in law school helped him convince Texas fans to yell and sing. Creager was a gifted speaker, and held several positions in campus life. He was secretary of the Oratorical Association; Law Writer for The Ranger student magazine; member of The Athenaeum (aka The Society of Dudes) a debate club; and a member of University Chess Club.

I found his name on a list of Yell Leaders from a program which had been printed in 1916 by Athletic Director Theo Bellmont for the first annual reunion of the “T Association”, comprised of men who had lettered in sports.

Creager graduated law school in 1900 and took up practice in Brownsville. Eventually he served as a collector of customs under presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William H. Taft. Creager worked his way up through the ranks of the Texas Republican Party and in 1916 ran for governor against incumbent Democrat James E. "Pa" Ferguson, who easily won re-election to a second term. At that time Texas was a Democratic state.

In 1923 Creager was elected the Texas member of the Republican National Committee, a position he held until his death in 1950. He provided leadership in the state Republican party and played a prominent role in national Republican politics for many years. In addition to politics he was also president of Illind oil company, and made his fortune with citrus orchards.

If you have gotten this far in the story it’s to find the answer to our question of the week. So I turned to the Spirit page of the Texas A&M Foundation and discovered 12 Things to Know About Yell Leaders. “According to Aggie lore, the Aggies were badly losing during a 1907 football game, causing cadets’ dates to threaten to leave. The upperclassmen ordered freshmen to entertain the ladies, so they raided a janitor’s closet and changed into white coveralls they found. While leading the crowd in yells, they received so much attention that it was decided only upperclassmen would have the honor of leading yells in the future.” A great Aggie tradition was created eight years after it was first done at the University of Texas. We retain bragging rights once again!

PS: Texas won the 1907 game 11-6. Don’t ask how we scored eleven points!