SPOKANE, Wash. — In the classic children's book "Bread and Jam for Frances," an adorable grade school badger decides she wants to eat bread and jam every meal. But after a day or two, Frances realizes eating the exact same food can become tiresome.
Still, her mother keeps giving her bread and jam to teach her a lesson.
Maybe that's how the Utah State Aggies feel going into Friday's first-round NCAA Tournament game against the Texas A&M Aggies.
Too much Aggie.
Too much of a good thing.
Couldn't they toss in an Eagle or Raider into the mix?
In an unlikely scheduling quirk, the USU Aggies will be playing another Aggie team for the fourth time this year and the third time in four games. Seems like it's been all Aggies all the time. First, the USU Aggies played the New Mexico State Aggies in Las Cruces and lost. Later, the same two teams played in Logan, with USU winning. The teams met again in the WAC Tournament, with NMSU winning again.
Now comes the USU-Texas A&M matchup, Aggie vs. Aggie remixed.
The only way a fifth Aggie match-up could occur is if USU or Texas A&M met NMSU in the championship game.
Don't rule it out.
These Aggie pairings keep cropping up.
The prospect of Aggie teams meeting didn't used to be all that unusual. Back in the early 1900s, there were quite a few agricultural colleges that went by the name. Colorado A&M, for example, was called the Aggies until it switched its name to the Colorado State Rams.
Calling oneself the Aggies wasn't terribly creative, but nobody seemed to worry about that back in the day. Otherwise, why would someone name Yale the Elis, after Eli Yale? Why name Augsburg College the Auggies or Gustavus Adolphus the Golden Gusties?
That's like naming BYU the Brighams.
Anyway, today there are at least nine schools named Aggies, the most prominent being Texas A&M, followed by USU and NMSU. Other Aggies: Cal-Davis, Delaware Valley College, Oklahoma Panhandle State, Cameron University, North Carolina A&T — and don't forget the Texas A&M-Galveston Sea Aggies (huh?).
Three of those teams had fine seasons, and they're all in the NCAA Tournament. USU is 27-7, NMSU is 22-11 and A&M is 23-9. The rest of the Aggies haven't done so well. You might say they bought the farm. There's Delaware Valley College (12-13), Cameron (10-16), North Carolina A&T (11-22), Oklahoma Panhandle (10-17), Texas A&M-Galveston (no basketball team) and Cal-Davis (14-18).
With all the Aggie goings-on this season, it's a temptation to believe it's still a highly common name, but that's all relative. The nine Aggie schools are far fewer than those named after Eagles (74), Tigers (46) and Bulldogs (39).
Some colleges have rejected the farm connection by changing their nickname. But is that a good idea? Other schools have embraced far stranger nicknames than Aggies. For instance, the Lord Jeffs (Amherst), Lamps (American Baptist College Seminary), Wonder Boys (Arkansas Tech) and Haymakers (Phillips).
All Aggie nicknames derive from agricultural roots, which have also produced related mascots. Delaware Valley's mascot is a live ram named Caesar. NMSU's mascot is a gunslinger named Pistol Pete. A&M has a collie dog named Reveille. Cal-Davis once adopted a cow mascot but switched over to a more glamorous mustang named Gunrock.
Then there's Big Blue, the USU bull.
In the late 1960s, there was a move to change USU's nickname to the Highlanders. Over the years, there have also been informal references to Farmers and Scotsmen. But any and all attempts to change the nickname were quickly quelled.
Aggies they were, and Aggies they shall always be.
Cal-Davis originally called itself the Farmers, until a 1922 editorial in the campus paper reasoned that Aggies was a traditional name for agricultural schools.
"The name has a college air, a football air, about it. Let's call ourselves the Aggies. Hasn't it a winning sound to it?" said the editorial.
It certainly seems popular this year.
e-mail: rock@desnews.com