Why Is There a Hook ’em Sign in the Aggies’ New Locker Room?

By Chris O'Connell in Blog, Sports on August 4, 2014 at 12:08 pm | 162 Comments

You’ve probably heard by now that Texas A&M players blast hip-hop and have a grand old time at practice, that head coach Kevin Sumlin arrives at recruiting trips via a solid gold helicopter, and other Aggieland hyperbole, but what you may not have seen is a conspicuous tribute to the Longhorns in the Aggies’ locker room barbershop. Yes, they have a barbershop in their swanky new facility.

There, squeezed between a portrait of the 12th Man and an an enormous pair of sword-handled scissors is a hand performing a sideways Hook ’em. A&M fans are already going nuts—understandably—on Twitter, as the the gesture is seen as an affront to all that is Aggie. Brad Marquart, A&M’s assistant media relations director posted an image of the mural, and explained its relevance as such:

@ms_metcalf No joke at all. Hand signal in mural rep where players are from like Houston, Dallas, E. Texas & La. It’s really cool. — Brad Marquardt (@bradthejag) August 1, 2014

The hand is supposedly meant to denote the letter “H,” for Houston, with the L-shaped hand below—which fans say looks like Texas Tech’s Guns Up gesture—signaling Louisiana. Whatever it is meant to represent, to Longhorn fans, this just fuels the fire of a rivalry once thought dead. And it’s a nice comeback for the Horns on the heels of A&M fans raking Texas over the coals over the misspelling of “Texas” on the footer of its football media guide two weeks ago.

Image via Brad Marquardt on Twitter (@bradthejag)

Tags: Johnny Manziel, longhorn football, Longhorns Aggies, texas a&m