LEXINGTON, Ky. – The decision of some UK students to rush the field after Kentucky football’s recent win over Mississippi State earned the athletics department a $100,000 fine.

But the last time Kentucky traveled to Texas A&M, as it will do this week for the first time since 1952, the appearance of Texas A&M students on the field after the Wildcats’ 10-7 win was met with near universal praise.

“When this exciting, wide-open tussle ended, the corps of 6,000 cadets at this military school flooded from the stands,” Courier Journal staff writer Larry Boeck reported in the Oct. 5, 1952 edition of the newspaper. “In a moving gesture of sportsmanship, they carried the victorious Wildcats from the field on their shoulders.”

The gesture, a Texas A&M tradition at the time, was not lost on UK players either.

“The cheering by the students was so great that it inspired most of the UK players to play great football,” Kentucky defensive lineman Frank Fuller told the Kentucky Kernel, UK’s student newspaper.

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The Kernel was so impressed by the sportsmanship on display at Kyle Field it wrote “students at Texas A&M put UK to shame last week even though the Wildcats came home with a win” in an Oct. 10, 1952 editorial.

Texas A&M has long prided itself on the fan support at games, trademarking the term “12th man” to describe its fans. While students no longer carry players from either team off the field after games, the Aggies still boast one of the unique environments in college sports with “yell leaders” elected by the student body directing the student section from the sideline.

The night before every home game, Texas A&M hosts a “Midnight Yell” pep rally at Kyle Field.

The 1952 Kernel editorial painted a stark contrast to environment at UK games at Stoll Field.

“Dressed to the teeth in their latest tea dresses and drape suits, our docile rooters file in, accompanied by the inevitable bottles and the frame of mind that makes for frequent displays of poor sportsmanship,” the Kernel wrote. “At the kick-off our would-be sophisticates look at one another and chew over the latest campus gossip. They rise to their feet only to boo a referee who has ruled against UK. Needless to say, the gentleman in the striped shirt is almost always right.”

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Kernel sports columnist Tom Easterling credited the Midnight Yell rally as being key in the Texas A&M environment and suggest UK students turn out in similar fashion for a pep rally before the Wildcats’ next home game against LSU.

When word of Kentucky’s admiration for the Aggies’ tradition made its way back to College Station though, Joel Austin, sports editor for Texas A&M’s student newspaper, The Battalion, responded with a column headlined “Aggies fool UK as well as selves.”

“Evidently those long-time practices of the Aggies is something not often found around other campuses in the United States,” Austin wrote. “Perhaps A&M is finally gaining the recognition it has long deserved for sportsmanlike practices.

“… This praise is certainly well deserved by members of the A&M student body, but perhaps only for that game in particular. It seems as though we are beginning to lose our interest in the true meaning of the Twelfth Man by coming to yell practice so filled with spirit of a kind other than displayed at football games.”

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The tradition of carrying players off the field appeared already on its way out by the time Kentucky fans were made aware of it.

The Oct. 7, 1952 edition of The Battalion reported the Southwest Conference Sportsmanship Committee suggested Texas A&M carry through with a plan to ask coaches whether or not students could carry players off the field.

“This also shows what may be good sportsmanship in some instances may prove bad in others,” the newspaper reported. “Some coaches had expressed their wishes the A&M students not carry their players off the field.”

Those desires were foreshadowing of a time when the fans entering the field is viewed as a safety hazard and not a sign of sportsmanship.

But if Kentucky’s only previous visit to Kyle Field is any indication, perhaps the environment Mark Stoops’ team faces this week will not be as hostile as feared.

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Jon Hale: jahale@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @JonHale_CJ. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/jonh.