Alumni Archives: The Grid Graph
When the MSU football team plays on the road, thousands of Bulldog fans across the country routinely tune in on radio or television to catch the action. For some Bulldogs that live far away from campus, this is a weekly ritual for fall Saturdays. Before the advent of instant mass communication, Mississippi A&M supporters needed a means to catch road games that was a little more up-to-date than tomorrow’s paper.
Meet the Grid Graph.
According to William Sorrels’ book The Maroon Bulldogs, the MSU Student Association purchased a Grid Graph, “an electronic marvel that charted plays on a small-scale football field,” in 1923 to broadcast away games. Updates from out of town would be dispatched to the campus depot by telegraph and would then be relayed to Lee Hall via bicycle.
Sorrels paints the picture, “The play-by-play from games away from the campus would come in by Western Union ticker, and a student stood behind the Grid Graph with an electric pencil light. When an A&M back would make an end run, the light would simulate the action. (…) The Grid Graph had a clock that ticked away the minutes of the game, and it even had sound effects. When A&M made a tackle, the thud could be heard throughout Lee Hall.”
Said to be the first device of its kind in the South, the Grid Graph gave A&M fans the ability to experience all the emotions of being at the game for just 10¢. While no images have been yet discovered of what A&M’s grid graph looked like, similar grids could be found at Michigan, Missouri and Dartmouth.
With the contraption set up in Lee Hall, twelve hundred Aggie fans piled into the auditorium to “witness” the first Grid Graph game as Mississippi A&M took on Tennessee in Memphis. An October 1923 issue of The Reflector described the scene: “When the Aggies made their forceful march from the kick-off to the Volunteer’s five yards line, the rooters (in Memphis) were cheering them on, but down in Aggie town they were supporting the Bull Dogs too.”
For clarity's sake, we'll point out that in those days the A&M football team was referred to as both the Aggies and Bulldogs.
The article continued, “The auditorium held more noise than it is compelled to contain at many a pep meeting. ‘We want a touchdown’ and ‘Touchdown Aggies’ spoke from the hearts of over a thousand backers of the Maroon machine made the old walls ring.”
While the Grid Graph gave Aggie fans a glimpse at road games, some broadcasts were more fiction than fact.
In an Alumnus magazine from the 1980s, a letter to the editor described how the operator had some fun at no expense, at least not monetarily, to the audience.
“One grid-graph game stands out in my mind after all these years: The crowd had gathered in eager anticipation, and the operator put on an exciting game in which the Bulldogs pulled off an upset in the closing moments. As the crowd left the auditorium in jubilation, their money was refunded, and they were told that the operator, not wishing to disappoint them, had presented a purely fictitious account of a game that had been rained out by a prolonged cloudburst! But what better way to spend a Saturday afternoon at A&M!”
As you watch the Bulldogs on the road this season, we hope you’ll have a greater appreciation (and trust) in how we enjoy MSU football in the 21st century!
