LOGAN – Longtime Aggie fan Andy Pedersen passed away in July, but his signature cheer will live on.
Known by many fans as “Captain Aggie”, Pedersen showed up to sporting events wearing his recognizable hat and cape and stirring up the crowd with his cheers. His signature cheer was getting the crowd to spell “Aggies”, letter by letter, then asking, “What does that spell?”
Pedersen’s cheer is the inspiration for the new cadence the Aggie Marching Band will use as it takes the field for its pregame shows this football season. Band director Lane Weaver said the drumline will play the cadence as it walks out onto field while the rest of the band stays on the sideline shouting the cheer. The rest of the band will take the field after the cadence.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” xml:lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Check out the Aggie Marching Band’s new pregame cadence written in memory of <a href=”https://twitter.com/captainaggie1″>@captainaggie1</a>. A-G-G-I-E-S! Aggies! <a href=”https://t.co/lUFbHIhYLg”>https://t.co/lUFbHIhYLg</a>
— USU Bands (@USUBands) <a href=”https://twitter.com/USUBands/status/902739966983249920″>August 30, 2017</a></blockquote>
“We hope it catches on in the stadium because it is something we want to do for a long, long time,” Weaver said.
Marching band member Jake Pedersen was looking for a way to honor Captain Aggie when he was writing the new cadence. Weaver had similar ideas.
“When Jake wrote this cadence, we decided it would great to put it all together,” Weaver said. “It happened to work out that we could do the ‘A-G-G-I-E-S’ spell out and ‘What does that spell?’ It just kind of came together. It seemed like it was meant to be.”
The marching band also has plans to honor Captain Aggie during halftime of the first home football game on Thursday, Sept. 7.
“One of the tunes we’re going to be doing for the first halftime with Idaho State is a tribute to Captain Aggie,” he said. “We’re going to spell out Captain Aggie on the field, we’re going to form his hat with the ‘A’ in the middle of it and give him a little nod during halftime as well.”
Weaver said Captain Aggie usually sat just below the marching band, one section over.
“He was always there, and everybody loved his enthusiasm,” he said. It’s just a little thing we thought we’d do just to say thanks to Captain Aggie.”