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TEXAS A&M VS. FLORIDA | SATURDAY OCT. 14 AT 6:00 P.M. | ESPN 2 LAWSUIT
Sophomore linebacker Tyrel Dodson had a career-best 16 tackles against No. 1 Alabama.
FILE
The Sigma Nu chapter at A&M was disbanded following Anton Gridnev’s death.
Sigma Nu sued for negligence Deceased member’s father files suit against students, national chapter
SATURDAY IN THE SWAMP C. Morgan Engel — THE BATTALION
Aggies look to bounce back, not let loss to Alabama impact final games By Heath Clary @Heath_Clary Coming off a hard-fought loss to No. 1 Alabama last Saturday, Texas A&M will look to get back in the win column as the Aggies travel to Florida to take on the Gators. The Aggies (4-2, 2-1 SEC) gave the Crimson Tide their closest game of the season, and they will try to build on that momentum against Florida — a team that lost to LSU 17-16 last weekend. “This team right now is very close. We’re just moving on,” wide receiver Damion
Ratley said at Tuesday’s press conference. “We know we have to pick each other up, we know we have each other’s back and we just play for the man to the left and right of us.” The Gators rank seventh in the SEC in total defense and don’t boast as intimidating a unit as they have in past years, but they have done a good job of buckling down in the red zone. Florida’s red zone defense has allowed the opponent to score only 73 percent of the time when they get inside the 20-yard-line, the best in the conference. That ability to keep teams out of the end zone will be a challenge for the Aggies, as they have struggled in the red zone at times this season. “For us it will be another challenge. They’ve been real stingy on defense and it’s
going to take a really fine effort out of our team to go there and win,” head coach Kevin Sumlin said. “Defensively they’ve been strong and they’ve scored enough points to win in different fashions.” The Aggies, who played arguably their most complete game of the season in the 27-19 loss to Alabama, stressed they are not going to let that defeat affect their preparation for Florida. “Every week we always say we reset,” linebacker Tyrel Dodson said. “That game’s over with, it’s done, and we’re moving forward.” Dodson exploded for a career-high 16 tackles to go along with 2.5 tackles-forloss against the Tide, anchoring a linebacker corps that continues to improve as the
By Ryan Brown @ryanbrown03 On April 14, 2017, Eugene Gridnev filed a lawsuit against the Sigma Nu fraternity after his son, Anton Gridnev, died of an accidental drug overdose in the Sigma Nu house in College Station in August 2016. The lawsuit is against the fraternity’s national office, Sigma Nu, Inc. and 10 former members of the now disbanded chapter at A&M, as well as the Aggie Sigma Chi House Corporation, which owns the former Sigma Nu house. The civil suit claims negligence on the part of the defendants led to his son’s death. Gridnev filed the lawsuit in Harris County, seeking more than $1 million in damages and associated costs. “When the Sigma Nu members that were responsible for his safety noticed Anton’s condition, they called the hospital instead of 911,” the suit states. “The Sigma Nu members were instructed by hospital staff to call 911, but they chose not to. The Sigma Nu members responsible for Anton’s safety remained at the Sigma Nu house without calling 911 as instructed for a prolonged period of time. Eventually, 911 was called but it was too late for them to provide any help and Anton had already died.” Brad Beacham, executive director of Sigma Nu Fraternity, Inc. declined to comment.
PREVIEW ON PG. 2
Journey from couches to catches Senior wide receiver Damion Ratley’s unorthodox path to playing in Kyle By Ryan MacDonald @Ryan_MacDonald2
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n 2013, Damion Ratley, a retired high school football player at the time, watched the Alabama-Texas A&M game from his couch. Last Saturday, Ratley, now a senior wide receiver, played against Alabama, making a huge 32-yard catch on fourth-and-9 to keep the Aggies alive in the game. A few months prior to watching the game on TV, Ratley was a dynamic receiver at Yoakum High School whose combination of height and speed posed grave dangers to opposing defenses. However, Ratley’s ability to be recruited by colleges was limited by the size of Yoakum and its remote location, 100 miles east of San Antonio. “I went to a small high school,” Ratley said. “I didn’t go to any camps or anything and I never really got out there and got exposure or anything like that.” Despite a strong career at Yoakum, Ratley ended his senior year with zero scholarship offers and elected to attend Blinn College’s Bry-
Senior wide receiver Damion Ratley is second on the team in receiving yards with 228.
an campus as a student. Living with his cousin in College Station, Ratley spent his weekends watching college football games. A big fan of the Aggies, Ratley wasn’t able to get a ticket to the 2013 A&M-Alabama game and settled with watching the game on TV from his couch. After watching the game, Ratley realized how much he missed football. He called then Blinn College head football coach Keith Thomas and asked for a spot on the team. Ratley had tried out for the team the summer before and made it, however, decided not to play because he said he just didn’t want to play anymore. The coach remembered Ratley from his tryout in the summer and gave him a spot on the team as a walk-on, even though he had not played football for over a year. “I called them after the game and luckily they remembered me and gave me a fighting chance,” Ratley said. Blinn didn’t run the ball all too often, since they had wide receiver Dede Westbrook, who was a fourth round pick of last year’s draft and Jake Hubenak, who is now a senior quarterback at Texas A&M. Ratley finished the 2014 season with 1,197 yards and led the team in scoring with 20
C. Morgan Engel — THE BATTALION
RATLEY ON PG. 4
Two former students develop grassroots branding company By Tenoch Aztecatl @_aztec_
A UNIQUE APPROACH TO MARKETING
Hanna Hausman— THE BATTALION
Drifting Creatives, (left to right) Spencer Cogburn, Martin Hooper, Class of 2009 and Gavin Braman, Class of 2009, spent five months on the road, working their way across the country and are now based in B-CS.
Since 2010, ‘Drifting Creatives,’ an Aggie owned and operated marketing and branding agency, has grown from a shared idea to a full-fledged business, offering an eye-catching approach to web content and branding design. Two days after graduating from Texas A&M in 2009, two Aggies, Gavin Braman and Martin Hooper set off on a road trip aimed at networking and gaining enough experience to eventually start their own business. “The idea was that we would design our way across the country,” Braman said. “And we would pay for the whole trip with design work that we could pick up by doing work for small businesses.” Throughout the five month road trip, the two often slept in Hooper’s Honda Element and in some cases, were even invited to stay at the
home of a generous stranger. Their days were spent working to establish a base of clientele and hearing the word ‘no’ quite frequently. “[Drift] really evolved in terms of what we were actually doing,” Braman said. “Because it’s weird to just get work from random businesses and just walking in and saying, ‘Hey, can we redesign your menu?’” After returning from the design road trip, Braman and Hooper realized that they had gained enough of a network and understanding of the business to actually launch their own agency, so they did. “For a while I was living in my parent’s house, working out of there,” Braman said. “And then we got a two-bedroom apartment and one of the bedroom’s was the Drift office. Then we eventually got a retail space that we were in for about three years.” Now that ‘Drift’ has made its name in the B-CS area, the company’s founders are focused on producing content that will benefit their customers and maximize the quality of work. DRIFT ON PG. 2