Texas A&M doesn’t deserve a player like Kellen Mond
Every Aggie fan who bashed Kellen Mond over the summer, but celebrated him when he led them to the win over Florida last month, owes the young man an apology.
Or Mond has more than earned the right to politely extend his middle finger to his fellow Ags who treated him in a manner that is beneath anyone who wears the maroon and white.
You know who you are, and you know how you spoke of Kellen Mond was wrong.
Mond is not the best quarterback in the history of Texas A&M, and chances are good that his head coach would have loved nothing more than for one of his other quarterbacks to have won the job.
The Aggies don’t deserve him.
Mond is a four-year player who has stood at a 90-degree angle taking beatings from opponents, as well as Aggie fans. He’s represented Texas A&M as well as any player has, and now he’s delivering the type of year this fan base has yearned for since Johnny Manziel left College Station.
The Aggies are 4-1, ranked seventh in the country, and have a path to their first double-digit win total season since 2012, when Manziel won the Heisman Trophy and a win over Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl.
No one in college football in 2020 deserves a great season more than Kellen Mond.
Of course, this would be the year Texas A&M would have a great season when a global pandemic has Kyle Field at limited capacity, players opting out and cancellations are as much a part of the game as tailgating, which have been banned as well.
A&M’s 52-24 loss to Alabama on Oct. 3 was proof the Aggies are not there yet under coach Johnny James Fisher, but their win against Florida and overall record is a comfortable pillow on an entire year that is a bed of nails and broken glass.
Well done, Mr. Mond. Well done.
How he stayed in College Station after what transpired this summer, and then to play as well as he has, is worthy of eternal recognition and praise.
Back in June, Mr. Mond drew the ire of many Aggies when he and fellow senior, receiver Jhamon Ausbon, led a student march in conjunction with the Black Lives Matter movement on A&M’s campus that ended at the statue of Sullivan Ross.
Mond was easily the highest-profile Aggie to call for a removal of the statue of a man who was a confederate general during the Civil War.
There was not a riot, or some cliche attempt to rip it down. It was a protest, and a discussion. This is part of the purpose of college.
“I’m a Black man and a human before I’m a football player,” Mond told the Houston Chronicle on June 26. “I want to express myself, and I want this university to be the best university and most inclusive university.”
Yeah, that’s just awful.
His willingness to be outspoken was not exactly greeted with a warm Aggie embrace from the infinitely deep cesspool of college fandom on social media.
Among some of the insults that were lobbed his way by his fellow Aggies included, “Infinite RACIST! You can’t say you want a colorblind society and then take pride in the color of your skin. Bunch of RACIST hypocrites! Defund athletics and return to education!” from some anonymous loser on Twitter.
“Transfer please. I will donate money in your absence. Don’t throw your opinion around. Just throw complete passes,” was another Tweet.
“With his current tweets I have now lost respect for him. I know a lot of (Aggie Corps of) Cadets and have found none of them to be racist. He should spend more time on the play books then tweeting,” was an opinion written by a subscriber to the hugely popular Aggie website, TexAgs.com.
There were Aggies who also came to Mond’s defense, too.
“100% been very fortunate to have spent time around @TheKellenMond and watch him interact with my son and football. There may not be a finer young man representing Texas A&M and what Aggies are about, hell what humans should be about,” came from one Twitter follower.
The end.
Mond the player was never Johnny, a player who could win a game 1-on-11. Mond is your QB who needs some help.
Mond the player has improved, and by the end of his career he will own more than three-fourths of the Aggies’ career passing records. He has maximized what he can do as a player.
Mond the person is as good as you’ll find in college football.
The school picked Mond to be a part of a 45-person commission, appointed by university president Michael K. Young, to evaluate diversity, equity and inclusion at A&M.
He’s on track to graduate in December, and has behaved like an adult when too many of the adults around him acted like children.
If the season progresses the way it has thus far, the Aggies will finish as a top 10 team for the first time since 2012, and Kellen Mond should have the eternal respect and appreciation in Aggieland.
For the Aggies who didn’t like what Mond did or said in the summer, be better, or deal with his middle finger.
This story was originally published November 5, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
