THERE'S A SAYING in Aggieland for those who aren't true believers: Highway 6 runs both ways. As in, if you don't like it here, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
But for R.C. Slocum, all roads have always led to Texas A&M.
He arrived in 1972 as a 27-year-old receivers coach, and this Jan. 2, at 80, he officially retired. During those 53 years, he left a giant maroon thumbprint on football in Texas. Slocum accelerated integration in College Station as a young assistant in the 1970s, created some of the most fearsome defenses of the 1980s, became one of the country's winningest head coaches of the 1990s, and twice served as interim athletic director in the past five years.