Clark Hall Spirit Marauders

Before there were the HyperFrogs, there were the Clark Hall Spirit Marauders. They were easy to spot at TCU sporting events, sitting in the front rows with their faces painted purple and white, cheering and shouting.

They were determined to improve school spirit.

"The whole idea behind the group is that we wanted to build some spirit around TCU and create a tradition," group leader and Clark Hall resident Mike Kerner was quoted as saying in the 1989 Horned Frog yearbook.

Among other activities, the Spirit Marauders took groups of children with cystic fibrosis to football and basketball games.

A fresh slate in 1983-84

Having graduated all eight of the seniors who truly were the Killer Frogs, the TCU men's basketball team of 1983-84 was starting with a clean slate. That became the theme of that season's media guide, shown above. It was Jim Killingsworth's fifth season in Fort Worth, and only one player remained from the previous season's 23-11 squad that finished tied for fourth in the Southwest Conference and reached the quarterfinals of the National Invitation Tournament.

Youth would be the theme and depicted by wide-eyed Tommy Carley watching Killingsworth erase the Killer Frogs tag. The new crop, which included Frog greats Jamie Dixon, Dennis Nutt, Carven Holcombe, Tracy Mitchell and Tony Papa. would struggle to an 11-17 mark that season, but they would rebound to a 16-12 mark in 1984-85, setting up back-to-back years of 20-plus wins and SWC crowns in 1985-86 and 1986-87.

Frog Blog is now Mem'ries Sweet Blog

You may have noticed that we haven't posted to our old Frog Blog very often since spring. The magazine staff has been talking about what would be a better use of this weblog space, and we have concluded that we need more nostalgia pieces that would be of interest to our audience.

TCU has begun its 140th academic year and there is lots of history from which to choose. A few times a week, we aim to share with the TCU community short items from the TCU Daily Skiff, The TCU Magazine (or its old moniker This Is TCU), the Horned Frog yearbook and stuff our readers send to us.

We invite you to comment, share, expound and add to what we post. You're a part of TCU's great history and lore. In this space, we'll celebrate it together.

If you have ideas for content, email your thoughts to tcumagazine@tcu.edu and put Mem'ries Sweet in the subject line.

Go Frogs!