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- A mysterious "Power of Purple" overtakes
the TCU campus
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- By David O'Brien
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- TCU Daily Whiff
TCU Senior Donald Liebermeyer still thinks he scored a touchdown in
the Main last week.
"One minute, I was ordering the special," said Liebermeyer,
sipping a cappucino, his face painted half-purple on this Sunday morning.
"The next minute, it became a football, and I was in a TCU football
game. I can't explain it."
Liebermeyer rushed for 156 yards through the Student Center, taking
out various students and stiff-arming Student Center Director Larry Markley
among others.
"Since June, we've had 62, uh, excited diners," Markley said,
admitting that he was the lead blocker for one student who ran an amazing
double reverse with a slice of pizza. "What can I say? It's contagious."
Indeed. TCU police, calling it the "Power of Purple," say
the phenomena began around the TCU area last December after the Horned
Frogs stomped the USC Trojans 28-19 in the Norwest Sun Bowl. Pandemonium
has since spread across all of the campus.
Attending church at UCC last Sunday, 92-year-old Myra Eggleston surprised
her congregation by yelling "Go Frogs! . . . Beat Arizona!" in
between stanzas of Amazing Grace. Later, she tackled the pastor after he
dropped a communion wafer. "My vision's not what it used to be,"
Eggleston said. "It looked like a loose ball to me."
In Reed Hall, English Prof. Bob Frye insisted that all students be required
to take a newly created course called "Riff Ram Bah Zoo," an
introductory class that explores the inner workings of the TCU Fight Song.
Said Frye, "If these kids don't know the Frog's fight song, how are
they ever going to make it in the real world?"
And finally, in Sadler Hall, Chancellor Michael R. Ferrari held an emergency
"town hall" meeting to help faculty, staff and students better
understand how to deal with the Power of Purple that threatens to consume
the TCU community.
"It's not often that a force hits the University family as hard
as this TCU purple thing has," said Ferrari, looking at his watch
so as not to miss kickoff. "The best thing you can do as Horned Frogs
is simply to get to the games early. Arriving late to a football game can
do irreparable damage to students, as well as to faculty and staff."
"We have to ask ourselves . . . What's really important here? And
I think the answer for all of us has to be Horned Frog Football."
- Mascot makeover?
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- By Samuel Baugh
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- TCU Daily Whiff
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- TCU's mascot has been working out.
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- In fact, when Super Frog makes his debut at the home opener against
Arizona, fans will hardly recognize him, said TCU's Dale Young '66, the
mascot's agent.
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 "He was hurt by the comments that he was looking too
much like a Barney character," Young said. "He said people wanted
him tougher, more powerful, like our football team. We agreed."
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- Sources also disclosed that TCU's top Frog had begun to wrinkle-and
smell-having gone 20 years without a real bath.
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- A top-secret group of personal trainers and image consultants have
worked since June with the silent one, fortifying his diet with extra red
ants and surgically implanting ice packs and a head fan to keep the more
vigorous Frog cool during games.
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- "The word is that Super Frog looks more like the Frog you see
on the team helmets now," Young said. "I guess that since our
teams are getting better, Super Frog decided to get in shape, too."
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- In the Hunt
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- Reggie Hunt is hungry.
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- The heart and soul of TCU's defense, he taps his washboard stomach
for good measure, a worn black workout glove covering his clenched fist.
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 No doubt, the taste of TCU football is in the air; on this
day, Hunt sits just a few paces from the house Davey O'Brien '39, Jim Swink
'57 and Bob Lilly '61 built-Amon Carter Stadium-whose future suddenly looks
as bright as its gloried past. The campus expectation following the Frogs'
stunning 28-19 upset over USC in the Norwest Sun Bowl is palatable. And
the thought is more than an appetizer on the tip of Hunt's tongue.
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- "We've got another bowl game to go to," the senior safety
begins, quietly, articulately. "We've got to play Fresno State for
the conference championship." And there's that little season opener
against Arizona. On a Sunday. In front of a national television audience.
For an hour each day, Hunt has been picking apart Wildcat films, studying
his own footage, too. "I want to see the mistakes I made, and what
I can do to get better."
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- Yet, as much as Hunt's dark eyes ravenously look toward this fall's
weekend specials-bone-crushing tackles smothered in purple jerseys-something
far more meaningful caused him to come to the college football dinner table
in the first place.
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- Turn the game clock back eight years. Hunt was 13, growing up in Denison
with his younger brother Aaron (now a defensive end at Texas Tech) in a
single-parent household. "My mom and my brother are my best friends,"
he said. "We struggled money-wise, but as far as love, we had plenty."
His mother called him Einstein for the grades he brought home. But his
sprinter legs soon surpassed his racing mind; he began running 100- and
200-meter races in junior high when the phone rang one night, too late
for anything but bad news.
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- Chicago Bears rookie Fred Washington-Hunt's cousin, role model and
surrogate father-had been killed in an automobile accident. For Hunt, that
brought back memories of a cousin 10 years his senior, quiet, resident
coach for a ragtag team of teenagers who played street football at Hunt's
grandmother's home during the holidays.
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- "He was my inspiration," Hunt said, who switched from track
to football after Washington's death. "I felt like I was next, and
I was the only one who could take his place."
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- Hunt became a dynamo for Denison High School on both sides of the ball.
His senior year, he was courted by Notre Dame, Michigan, Florida State,
Nebraska. He chose TCU, just like his cousin did.
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- It figures that during WAC Media Day in late July that Hunt would be
named the top preseason defensive player. Hunt appreciates the honor, but
the inspiration for his game can be found on his arm, in black letters,
a tatoo across the width of his bicep: F.E.W. And then below it: 1967-1990.
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- From Hunt's perspective, he's just following in those unfinished footsteps.
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- That journey in mind, Reggie Hunt isn't just hungry for Sunday's game
against Arizona to begin.
- He's starving.
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