Whether walking to class or traveling abroad, you never know when a fellow TCU fan will give you the famous frog hand sign. Texas is full of collegiate hand signs to represent university mascots and school spirit: The University of Texas with “Hook’em Horns,” Texas A&M University’s Gig’em thumb, Baylor University’s bear claw, and the list goes on.

In 1980, on his way to cheer camp in Tennessee, TCU head cheerleader Chad Schrotel, class of 1982, and his peers decided a hand signal would be a great way to show solidarity and promote school spirit. They settled on the current curled-finger salute with the protruding knuckles resembling the horns on a real horned frog.

It took a while to catch on. It was taught to the incoming first-year students at Orientation, flashed at alumni gatherings and the cheerleaders got the Wranglers, a now-defunct spirit group, to wave it en masse at games. Today the TCU hand symbol is one of the more recognizable traditions on campus.