Guns Up In the early 1970s, L. Glenn Dippel, Texas Tech Class of ’61, was living in Austin and got fed up with the ubiquitous Hook ’em Horns. “I would’ve just as soon given them a one-finger salute, but we would have had to change our mascot to a unicorn,” Dippel jokes. With inspiration from mascot Raider Red and his six-shooters, Dippel and wife Roxie, a fellow Tech alum, created the L-shaped hand pistol salute (demonstrated by pom squad member Abby Bertrand). Nearly four decades later, QB Taylor Potts (12), RB Baron Batch (25) and LB Brian Duncan (57) still go in guns blazing. BY LARUE COOK PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN LOOMIS IN TEXAS, FOOTBALL FANS WEAR THEIR HEARTS ON THEIR SLEEVES—AND SHOW THEIR LOYALTY WITH THEIR FINGERS. Give ’Em a Hand 115 2010 K I C K O F F C O L L E G E F O O T B A L L
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Guns Up
In the early 1970s, L. Glenn Dippel, Texas Tech Class of ’61, was living in Austin and got fed up with the ubiquitous Hook ’em Horns. “I would’ve just as soon given them a one-finger salute, but we would have had to change our mascot to a unicorn,” Dippel jokes. With inspiration from mascot Raider Red and his six-shooters, Dippel and wife Roxie, a fellow Tech alum, created the L-shaped hand pistol salute (demonstrated by pom squad member Abby Bertrand). Nearly four decades later, QB Taylor Potts (12), RB Baron Batch (25) and LB Brian Duncan (57) still go in guns blazing.
By LARUE COOK
PHOTOGRAPHS
By JOHN LOOMIS
IN TEXAS, FOOTBALL
FANS WEAR THEIR
HEARTS ON THEIR
SLEEVES—AND
SHOW THEIR LOyALTy
WITH THEIR FINGERS.
Give
’Em a
Hand
115
2010
K I C KOFF
COLL
EGE FOOTBALL
Cougar Paw
Before the first football game between Houston and Texas, in Austin in 1953, Shasta, the Cougars’ live mascot, got her paw caught in the cage door and lost a toe. During the Longhorns’ blowout, UT fans mocked the visitors by mimicking a wounded paw. UH fans remembered that 15 years later and flashed the Cougar Paw when upstart Houston tied powerhouse Texas. The sign was a tradition by 1976, when Houston ended UT’s 42-game home winning streak with a 30-0 rout. As Cougars QB and Heisman candidate Case Keenum knows, you don’t mess with a wounded cat.
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Hook ’em HornsLegend has it that back in 1955, Longhorns head cheerleader Harley Clark and buddy Henry Pitts were playing shadow puppets on the wall at the campus union when they realized one of their silhouettes resembled the horns of Bevo, UT’s venerable mascot. (Here, Bevo’s facsimile, Hook’Em, gets a lift from cheerleaders Malori Wofford, left, and Jenny Barton.) Not long after, Clark flashed the sign at a pep rally. “Everybody held their horns up and I officially proclaimed it the hand sign of the University of Texas,” he later said. Hook ’em Horns is now college football’s most recognizable signal, and Austin alums are very protective of it. Just ask Vince young.
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Pony EarsCheerleader Roy Bailey introduced SMU’s Pony Ears in the 1970s, not long before Hall of Fame RB Eric Dickerson (right, representing with third-year Mustangs coach June Jones) brought the Pony Express to University Park. Now, when the fight song “Varsity” is played, students and players raise their Ears and circle them around their heads for each year they’ve been in school.
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Horned FrogTCU didn’t adopt a signature signal until the early 1980s, when head cheerleader Chad Schrotel invented the curled index-and-middle-finger salute. Some fans say the flexed knuckles represent the horns of their mascot, SuperFrog. Others suggest its shape comes from the motion used to playfully jab—or “frog”—a class-mate. Either way, the hand sign has become an even bigger hit in Fort Worth since TCU has been to five straight bowls, including the Fiesta Bowl last season. Now that’s something to jab about.
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