The coming of September on the TCU hill in Fort Worth was, during the years of my youth, a time of anticipation. For those whose lives revolved around the school calendar, as my family's did, it was a time of returning and renewing, a time of fresh starts, chance, and possibility. I and my sister would be returning to public school, and my father and mother would be returning to the TCU Biology Department after the summer respite, he to teach new students in established courses, and she to serve as the department's secretary. In those days of the 1940s and early '50s, the University's Spring semester was over about the first week in June, and the regular semester of Fall didn't start until past the middle of September. Among other anticipations, then, was the cooler weather that October would bring to the heat-saturated prairie on which Fort Worth is laid, and following close on that would be a new season of Horned Frog athletic contests.

TCU athletics was an important part of my greening, and long before I met and married Johnny Swaim and became really involved, I had annually accompanied my parents to the football and basketball games that TCU's teams played in the city. Some of my earliest memories of the campus are centered around the old track and playing field to the east of the Mary Couts Burnett Library, the still-new Amon Carter Stadium on the far western edge of the campus, and the old wooden "Barn" behind the gymnasium on the main campus that served as the basketball fieldhouse. Later, I was part of a regular audience who watched first Hub McQuillan's teams, then "Buster Brannon's brats" perform in the Will Rogers Coliseum, where conference basketball games were played from the mid-forties at least through the 1952-53 championship season.

On the Saturday afternoons of home football games, there was almost a crackle in the air, as the streams of cars and pedestrians headed for Stadium Drive and the game in Amon Carter Stadium. Rogers Road, where I lived, was only four and one-half blocks from the stadium and, on those Saturdays, it would be lined with parked cars, and our driveway would be full to capacity with the cars of friends who liked to park and walk with us to the game. Sometimes on our way, we would be just in time to catch up with the TCU band as they marched west, from up near where the quadrangle fountain is now, to the stadium, drumsticks clicking, brass flashing, and shoulders swinging in time. As they neared the east entrance, the leader would whistle a signal, and the band would strike up the "Fight Song" to let anybody who could hear know that it was about time to start the contest--the Frogs had arrived. A true fan would have had to have been dead not to feel excitement in that air and to step a little more smartly.

After the game, our friends would return to Rogers Road to partake of the good food and fellowship provided by the Hewatts. More often than not, Dutch Meyer and his snappy little wife,Maggie, and Abe Martin and his Sally would drop by to bask in approval or to be salved by the sympathy of the group gathered there. "Uncle Abe" would unfold his lanky length on the floor and relax, sure that here, at least, were steady friendship and support, whatever the game's outcome. Those people I remember wanted Dutch and Abe and Buster to be successful because they were friends and colleagues, and you wanted your friends and colleagues to win. It was a selfless attitude, born of friendship and loyalty that didn't sour or turn cold at failure.

Many of my parents' close friends were associated in some way with the sports programs at TCU. Football was represented by the Meyers, the Martins, Walter and Elaine Roach, Bear and Martha Wolf, and Howard and Madelon Grubbs; basketball was there in Hub and Altine McQuillan, and sports publicity was accounted for in Amos Melton and Gracie. TCU's golf coach, Tom Prouse, and Lois were often in the group as was the team's physician, Mac Crabb, and Mildred.

Daddy and Dutch were representatives of yet another "sport," too. Although I have no affidavits, it was well known that Willis Hewatt and Dutch Meyer were a formidable, in fact, bloody, pair to oppose at the bridge table. Dutch was hard and gruff, but underneath that tough exterior, one could catch a glimmer now and then of a bit of a pussycat. He was amicable and quite gentlemanly at the socials in our home, and although there were always heated arguments, especially among Dutch, Daddy, and Howard Grubbs, they always ended in good-natured gibing and obvious mutual respect. When the courageous Maggie finally succumbed to cancer, far too young, the old "fight 'em 'til Hell freezes over, then fight 'em on the ice" Dutch was ready to give up, too. It was the warmth and support of this same group of campus friends, that saw him through his blackest hours.

The TCU world was much smaller then, being contained almost entirely within the rectangle bounded around by University Drive, Cantey, Stadium, and Bowie streets. Only the library and the football stadium were outside these borders. The athletic offices were on the first floor of the "Little Gym," a building first occupied in 1921 and used as the hub of physical activities until 1973, when the Rickel Health and Physical Education Building was built. The sights, sounds, and smells of that old gym have captured light in my mind that seems not to fade with use and years. The glassed-in tropies in the lobby outside Dutch's office, the tunneled echoes of splashes, pounding feet, and bouncing balls, the odor of chlorine, sweat, and a musty warm moisture that never went away, furnish my mingled memory of that place; the people who worked and played there give the memory life.

Perhaps because of the proximity of the campus facilities in those years, athletics seemed more of an integral part of university life than they do now. It seems that a vague remoteness has crept in, and there appears to be a small but discernible crevice between the Daniel-Meyer/Amon Carter athletic complex and the campus east of it. There seems to be less comraderie between the coaches and the faculty. The athletes, the "gladiators" as Dutch called them, seem somewhat detached from the rest of the student body; they live apart, eat apart, and play apart. So it seems.

But, it is probably simpler than that. For it may well be that I am the one who is remote, certainly more remote from the athletic program than at any time in my past. It could also be that my girlish anticipation, as often happens, has lost its edge. No matter--for when we climb again to our familiar fifty-fourth row seats in the West stadium stands, from which I can view the panorama of my campus, and as we stand there to sing the Alma Mater, I'll be glad for the opportunity to pull for the Frogs once more.

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