GoFrogs: Notes on a Scorecard (Special Edition)

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GoFrogs: Notes on a Scorecard (Special Edition)

This week’s edition of Notes on a Scorecard has a different format as the below letter provides a look back at what a special year it’s been at TCU.

Dear Horned Frog Fans:

Thanks to your support, the 2015-16 athletics year was definitely a source of pride for TCU and Fort Worth!

While our student-athletes and coaches might receive the headlines, you are the wind beneath our wings. On behalf of Chancellor Victor Boschini and the TCU Board of Trustees, we truly appreciate your support!

The 2016 fiscal year saw a new record-breaking Frog Club Annual Giving total of $13,070,577 with $39,940,220 in overall athletic giving. The $39.9 million in cash giving ranked third all-time in TCU’s history for athletic fundraising ($47 million in fiscal year 2013; $40.4 million in fiscal year 2014). It maintained a five-year average of over $40 million in cash giving per year. This figure is the highest for all Big 12 members during that time period. For the fourth straight year, and just the fourth time ever, TCU covered its annual scholarship bill through donations to the Frog Club.

The momentum through your donations to TCU is reflected in our ticket sales and attendance figures. For the upcoming 2016 campaign, we have a sellout of football season tickets for the fourth time in five seasons. We also set new records for season tickets in baseball, men’s basketball, soccer and volleyball.

Baseball had over 2,300 season tickets sold with a record ticket revenue of close to $700,000. We ranked No. 1 in the nation for private schools and No. 11 overall in season attendance at 4,283 fans per game. Men’s basketball, keyed by the opening of the Ed and Rae Schollmaier Arena, reached 3,700 in season-ticket sales while topping the $1 million mark in ticket revenue for the first time in program history.

Soccer led the Big 12 in attendance for a fourth straight season, representing each year we’ve been in the Big 12. Volleyball nearly doubled its season-ticket holders while selling out all its Big 12 matches.

Facility improvements in the past year included the opening of the $72 million Ed and Rae Schollmaier Arena in December 2015. We also had the $7.5 million project at Charles and Marie Lupton Baseball Stadium at Williams-Reilly Field, completed in February 2016, that saw the creation of a new locker room, classroom, team lounge, sports medicine center, equipment room, alumni locker room and coaches’ offices as well as a new video board. A new locker room facility will open in Fall 2016 for the volleyball program. All these projects were donor funded.

Before we get into our success on the playing fields, please note what our student-athletes accomplished in the classroom. In the Spring 2016 semester, we posted a cumulative grade-point average of 3.07 for our highest mark on record. Eighty-eight student-athletes earned degrees in 2015-16.

Another national championship made its way to TCU as track and field’s Ronnie Baker repeated in the indoor 60 meters! Our sports and individual student-athletes combined for seven Big 12 championships. We won conference trophies in baseball at the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship as well as men’s tennis regular season and tournament titles. In addition to the indoor 60 meters, Ronnie was a Big 12 champion in the outdoor 100 meters with Brianna McGhee winning the women’s outdoor 100 hurdles. We also had a Big 12 title in the pool as Ford Story from our men’s swimming and diving program won in the 100 breaststroke.

We had five sports (football, baseball, men’s tennis, rifle and equestrian) finish in the top 10 nationally with two others (men’s golf, men’s indoor track and field) in the top 20. Fourteen of our 21 sports reached postseason play with rifle and equestrian being national runners-up.

We saw a comeback for the ages with our 47-41 triple-overtime victory over Oregon in the Valero Alamo Bowl! Gary Patterson’s squad showed that Horned Frogs never give up as we rallied from a 31-point deficit to tie for the largest comeback in bowl history and second-largest ever in an FBS game. That memorable night in San Antonio made Bram Kohlhausen a household name in our proud football history.

Speaking of “Never Ever Give Up,” our baseball program took inspiration in young Micah Ahern’s attitude to win a Super Regional in College Station and make a third straight trip to the College World Series. We were the only program in the country to appear each of the last three seasons in Omaha. We were also the only school in the nation this year to finish with a top-10 ranking in football and reach the CWS. In fact, we’ve now accomplished that feat in each of the last two seasons.

It was extremely rewarding to see our student-athletes and coaches again receive their share of national recognition. Baseball’s Jim Schlossnagle and equestrian’s Haley Schoolfield received national coach of the year awards. A previous national coach of the year made his way home this year as Jamie Dixon returned to campus to lead our men’s basketball program.

Twenty-six student-athletes garnered All-America honors with football’s Josh Doctson being a unanimous consensus first-team selection. Additionally, Alex Rybakov became the first player in our men’s tennis history to be named ITA National Rookie of the Year. Six student-athletes were recognized as Academic All-Americans, while equestrian’s Kari Hancock received the Clark Society Leadership Scholarship.

We are proud to share our incredible 2015-16 athletics year with our TCU family. Your investment in TCU, and especially our student-athletes, make our successes possible.

Go Frogs!

Thank you.

Christopher M. Del Conte
Director of Intercollegiate Athletics


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