Frogs

The Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M has its own names for almost everything. Even if the University considers students classified as freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, the Corps calls them fish, pissheads, sergebutts, and zips. The University makes no distinction between students who start as freshmen, and those who transfer in at some later time, but the Corps does. Any cadet who doesn't spend the fall semester of his freshman year as a fish in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M is called a frog, even if that cadet transfers to A&M from a service academy or some other full-time ROTC (cadet-corps) program.

Frogs were stigmatized because they hadn't had the opportunity to bond with their adopted classmates. That also means that they had missed the adversity that resulted in the fish bonding together. No matter what the reason for students entering the Corps after the first semester of the fish year, there was always the suspicion that they did so to avoid the adversity that first-semester fish endured. The upper classmen were determined that if a frog thought he'd escaped that adversity, he was wrong. Frogs were singled out for special, individual physical, mental, and emotional stress. Every time Mike Reed saw a frog, he stated loudly, "I hate frogs!" Mike even required frog Friedli to say "ribbit" every time his right foot hit the floor anytime he was in the dorm. One of the sergebutts continually asked Stan to "Twang Your Magic Twanger, Froggie" - which was a mangled quote from the lowest budget network kid show ever, "Andy's Gang!", starring Andy Devine, and which also had become a euphemism for masturbation. Where tradition dictated that fish didn't think but "cogitated", frogs "pondered." fish wore a break in the rear peak of their "biters"; frogs wore the break up front - it looked pretty goofy.

But nothing said that frogs couldn't eventually bond with their classmates and lose the stigma, if not the label - in fact, three of the four frogs we had in our class in Heaven's Eleven during our Corps years completed their zip year in the Corps, two of them with distinction.

Our first two frogs, Danny Neal and Stan Friedli, joined us at the beginning of the spring semester of our fish year. Danny made it through the end of our pisshead year in the Corps, then decided to get married and finish at UT Arlington. Stan stayed with us until zip year Final Review, and was selected for Corps staff our zip year. His story is also on this website in the "Our Stories" section.

At the beginning of our pisshead year, we got another frog - Rob Rogers. Rob stayed with us through our pisshead year, then transferred to Squadron 1, where he completed his sergebutt and zip years.

At the beginning of our sergebutt year, one more frog joined us - Phil Hubacek. The zips didn't quite know how to give a white-belt the benefit of the adversity Phil missed by not being with us the first two years, so they left it mostly up to us to decide what he needed to experience to be an integral part of Heaven's Eleven '72. I remember we had many discussions as to whether he'd qualify for senior boots. But Phil eventually fit in, and was selected for Group staff our zip year.

Heaven's Eleven had one cadet (Phillip Goodwin) who was academically the Class of '72, but who chose to be identified with the Class of '73. Phil was a non-reg our fish year, saw that he'd made a mistake by not being in the Corps, and decided to do it right, rather than to be a frog with the Class of '72. Since very few students graduated in 8 semesters, the Trigon allowed him to enter as a fish with the Class of '73. That's true Aggie spirit.

For the four years my son, Thomas was in the Corps, all frogs were put into one outfit - they weren't integrated into other outfits. I don't know why this policy was in effect, or when it started, but I suspect it was aimed at reducing the specialized, intense hazing that frogs received, thus improving their retention in the Corps.

John (Yankus) Yantis

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I think there was another frog, Danny Martinez, from Ft. Davis, TX, who made it one semester (I believe Soph year, but really can't remember). He dropped out, became a policeman in Marfa/Alpine and went on to become either a Federal Marshall or FBI agent in El Paso.

Mike (Bear) Shurley
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You got it mostly right John but for the timing. Danny Neal came on board sometime during our pisshead year.
Tom (T.E.) Schoolcraft

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Phil fit in!!!!???? I thought Lutz put him on Group staff to save his posterior… He didn't march Final Review in boots as I recall… Does anyone remember why (Buzzy?)
Mike (Zilch) Cunningham