What 'Riff Ram' Really Means

Choosing a college can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re trying to imagine where you truly belong. During Monday at TCU visits, student ambassadors share their personal ‘Why TCU’ stories with prospective students and their families. Here’s the story I’ve had the privilege of sharing – one that began with uncertainty and ended with finding home. 

I know what you might be thinking… what kind of college is this? They just yell gibberish and have an odd obsession with the color purple and frogs that don’t really look like frogs. 

When I sat in your chair four years ago, I honestly had the same thought. But here I am today, just 12 days from graduation, and I want to tell you what “Riff Ram” really means — and how it ended up meaning everything to me. 

If you knew me in high school, you’d probably describe me as an overachiever. Like many of you, I filled my schedule with extracurriculars, spent hours on practice ACT tests and applied to schools all over the country, eager to find somewhere I could grow and make the most of the next four years. 

But comparison and rejection can steal the joy from the college process. When I received a rejection from the school I’d pictured myself at for years, it was easy to blame my test scores, my class rank and even the fact that I was vice president of a club instead of president.  

What I didn’t know then was that the place I was meant to be – the place where I would truly feel seen, heard, known and valued – was right here at TCU. 

And honestly… it really worked out. I look better in purple than in burnt orange anyway. 

I grew up just an hour away, so TCU was never a stranger to me. I went to football games, celebrated TCU Night at the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo every year, knew the fight song by heart and saw this campus in my family’s story long before it became part of my own since my parents were married right here on campus at University Baptist Church 27 years ago. 

But no one loved TCU more than my Papa. Some of my earliest memories are of him in his worn purple TCU baseball cap – the one he wore so often it barely held its shape.  

He bought standing-room-only tickets to every home game and would stand for hours just to watch the Frogs play. We could always spot Papa in his purple hat right behind the student section. If you were at the Baylor game in 2022 – the freezing one that came down to a last-second field goal – you might have seen him. He was the old guy jumping up and down behind the end zone when TCU kicked the game-winning field goal. 

I used to think, ‘It’s so cute how much Papa loves TCU.’ I didn’t realize he was quietly passing that love down to me. 

And let’s just say – he was successful. 

When I toured campus, something shifted. It wasn’t just the beautiful yellow-brick buildings or the way the sun hit Frog Fountain. It was the passion in my tour guide’s voice as she shared her ‘Why TCU.’ It was students holding doors open and yelling, ‘Go Frogs!’ It was the feeling that this wasn’t just a university – it was a community. 

Standing at Frog Fountain, I felt a sense of peace and belonging I hadn’t felt anywhere else. For the first time in the college process, I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. I just felt at home, and that’s how I know this was the place God was leading me to. 

That same day, I canceled all of my other college tours, spent an absurd amount of money at the bookstore and drove home to McKinney to tell my Papa I chose TCU. When I handed him a “TCU Grandpa” shirt, I will never forget the look on his face – pure pride, pure joy. That moment is still one of the best days of my life. 

Sadly, I lost my Papa after my first year. 

In a beautiful way, it made this place even more meaningful. Coming back sophomore year, I was determined to carry his Horned Frog spirit with me – and to make him proud. 

And TCU met me in that grief. It met me with professors who reached out to check on me. Friends who I’d only known for a short amount of time who came to his funeral. Even those behind TCU’s Instagram account messaged to express its condolences and meant more than they realized. And an admissions team that didn’t just know my name, but knew my story, and has allowed me to share it with all of you today. 

When people talk about “the TCU community,” it’s not just a phrase. Or the basic answer that every student gives when asked what they love most about TCU. It’s real. 

It’s professors who know your name by the second week of class and let you sit in their office and cry because you don’t want to graduate. It’s classmates who went from strangers to best friends you now spend every weekend with. It’s meeting the girl down the hall in Colby who becomes your forever best friend. It might even be being cast as an extra in your favorite TV show, Landman, and telling every single one of your tour groups that they have a famous tour guide even though you definitely can’t see me when you watch it.  

It’s giving a tour to over 100 students and families and having fellow TCU Ambassadors yell ‘Happy Birthday!’ across campus – when it is, in fact, not your birthday. It’s traveling to the College Football Playoff National Championship your first year and sobbing alongside thousands of Horned Frogs who feel like family. 

It’s seeing purple flags flying in Sundance Square. It’s two-stepping at Billy Bob’s, the world's largest honky tonk.  It’s realizing that when you choose TCU, your family doesn’t just drop you off here – they fall in love with this place all over again right alongside you. 

Being part of the TCU and Fort Worth community means being reminded, over and over again, that you matter here. And when you feel like you matter, you start saying yes to things that stretch you and shape you. 

For me, that meant stepping onto the sidelines as a communications intern with TCU Athletics – helping with media operations, writing game notes, working the college baseball tournament at the Globe Life Field and watching “Funky Town” come to life from a perspective most students never see. 

It meant switching my major not once, but twice, and finding the place where I truly felt I was meant to be. 

It meant becoming a TCU Ambassador – standing in front of hundreds of students and families and getting to say, ‘welcome home,’ knowing exactly what that feeling means. 

And it meant serving as a victim advocate for the Women’s Center of Tarrant County – sitting with people in their hardest moments and learning what it truly looks like to show up for someone else. 

Because without TCU, I wouldn’t have become the woman my Papa would be so proud of. 

In between, I’ve lived the full Horned Frog life — trying to fit all my clothes into a Colby closet, spending long hours at the TCU Math Clinic and strutting through the Stockyards in my boots… and yes, as I mentioned, traveling to the national championship game my first year. We don’t need to talk about how that ended. 

The truth is: my years at TCU have been nothing short of extraordinary. Not because everything was perfect, but because I have never felt so known or so valued. 

You might still be wondering what in the world “Riff Ram” means. 

To the outside world, it might sound like nonsense. But to me, it’s the sound of belonging. 

It’s the echo of professors calling your name, friends laughing in the Commons and a stadium full of people dancing to the Hypnotoad and LT Slide.  

It’s carrying my Papa’s love for this place while creating a legacy of my own. 

Riff Ram isn’t just a chant. It’s a reminder that TCU is more than a university – it’s a place that becomes part of who you are forever. 

And if you choose to be here, I promise… 

You won’t just be a Horned Frog. 

You’ll be known here. 
You’ll be valued here. 
You’ll belong here. 

Riff Ram – and Go Frogs!