The Start of Something Big

Before a 1930 football game against TCU, Texas A&M Regent Pinky Downs, Class of 1906, asked what the team would do to the Horned Frogs and answered, “We’re going to ‘Gig’em, Aggies!” while making a fist with his thumb straight up like a spear used to gig frogs. That night, the first hand sign in the history of the Southwest Conference was born, and it became the oldest collegiate hand sign in Texas. The statue is a mold of Fadi Kalaouze, Class of 1990, owner and founder of Aggieland Outfitters, who began his entrepreneurial journey at Texas A&M in the late 1980s by selling t-shirts in the hallways of the MSC on game days. After graduation, he and his wife, Hege Kalaouze, also Class of 1990, opened Inspirations in College Station’s Post Oak Mall, and in 2000 the couple launched Aggieland Outfitters, now known as the leader in Aggie gifts.

College Station, Texas · United States