I received the New Kids on the Block's "Merry, Merry Christmas" album in the sixth grade from a boy named Paul, accompanied by a heart-shaped rock he found on the playground. Embarrassed, because Paul was not considered "cool," I begrudgingly took the tape and committed it to memory. I never thought much of who the New Kids on the Block really were, or what message they were trying to convey. I simply hung their posters in my room and wished that Jonathan or Jordan would seek me out and profess his undying love.

When this season's football schedule was finalized way back on April 1, I was excited for a couple of reasons.

First, I saw the game against Big 12-powerhouse Oklahoma and was already getting pumped up to go to Norman. But even better than a showdown with the Sooners was seeing the junior varsity team we play before that.

It's a road game less than an hour away - I am of course talking about the SMU Mustangs.

It's time for the annual State Farm DFW Duel - Battle for the Iron Skillet.

The Iron Skillet will be on the line again Saturday as the Frogs travel to Dallas to take on the SMU Mustangs at Gerald J. Ford Stadium.The Frogs are 3-0 entering the showdown after last week's rainy win...

The university will host the first of six nationwide open meetings with the U.S. Department of Education to discuss the recently enacted Higher Education Opportunity Act, also known as the College Opportunity and Affordability Act, university officials said.

The meeting is scheduled to be from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today in the Brown-Lupton University Union Ballroom and is free and open to the public. Individuals who wish to address the panel may begin signing up at 8 a.m.

"It's a long shot any way you go in the music business," Mike Vosters says. "Everytime I hear about a concert I get this twinge inside telling me to get involved." Vosters, a sophomore marketing major, spent years playing the alto saxophone before college but just considered the business side of the music industry as a possible career path within the last year. He said his biggest regret when he started at TCU was his lack of involvement in the music world.

Buried last week underneath actual news, such as an approaching hurricane and a certain vice presidential nominee's first big interview, was this gem: Lance Armstrong is coming out of retirement for 2009.

That's right. The seven-time Tour de France winner announced last Tuesday that he's going to compete in several races after three years away, and Armstrong hopes to win his sport's most prestigious title for the eighth time. Armstrong said he's coming out of retirement to increase cancer awareness - no doubt a noble act.

TCU may be favored by more than three touchdowns in this upcoming DFW Duel, but all of the pressure to win is still on the Horned Frogs.The Mustangs have absolutely nothing to lose. They have already lost...

Gender imbalances on college campuses may contribute to a culture of sexual promiscuity, two journalists said.

Journalists Richard Whitmire and Laura Sessions Stepp interviewed college students and found hooking up as the preferred form of relationship on campuses with a gender imbalance.

"I've received several hundred e-mails from campuses all over the country saying that hooking up is the main way students relate to each other," Stepp said.

After a failed first attempt at launching a sports broadcasting program, officials in the radio-TV-film department are trying again.

David Whillock, dean of the College of Communication, said that he gave a charge to Chuck LaMendola, a radio-TV-film professor currently on sabbatical this semester, to have sports broadcasting on the books as a major by fall 2009. Whillock said most of the classes needed to create a sports broadcasting major are already in the course catalog.