The man who invented the famous Hook'em Horns hand sign at University of Texas, has died. Harley Clark, who was head cheerleader at Texas in 1955 when he introduced the sign at a pep rally, was 78.
The university said Clark, who became a state judge, passed Thursday on his farm outside Austin.
Clark and his friend Henry Pitts devised the hand sign together. They concluded that extending the index and little fingers gave the look of a longhorn. At the pep rally the night before Texas hosted TCU in football, Clark declared: "This is the official hand sign of the University of Texas, to be used whenever and wherever Longhorns gather."
At the time, one university official was angry with Clark, because the hand sign is considered vulgarity in Sicily. Unaware of this, Clark responded by telling the official it was a good thing the school mascot was a longhorn rather than a unicorn.
Last year, ThePostGame was fortunate enough to spend a day at Clark's home where he talked about the hand sign and his memories from the University of Texas. Here's Harley Clark, in his own words:
As a judge, Clark, who had been battling cancer, is known for his 1987 ruling that Texas' school finance system at the time was unconstitutional and inequitable at the expense of poor districts.
