KillerFrogs co-owner, former TCU lineman dead at 56

TCU fandom lost one if its leaders Thursday.

Scott Nix, former TCU football player and co-owner of the popular message board KillerFrogs.com, died early Thursday morning of a heart attack, his business partner Wes Phelan said. Nix celebrated his 56th birthday Nov. 3.

Nix bought out Phelan’s ownership partners in 2006 and kept Phelan on board as a co-owner.

In its first month in 1997, the website saw 450,000 page views. Now, the site averages 4.5 million page views a month and has 49,650 registered members.

“You know Scott, you meet him five minutes and you think you’ve known him all your life,” Phelan said. “He just had the most warming and welcoming personality you could ever want. He’s more like a brother to me than a friend.”

Nix anchored the KillerFrog weekly live-streamed video show Wednesday evening, with TCU athletic director Chris Del Conte as a guest. The show was in its second season and had hosted almost every TCU coach and many notable former players.

“He’s the definition to me of a loyal Horned Frog that always had those purple-tinted glasses on,” TCU baseball coach Jim Scholssnagle said. “He’s one of those guys, if you’re having a bad day and you saw him, your day just got better with a big hand shake and a big bear hug. He was a larger than life human being.”

Nix, a graduate of Garland High School, played guard for the Horned Frogs from 1978-82 and was a teammate with John Denton, the radio voice of TCU athletics.

As a walk-on kicker, Denton held tackling dummies in practice for the offensive linemen to practice pulling and blocking. Denton remembered the contest between the linemen to see how far they could launch the kickers, but he also remembered Nix’s helping hand pulling him off the turf.

Along with his contributions to TCU with KillerFrogs.com and as a donor, Nix was the active Second Vice President of the Letterman’s Association.

“I think his better years are here in the last 10 or 15 with the ownership with the website,” Denton said. “He really found himself as an entity of and for TCU. He did a lot to help promote the program through the website and really became a bigger than life celebrity.”

While several threads on KillerFrogs.com have become memorials to the site’s owner, TCU coaches and former players took to social media to honor Nix.

Survivors include wife Kelly and daughters Kameron and Kalison.

The website will go on, Phelan said, with its most popular message board renamed the Scott Nix Frog Fan Forum.

“I think that’s probably the biggest play he ever made for TCU was what he did for KillerFrogs.com,” Denton said.

This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 2:25 PM with the headline "KillerFrogs co-owner, former TCU lineman dead at 56."