For TCU, this wonderful moment comes after 17 years of hard work, smart decisions and doing things right. We salute you, Horned Frogs.

Rather than accept a ticket to obscurity, TCU fought and clawed its way back to respectability with the basics: raising money, building buildings, winning games and graduating athletes.

In the end, it's not that complicated. From the ashes of the breakup of the Southwest Conference, TCU built a program that could serve as a model for every other in the country.

We may never know exactly why TCU was invited to join the Big 12 on Thursday. Until a few days ago, TCU administrators believed it wouldn't happen, that either Texas was against allowing the Horned Frogs into the Big 12 or that Oklahoma was pushing for a program outside Texas or something else.

In this entire realignment saga, motives never have been completely clear. Money has been an obvious issue, but so has ego, pride and jealousy.

All we know for sure is that TCU caught a break. The Horned Frogs had agreed to join the Big East just in time to see it disintegrate. But TCU had long since put itself in position for this invitation.

From a geographic standpoint, replacing Texas A&M with TCU makes sense. It is reasonably close to five other Big 12 schools, and thanks to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, there won't be any changing planes to get to TCU.

Let's pause now for a little history. The Horned Frogs were going to be invited to join the Big 12 in 1994 until Gib Lewis, speaker of the Texas House of Representatives from Fort Worth, chose not to seek re-election as part of a plea bargain that arose out of an ethics scandal.

He was replaced by Pete Laney, who went along with Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock and the Texas Senate in their desire for Baylor and Texas Tech to join Texas and Texas A&M in the Big 12.

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At that point, it seemed a safe bet TCU never would be heard from again.

Thanks to Franchione

And the Horned Frogs might have remained irrelevant if athletic director Eric Hyman hadn't done something really smart.

In 1998, he hired a football coach named Dennis Franchione, who changed everything.

In Franchione's first season, TCU won seven games and beat USC in the Sun Bowl.

That Sun Bowl was the Horned Frogs' first bowl victory in 41 years, and Franchione still remembers the way fans approached him with tears in their eyes to thank him.

After that season, Hyman added a $1 million national championship bonus to Franchione's contract. That clause drew some laughs, but it got people's attention that TCU was serious.

From there, things happened quickly. When Franchione left for Alabama after the 2000 season, defensive coordinator Gary Patterson was promoted to head coach.

He took what Franchione had started and made it better. Patterson is a tough, humorless, demanding man, and he built a great program brick by brick.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all was that Patterson did not use the Horned Frogs as a steppingstone to a better job. Between 2008 and 2010, his teams went 36-3 and played in two consecutive BCS games. His defining moment was last year's Rose Bowl victory over Wisconsin.

Patterson helped raise money, too - more than $140 million if my math is correct. TCU built new offices and a new practice facility, and it is halfway through a $105 million upgrade of Amon Carter Stadium.

Big East had issues

When TCU was invited to join the Big East last winter, it seemed like the fitting final touch to the program.

But then the Big East began to come undone, and for a few weeks, TCU officials had no idea if all their good work would be rewarded.

On Thursday, it was.

One of the things some Big 12 officials had used against TCU was that having the Horned Frogs in the conference didn't extend the league's television market outside Texas.

This is silly talk.

The Horned Frogs have been on television so much - including those BCS bowl appearances against Boise State and Wisconsin in which they donned those unique purple uniforms - that they have made themselves a national presence.

Now the bad news. TCU's ticket to the Big 12 is a bitter pill for SMU and Houston, and indications are that they aren't under consideration for further Big 12 expansion.

Like the Horned Frogs, both schools were dumped in the Southwest Conference breakup, and they have struggled to re-establish themselves as relevant programs.

For Houston, the message is simple: Keep raising money and winning games and working to get that new stadium built. TCU refused to quit working, and neither should UH.

UH can't give up hope

Texas A&M's departure turned out to be a huge break for TCU. There will be more changes in the college landscape in the future, and all UH can do is be prepared, as TCU was when an opportunity presented itself.

There were plenty of days when Horned Frogs fans thought this moment never would come. But they never stopped working, and there's a lesson in there somewhere.

richard.justice@chron.com