By Chris Derrett
Editor in chief
How much smack have you talked lately?
The last time you saw a friend from another Texas university, or any other university for that matter, did you strike the Heisman pose? Maybe you asked that friend to toss you something just so you could swat it back into his or her face and yell, “Griner!”
It hasn’t been hard to live in the moment at Baylor this year. Just look at the two billboards that greet drivers headed north on I-35 past campus — it’s nice to have the nation’s best football and women’s basketball players in the country.
For the record, a Heisman finalist and basketball national player of the year at Baylor have only happened two other times since 1961.
Athletics not your thing? No worries — Baylor’s never had a more academically accomplished freshman class than this year’s. If you didn’t know, there’s also an enormous research building in progress that will eventually give Baylor 175,000 square feet for graduate research and another 50,000 for joint research with business and industry firms.
We could go on and on about what the future holds — new dorms, renovations of current dorm, new athletics facilities…
But wait. What about the past?
It wasn’t too long ago that Baylor was fighting, along with the help of prominent Texas politicians to gain entry into the Big 12. Our campus, while always beautiful, hasn’t always been quite as grand as what we have today.
And fraternities and sororities, whose neon trucker hats, crush events and formals are taken for granted at Baylor, didn’t always exist.
This issue isn’t a History of Baylor 101. You’ve already heard that information either at Line Camp, an on-campus presentation or elsewhere, and if you haven’t, you can visit Baylor’s website and find it easily.
We wanted to look at the significant elements that have molded Baylor, as well as people embodying the same mission the university has promoted for the last 167 years.
We hope the resulting product tells stories and presents images you’ll remember. Read how Greek life came to Baylor, see photos we dug up with the help of the Texas Collection and learn about the (somewhat ambiguous) history of the Noze brotherhood. Read about a Baylor dining employee and a bowling instructor, two individuals who continue to shape Baylor students to this day. Relive a recent triumph with the Lady Bears’ championship.
As part of a generation fascinated by Instagram and Facebook uploads, we know a thing or two about capturing memories and enjoying them. No, you can’t tag friends in this issue or put retro filters on the photos, but in some cases, you don’t even need to use filters. Just enjoy the old-school film photos exactly as they are.
While you’re at it, enjoy the rest of the issue, too.
