By Alexa Brackin
“Beware lads the ‘Gold Rush’ is on.”
This was the warning for men on campus in a 1936 publication of the Lariat, preserved in an old Round Up yearbook, when a band of Baylor ladies formed the Golddiggers Club.
Yes. I said Golddiggers, as in women who care more about a man’s bank account than they do about the man.
To be eligible for such a club, one of the beauties of Baylor has to have “successfully looted the allowances of at least five boys during the fiscal year.”
You may be thinking, “Come on now, this is absurd.” Of course it is, but might I point out that the underlying principles of this absurdity are strikingly similar to today’s “Ring by spring” and the “M.R.S. degree.”
In a moment of pure boredom, I found myself wandering through the Round Up office and decided to flip through the old yearbooks. It was then that I realized the pure humor of our great and double great grandparents. These people were hilarious, whether they meant to be or not.
The women of the 1936 Vanity Fair section of the Round Up also flaunted their man-eating qualities. One Baylor woman was said to have “an enviable record of achievement, including getting her man” while another “looks well in white…can be reached for dates at Memorial.”
So why can’t the women today just come out with another Golddiggers Club rather than beating around the bush? It would be much more entertaining.
In the 1909 edition of The Round Up, a grieving co-ed wrote a recipe titled Misery.
“Take a little provocation, say a broken date or two; Add the yellow of one jealousy till the doubts rise thro’ and thro’; Then fret and worry, grieve and flurry in proportion to the fear; Keep stirring, always worrying, and for the flavor add a tear.”
I must say, this is a rather eloquent way to describe the antics of a mildly obsessed, melodramatic teenager who, in today’s world, would fling her worries and grievances all over Facebook and Twitter. Thank you to the ladies of 1909 for keeping it classy.
While on the topic of classy, the 1908-09 women’s intramural basketball teams were anything but. Teams such as the Goblins, Witches, Bull Dogs and Scraps geared up in their moo-moos and turtlenecks to go face to face on the basketball court.
The term “ballin” definitely didn’t apply to them. I would even go as far as saying they greatly lacked swag.
A group that didn’t appear to suffer from the swagless gene is the “Naughty Niners.” The name was given to the senior football team of 1909 who put the junior team to shame throughout the season. The junior team was reportedly “undismayed by the beef” of the Niners, though.
The 1951 Round Up documented the game of a football team of a different sort. The Beauty Bowl, Baylor’s campus wide version of a powder-puff game, described the Senior Beauts dominating the field over the Sophomore Brutes while, the oh-so-beautiful drum majorette took home the title of the “Home-Going King.” His outfit of choice was a traditional drum major uniform complete with a short hemline, baton, moustache and cowboy boots. No wonder he won. Can we please make this Baylor tradition prevalent once again?
The students of 1969 suffered from the very same ailment our generation of students experienced a few years ago: a less than impressive football team. The Round Up made sure to describe their shock and joy when they beat the Aggies for homecoming, but not before mentioning, “losing homecoming had all but become a Baylor tradition, and everyone at Baylor had just accepted it.”
I must say, thank the lord that we have these books to look back on. I cannot begin to describe the fun I have had spending hours laughing over the Round Ups of the past 100 years.
The 1908 book actually described itself as “the only chance of the senior class to take revenge on the faculty and other enemies for four years of insulted dignity, and right well do they usually accomplish it.” Perhaps this smart-mouthed, straightforward approach is the reason the older books are sprinkled with spouts of humor that are so entertaining today.
I would like to challenge you my fellow students to humor me with your wit in years to come so that when I am old and gray my great-grandchildren can look back mockingly on my college years.
Alexa Brackin is a junior journalism major from Beaumont. She is the news editor at the Baylor Lariat.
