By Jeffrey Cohen | Sports Editor
It had been about two decades since the Bear Bell roamed the field of Floyd Casey Stadium.
A tradition that originated in the early 1970s had drifted into obscurity and was eventually forgotten. Baylor Sigma Chi, the owner of the bell, had taken a hit just like its lost custom, getting removed from campus in 2010.
At the end of the five-year hiatus, Sigma Chi was looking back to its roots. The members stumbled across the Bear Bell, sitting in a storage closet and collecting dust. The sight of the bell brought decades of memories flooding back.
That rediscovery led the Bear Bell from a forgotten glimpse of the past to a game day tradition in the last 10 years, working with Athletic Director Doug McNamee to bring it back to the field.
“With Doug McNamee coming in, having an understanding, talking with mutual friends of his that were Sigma Chi’s and others, I’m sure he was really the catalyst for it coming back full time,” Sigma Chi Advisor Mike Lively said.
The bell was used sparingly outside of Sigma Chi’s events since 2015. It made a comeback in the 2017 Homecoming parade as a part of the fraternity’s float. It had gone between storage and being used, appearing in the 2023 parade and in the Bears’ win over TCU in 2024.
“We moved it over to a storage unit so that we could still bring it out,” Lively said. “When I saw it in 2022, I was like, ‘What are we doing with this thing? Why are we still not utilizing it?‘ And so, I just started asking questions and I was like, ‘OK, 2023, let’s try and see if we can get the Bear Bell back into the homecoming parade.”
Baylor announced in late August that the Bear Bell would return to being on the sidelines of every home game for the first time in 25 years. The news created a spark to Sigma Chi, and that energy grew until some of the members got to finally see the bell before Baylor’s home opener against Prairie View A&M.
“The week before the game, we got to go out to McLane, walk the field with it and see it,” Sigma Chi President James Kennedy said. “We probably had 10 guys there, and every single dude was excited, high-fiving each other. … This is something that this is a huge step not only first for the fraternity, but for Baylor as a whole.”
The tradition began in 1972 — the first year of legendary head coach Grant Teaff’s tenure — and since its resurgence, the bell has been a driving factor in bringing support and excitement from past Baylor classes.
“The alumni were excited to see it, to hear it ring again,” Lively said. “It was a connecting piece from alumni of the past and hopefully connects that to the present and then to the future. Bears that come along, that they have a remembrance as a kid. And now that they’re a student, they remember, and now they’re excited when they see it.”
Former Bears are not afraid to show their support and appreciation for the Bear Bell’s return. The bell has become a celebrity outside of McLane Stadium.
“You get there three hours before you’re ready for the Bear Walk,” Weiler said. “We’re talking to alumni tailgates that are around there. They’re all coming up talking to us, asking about the bell, and they’re taking us to their tailgates, introducing us to anybody.”
Bringing the custom back has also become a renewed honor for Sigma Chi, being one of the few student organizations that play a notable role on gamedays, just like it did decades ago.
It has become more of a selling point for the fraternity since it returned to the gridiron. While it was mainly being used during its rush events and bid day, the members now want to be one of the few who are with the bell each home game.
Houston senior Miles Weiler is with the Bear Bell each game, but the other members have to be chosen in a raffle to get the honor of keeping the bell.
“We all have so much pride in it,” Houston senior Miles Weiler said. “All the guys in the chapter are fighting to get the three positions that are always on the field with me.”
That sense of pride does not come from just one group of members generating this change. It comes from years of members trying to revive the tradition as it faded in the 2000s and vied to bring it back in the past decade.
“There’s thousands of alumni that have come through here and fought for this,” Kennedy said. “We’re so excited for the years to come. We’ve got so many ideas of how we can incorporate the Bear Bell. … Whether it’s rush or whether it’s philanthropy events, having it out on Fountain Mall, I think the Bear Bell represents just more than a fraternity. It’s definitely a Baylor tradition.”
While the bell has remained in Waco for the past couple of decades, it traveled the country in its heyday. Sigma Chi members hitched it to the back of their cars and hit the road, letting it ring at some of college football‘s most iconic venues.
“Guys were telling stories about the back of their Cutlass,” Lively said. “They had the Bear Bell going to Arkansas and the Peach Bowl in Georgia and, and in ’85, it was at the Independence Bowl. And so, it’s traveled; it used to go to all the games, used to even go to A&M and Houston and all over the place.”
The Bear Bell’s goal is to allow alumni to reminisce on some of the memorable moments from Baylor football’s history. It serves as a way to connect those past memories to the ones that the Bears can create today.
“I want the alumni that come back that they hear that Bear Bell ring again or they hear that horn again,” Lively said. “[I hope] it takes them back to the BYU victory in 1985 or ’83 or it takes them back to 1986 when we’re 8-0 and they can remember the days of Grant Teaff.”
