Russell Lester. Religion Professor from the 60s through the 90s. Impacted a lot of students' lives. Some said he was boring. But, he was one of the kindest individuals I ever knew.
I'm voting for whoever it was who made the Schlotzsky's over on Eighth Street quit selling 50 cent longnecks on Friday afternoons and eventually shut 'em down and become a much-needed t-shirt shop.
1981, I think. NOBS probably remembers.
Short stumble from my Kokernot home, that was. Buck stops with Herb (his staff) on that call. They spoke out to stop Schlotzsky's from endangering the nearby building that hosted the famed aphasia summer clinic.
I think Shell corp. deserves some praise. They would give any BU student who could sign their name a credit card. Wasn't as close as Schlotsky's but that's a lot of beer at $3.15 a six pack of Michelob before you reached the $200 credit limit.
My hat goes off to all of the above, but I think Michael Johnson certainly deserves a mention. When he won the Gold in both the 200M and 400M in the 1996 Olympics, he put Baylor on the world stage. The pride I felt as a fellow Baylor Bear and business major was phenomenal. I may be mistaken, but I think Michael Johnson still owns the world record in both events.
RD2
Outside our bubble not all that many people know that Johnson went to Baylor. Certainly those around the track world and those associated with BU do but the general public has no idea who Michael Johnson is much less that he went to BU.
While their influence certainly helped it is not the reason. Saying that it was devalues the reality of how good our football team had been in the 10 years prior to the formation of the conference. Scary as this might sound, we were a "powerhouse" in the SWC at the end of that era. If anyone other than UT and A&M made sense it was Baylor, not TT, not TCU, not Rice, not UH...but Baylor. In fact, in the 10 years prior to the formation we owned all of those teams. I have posted the results before every time this comes up.
To say we only got in because of Bullock or Richards is bull hockey.
According to folklore, politicians in Austin made the decisions and forced Texas and Texas A&M to take Texas Tech and Baylor along. That's the "biggest myth in the west," according to former Texas chancellor William Cunningham.
Texas Tech would join the 12-team league on its own merits, Cunningham said. The final spot came down to Baylor or TCU. Those two were the only viable choices.
"Baylor had much better attendance at football games, and Baylor's overall statistical profile was much more positive," Cunningham said. "When we looked at it and tried to say which one was the logical choice, Baylor appeared to be the more logical choice."
If TT joined on its own merits then we DAMN sure did. We were 6-4 against TT in the 10 prior years. We also had a better record than they did 7 out of those 10 years.
Russell Lester. Religion Professor from the 60s through the 90s. Impacted a lot of students' lives. Some said he was boring. But, he was one of the kindest individuals I ever knew.
He was a great man. I took him for intro and then I took him for a 4000 level letters of paul class which when I took it to my counselor made her laugh and say you have got to be kidding. I LOVED the class he was hard but I did get a 79.8 which he rounded to a B.
Depends what era you're looking at to decide that one.....
Of all those listed McCall had the greatest impact by his nearly 20 years as President. He presided at Baylor during a tumultuous time in our nation's history and kept the university true to it's traditional beliefs while enhancing the academic environment.
If you were to chose a Baylor person for the 20th century the hands down choice would be S P Brooks. Without his leadership there would have been no Baylor Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, and no reinstatement of the Law School. He literally took Baylor from Bible College to University.
Last edited by GovernorBill : 03-06-2007 at 10:09 PM.
