I never doubted it, not for a second. I know this association and the people who make up its membership. I know what we stand for, how far we have come, and where we will be many years from now. After the Dutch Schroeder Letterwinners Legacy Endowment was announced, I remember mentioning the idea to a few members of other letterwinners associations from across the country, and when I told them our goal was to raise two million dollars to secure the future of the “B” Association, they couldn’t believe it. “How will you raise that much money from letterwinners?” they asked. My answer was simple—We have a dedicated family of letterwinners who love and respect Dutch Schroeder and are committed to seeing the mission of our association carried out for generations to come.
Since the Dutch Schroeder Letterwinners Legacy Endowment was established, more than one hundred of you have donated thousands of dollars to our permanent endowment. Your support has been incredible—and necessary. You are all aware of the challenges we have faced, the changes and transitions. Thankfully, the “B” Association has been a consistent element in Baylor athletics, and we continue to provide reliable and essential support to our fellow student-athletes. We are the stalwarts, and we must ensure that no matter what the future holds, the “B” Association will be here to carry the banner of support, whether it is through awarding scholarships for letterwinners to complete their degrees, providing support and assistance to coaches, or helping current and former athletes transition to the workforce.
If you have already pledged your support to this endowment, the “B” Association thanks you, and so do generations of yet-to-be-born Baylor letterwinners. If you are ready to pledge your support today, please contact Nick Florence at nick_florence@baylor.edu or (254) 710-7557. No matter the size of your gift, it will move us closer to our goal. The Dutch Schroeder Letterwinners Legacy Endowment is a living memorial that not only provides valuable support to our beloved letterwinners association, it also honors the legacy of Coach Dutch Schroeder whose efforts and sacrifices have brought us to this day. Now it is up to us to carry it forward. Please share in this legacy and help us strengthen this association.
Sic ’em Bears!
Dusty Sanderson
“B” Association Past President, 2018
Trainer 1976-1979
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I am writing this some sixty-plus years after the facts since in this very same Baylor “B” Association Newsletter here is an up date on the legendary Dutch Schroeder and the passing of my Baylor sweetheart and then exactly fifty-eight years to the day of our wedding anniversary remembering Royce Glen West, death from Alzheimer’s on December 20, 2019. When Royce arrived for Baylor football the season of 1957, he was coming in sporting back-to-back State Football Championships at Stamford High School, out by Abilene, and a thirty-five games’ winning streak under the leadership of the late and great Coach Gordon Wood, a legend in his own right, where an outstanding weight program was in existence. I met Royce on December 15, 1957, and knew right away he would hopefully be my forever husband after our education was in hand some four years later. Very soon after Royce and I became a together couple, he told me how he and “Coach” Schroeder started the Baylor weight program which, at the time, was non-existent. Royce couldn’t believe Baylor was minus this to-him missing link in their football program, so he searched the campus looking for old weights to keep his strength in tact. Sure enough there behind the baseball practice field, where Dutch was the Head Baseball Coach, he found some old weights, and in his spare time would go lift at every opportunity. Dutch began noticing this anomaly of a football player hanging around the baseball field, so he contacted the then football coaches who chose to come take a look for themselves. During these times of lifting, Royce and Dutch began to have conversations about how it would update the football program to have a weight program available, and soon Royce’s dream came true! Thanks to Dr. Odajima,, Head Band Director, I have seen the now program during a lightning halftime when the band and crowd was ordered to “shelter”, and the band stayed in the weight rooms. I have returned every year since turning seventy, I am now eighty-one, and had the amazing honor to twirl on field with Baylor Golden Wave and Alumni Bands and Golden Girls as an alumni twirler. So God in HIS own time brought Royce and Dutch back together again in this 2020 Newsletter, a confirming realization God is still in control even in a random letter!!
I am happy to provide my email address in case anyone out there wants to chat: drsynthawest@yhaoo.com, Class of 1960. Syntha Jane Traughber West