By Frances George
“We are losing institution after institution that made our country great. We are not winning anything. Get used to losing. It’s our new reality.”
I recently heard those words in reference to many of our nation’s collegiate institutions and society as a whole. To say it was discouraging is an understatement.
And then I went to Baylor.
Two weeks ago, I traveled to Baylor with my husband to join our daughter for her final Homecoming as a Baylor student: Homecoming 2015. Last year we attended Homecoming 2014 and happily went from event to event all weekend; the Friday night bonfire complete with band, cheerleaders and the football team, families with strollers and children in tow on Fountain Mall mingling with pleasant and polite college students, culminating with a late night performance of “Pigskin Revue” (the top eight acts from the spring presentation of SING). Saturday began with an early morning parade with hundreds if not thousands lining 5th Street on campus to catch a glimpse of their favorite float, the marching band, the Homecoming Court with dozens of long stemmed yellow roses and glittering crowns, honored faculty and alumni in the oldest annual Homecoming parade in the nation. And finally, there was the football game. The wonderful Baylor football Homecoming game. It was a perfectly beautiful weekend.
Fast forward to Homecoming 2015. Rain. Rain. And more rain. When we landed at DFW on Friday and began the hour long drive to Waco, the rains began to fall and didn’t stop until we were on the way back to DFW on Sunday late afternoon. No bonfire, no parade, no strolls through campus, all canceled due to the torrential downpours.
But you know what? It didn’t matter. Not one bit. Because we were at Baylor. We did, however, chuckle at the double meanings that kept dropping like, well, rain….
This year we looked at the floats, but only in pictures because the floats couldn’t leave their shelter in the rain. It gave a whole new meaning to the word “FLOAT.”
On Friday when we attended Pigskin Revue in the pouring rain, I chuckled when I looked at the program. It was painted in watercolors! Fitting, for such a wet weekend!
And on Saturday, there is always the tailgate, one of the most time honored football traditions at Baylor! You may or may not know that at Baylor we tailgate and sailgate because the beautiful McLane Stadium is on the Brazos River and families actually sail their boats right up to the edge of the banks and step out on the bank of the Brazos and walk into McLane. Yes, it is quite a sight to behold. This year however, no one was tailgating….instead, everyone was sailgating due to the amount of rain that decided to descend from the heavens from 11:00 AM kick off to 3:00!
As for overflow parking the lots…you guessed it! We all feared we might be parked in OVERFLOW (from the Brazos) parking! But the parking lots didn’t flood, thankfully!
All of these double meanings. All of the rain or as we choose to call it, “liquid sunshine.” But it didn’t matter.
Because we were at Baylor, the rain didn’t dampen the fun for one minute of the weekend. From the time we arrived on campus Mary Scott and her friends greeted us as they always do and we all spent the weekend together. It felt more like a family reunion than a weekend visiting a student on her campus. Mary Scott’s friends and their parents joined us for every meal. Conversations lasted late into the evening at local spots so familiar now that they feel like home – even to this Mom from North Carolina! The parents, the students are, after three and a half years, good friends; one, a mother of Mary Scott’s dearest friend who is battling cancer. Until this weekend I had only known her on her Caring Bridge site. Now she is a sister and dear friend. Another mom, whose daughter studied with Mary Scott in Spain with Baylor two summers ago and whose family lives in Waco, has become a dear friend through the years of praying together through thick and thin. This mom has received birthday packages for Mary Scott from me to deliver when Mary Scott is far from home.
And so, what is a little rain when there is such joy to be found? I kept having to insert that little detail when telling our friends and family back at home about the weekend. Friends would say, “Didn’t it rain a lot while you were there (this was the weekend of Hurricane Patricia)?” “Did it?” I would reply. “I don’t really recall. It was the best Homecoming ever!”
So, as those college acceptances start rolling in at your house and you are weighing your student’s options, consider Baylor. While other institutions might be lost, Baylor is an institution far from being lost. It is the place that actually has the map, where students find what they’ve been searching for all along in an institution that knows who it is and knows that for which it stands. It is also a place where losing is just not a part of the vernacular. At Baylor, students learn to win in life. The reality: Baylor leads the way, sure and steady, rain or shine. All is not lost. In fact, you’ll find it all here.
At Baylor.