Sic 'Em Bears

I feel as though I have officially experienced Baylor culture this weekend. I cannot deny either, that I am beginning to understand a little better as to why people are so proud of their Baylor heritage. I'll try my best to describe to events I was able to go to this weekend.

Working in Student Activities puts me under the same umbrella as a department called Special Performances. Baylor is really known for something they call Sing and Pigskin which is when groups compete by putting on these elaborate Broadway acts. I have never actually seen a performance (obviously) but have heard enough from people who've attended to realize it is out of this world. I'm sure I'll include an entry about it when I've actually seen it.

But, special performances also puts on something called After Dark. It is basically a talent show for undergraduate students. That is how it was described to me but let me tell you it was soooo much more than that. It is a huge production that I was seriously in awe of. The lights, the stage, and the talent were unbelievable. I'll try and find a picture of the night to add to the blog so you can truely understand what I'm talking about, but I could not believe it. The talent included everything from opera singers to a fiddler playing Super Mario Brothers to a baton twirler (who was unbelievable) to short theatre acts to bands playing to solo guitar acts. I know that I am doing a horrible job of describing the whole scene, but in the end, I left liking Baylor a whole lot more than I did before. And I've been told that this is nothing compared to Sing...so I'm just waiting to see what happens to me there! Yikes! It was seriously a production. Smoke, lights, the whole thing was above and beyond what I was expecting.

I also experienced Texas football tonight by going to a Baylor game. The game really wasn't that exciting, we left after half-time (and I hope all my fellow Bolivian Spring Break teammates will appreciate the fact that the marching band featured Queen during the half-time show: a medley of We are the Champions and Bohemian Rhapsody...Wow!), but it was pretty crazy to stand around with a bunch of people in their gold t-shirts yelling and holding up their "bear claw" and then yelling "Sic 'Em Bears" all together. Pretty impressive crowd for a team that is not known to be great.

However, I think I got the feel for how important football is here when I was at After Dark. The MC for the night was talking about the sports at Baylor and going through the list of successes Baylor has had over the past year. There have been some pretty big things to talk about: the women's basketball team won the National Championship, the baseball team made it to the college world series, and two students from Baylor won medals at the summer olympics. All of these announcements received small cheers from the crowd but when the MC mentions that the Baylor football team beat Texas A&M last year by won point, the crowd went crazy. They were cheering and clapping as though the team had won the super bowl. I'm sure there were some guys jumping up and hugging each other in the front row. And I was thinking to myself, seriously, it was one game, and come on, can't we cheer a bit louder for the guy who won the Gold medal in THE OLYMPICS? But that is Texas football for you. At least that is the explanation I've been given from everyone I ask about it.