BearsTruth Board

Yes please

The funniest thing I've read about our new uniforms was on a Clemson board today.

"The U.S. needs to make sure Iran doesn't weaponize Baylor's uniforms."

I don't think the RG3 connection to Adidas is going to have any influence on the decision, I just think a football affiliation with Adidas makes more sense now than it did 3 weeks ago. I don't disagree that Briles has the most pull, but I don't think shoe/apparel affiliation has anywhere near as much influence on recruiting in football, or any other sports for that matter, as it does for men's basketball. I think if Adidas wants to make some innovative football gear/uniforms, and make us a school where it would be showcased, it would be worth considering.

I'm fine with our hoops team continuing its relationship with Aiadas (as long as they make special efforts for us like the uniforms), but football needs to stay with Nike. Adidas is great soccer brand, but is not known for football. If all things were equal, I would much rather see all of our sports wtih Nike. Kids get caught up in this stuff.

One another note - let's not get hung up in being a Baptist University, and focus on being a christian university. Our student breakdown doens't represent even 50% of the Baptist denomination anymore. We need to focus on marketing ourselves as the largest Christian university in the country. Just my 2 cents.

When I first saw the pics I didn't like them but I changed my mind after seeing them on TV. I like em.

I too am a traditionalist but I don't buy the "not our school colors" argument. It's not like we're switching to these uni's for a full year or anything. This is a special promo deal that we're lucky to be invited to be a part!

Kind of off topic, I know, but I thought I'd respond anyways.

I'm baptist (by denomination anyways) and me and bugramps have butted heads plenty of times, but I happen to agree with him here.

There is nothing wrong with being proud of being the largest baptist university in the world, but honestly, no one except for Baylor folks really care. Non-Baylor and Non-Baptists certainly don't care- it means as much to them as BYU being the largest LDS school in the US means to us. Even a large portion of baptist don't care because they don't associate Baylor as a function of the church (and they shouldn't IMO). And lastly, a lot of baptist don't care because they have ties to other baptist related universities.

In the end, I wish we'd stop trying so hard to baptist for being baptist sake and try to be more christ focused.

I understand what you're saying, and I think Baylor is actually trying to do that...being Christ-focused consistent with our Baptist tradition, while not shoving "Baptist" down anyone's throat. I don't think any non-Baptist students feel marginalized at Baylor by not being Baptist....but "the largest Baptist university in the world" is still a distinguishing moniker that, honestly, seems to be used by outsiders describing Baylor, more than Baylor people describing Baylor these days.

The problem I have is that most of the people I find fussing about Baylor being known as the "largest Baptist university in the world" aren't wanting to be more "Christ-focused" (as opposed to Baptist-focused), they're wanting to be less Christ-focused in general...more like other non-religious private universities (e.g. see Sluggo's post above).

I find it confusing when people join a group, know full well what the group represents, then want to change, or fix, the group. There are already hundreds of private universities that have no Christian mission statement...some are cheaper than Baylor, some have stronger academic reputations, some are larger, some are smaller, plus the countless state institutions. Why try to change why Baylor's purpose, the reason she was created in the first place? It would be like me attending Stanford, then being irritated that it's not a Christian university, making it my life's mission to change it.

I'll chip in here...

I went to what may be the largest Baptist Church in America this past Saturday - First Baptist of Jackson (MS). It's one of the bigger ones with a congregation over 10,000.

As I was being introduced by my very proud Grandmother to at least 20 members of the church including some of the pastors, she would mention that I went to Baylor. Not ONE TIME did anyone make the correlation that Baylor = Baptist = we are a Baptist Church = we are excited about having gone to Baylor. In fact, several had never even heard of Baylor.

My point is, Baptist people don't care about Baylor. Only Baptist who went to Baylor care about Baylor.

It's time to STOP trying to be "what Notre Dame is to the Catholic Church." Baptist and especially Southern Baptist care about Ole Miss, Miss. State, Southern Miss, 'Bama, Auburn...you get the picture.

This is correct. As the Baptist church inherently has no central structure there will never be the type of relationship as exists between ND and the Catholic Church/churchgoers and BYU and the LDS church/followers.