Football begins Briles era Thursday
Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in : Athletics
The Art Briles era of Baylor football begins Thursday, as the Bears host 23rd-ranked Wake Forest at 7 p.m. CT. (Get your tickets now!) The game will be nationally televised on Fox Sports Net, so if you can’t make it out for the game, tune in!
Thursday is also College Colors Day Kickoff, and the Athletics Department has asked Baylor fans to wear their green and gold on Thursday to celebrate the Bears’ new season. (If you’re in need of new gear, order yours online now, and with overnight shipping, you might be able to get it in time!)
All together now — B-A-Y,-L-O-R, Baylor Bears Fight!
Sic ’em, Baylor football!
Bears leave Beijing with three more Olympic medals
Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in : Alumni, Athletics, Honors
With the 2008 Summer Olympics wrapped up in Beijing, Baylor Bears are coming home with gold for the fourth straight Olympics.
Jeremy Wariner won silver in the 400 meters, then ran the anchor leg in the 4×400-meter relay as the U.S. claimed gold yet again in that event. (Click on any of these links for results, photos and video highlights.) Reggie Witherspoon also earned a gold for the relay, as he ran the third leg in prelims. Darold Williamson served as a relay alternate this year after winning a gold in 2004, but did not compete in Beijing.
Wariner now has three career gold medals, one shy of Baylor and Olympic legend Michael Johnson’s four golds. (Johnson originally earned five golds, though he recently returned a relay gold after the other three members of his team admitted to using performance enhancing drugs.)
Baylor track coach Clyde Hart also saw another prodigy come home with a pair of medals. Hart trains former Texas Longhorn Sanya Richards in Waco; Richards won bronze in the 400 meters and a gold in the 4×400-meter relay.
Sic ’em, Baylor Olympians!
Meet the Bears, greet the Bears
Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in : Photo Galleries, Just for Fun, Athletics
Baylor football held its annual “Meet the Bears” gathering Saturday and drew an estimated 1,200 fans for the event and the 90-minute scrimmage earlier that morning.
Fans in attendance mingled with Baylor players and head coach Art Briles, who signed autographs and posed for pictures. We’ve got our own photos to share, thanks to Baylor Photography; click here for our photo gallery from the day. If that’s not enough, check out more photos on BaylorBears.com and WacoTrib.com.
Nine days ’til kickoff! Get your tickets now!
Sic ’em, Baylor football!
Baylor - Bears - Fight!
Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in : Just for Fun, Athletics10 days til football kicks off! Are you ready? Get pumped up with this video of a packed Floyd Casey Stadium crowd singing, cheering and chanting after a touchdown.
Sic ’em, Bears!
New soccer coach brings U.S. National Team experience to Baylor
Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in : Athletics
New head football coach Art Briles has received plenty of publicity since coming to Baylor, and rightfully so, given his successful career to date. But he’s not the only new head coach at Baylor this fall.
Marci Jobson took over the reins of the Baylor women’s soccer team in December after three years as head coach at Northern Illinois, where she led the Huskies to a pair of Mid-American Conference Tournament appearances and improved the program’s win total each year.
Most notably, she split the past three years between her duties at NIU and playing for the U.S. National Team. One of the first 18 players named to the 2007 U.S. World Cup team, Jobson was the oldest player ever (by four years!) to make her first Women’s World Cup roster, and she retired following the 2007 event, just missing out on this summer’s Olympics.
Jobson’s National Team experience was the pinnacle of a long playing career. A three-time all-conference honoree at Wisconsin and SMU, Jobson played professionally for a total of nine years in the United States and overseas.
The Baylor women kick off the 2008 season with an exhibition match against SMU Saturday night in Waco, then hit the road for the season opener at UTEP on August 22.
Sic ’em, Coach Jobson and Baylor soccer!
‘World’s most dominant sprinter’ a Baylor Bear
Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in : Alumni, Athletics
As the 2008 Summer Olympics open tonight in Beijing, Jeremy Wariner is one of four former Baylor track stars gunning for the gold. Darold Williamson and Reggie Witherspoon will join Wariner in competing for the U.S., while Bayano Kamani competes for Panama.
But it’s Wariner who is earning the most press. He will again compete in the 400 meters and the 4×400-meter relay after winning gold medals in both events at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Track stars don’t get quite the notoriety of some other sports’ athletes, but do tend to get incredible coverage every four years when the Olympics roll around, starting with practically round-the-clock coverage on the NBC family of stations.
In Wariner’s case, not only was he named the No. 8 athlete in the world earlier this year in a Wall Street Journal study, but he’s also the subject of a well-written feature in the current issue of ESPN The Magazine. Adidas created this three-minute commercial featuring Wariner (with a 30-second variation ready for airing as well) and even worked with Wariner to design his own shoe, the Lone Star, that complements his unique style of running.
We’ll keep you posted as Wariner, Williamson (4×400 relay), Witherspoon (4×400 relay) and Kamani (400m hurdles) take on the world’s best this month in Beijing.
Sic ’em, Baylor Olympians!
Baylor pitcher anchors USA National Team pitching staff in perfect summer
Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in : Athletics, Honors
Junior Kendal Volz carried on a proud Baylor tradition, representing the United States in style as a member of this summer’s USA Baseball National Team that won two championships and finished the summer a perfect 24-0.
A starting pitcher for Baylor, Volz served as Team USA’s closer, racking up eight saves in eight opportunities and finishing with a perfect 0.00 ERA in 14 innings pitched. Besides the U.S., the top competitors in international baseball are Japan and Cuba; Volz closed out wins over each of those teams twice, including a pair of tournament championship games. The Cuba team even ran out its Olympic team roster against the U.S., and Volz held them to just one hit in 2.1 innings, striking out three. Even amidst all that, Volz still found time to keep a blog on BaylorBears.com and do an Internet chat with Baseball America.
Volz is the latest in a line of Bears to have played on the U.S. National Team, dating back 20 years to Pat Combs in the 1988 Olympics. More recently, Baylor legends such as Jason Jennings, Zane Carlson, and coach Steve Smith to have represented Baylor on the world baseball scene. The Bears have even gotten into the action behind the scenes, with Baylor athletic media relations staffer Larry Little serving a second tour of duty as the National Team’s press officer this summer.
Volz’s National Team teammates won’t be representing the U.S. at this summer’s Olympics; USA Baseball has elected to instead send a squad of primarily minor leaguers to Beijing, as they have for the past several Olympics. But I think the record compiled by this team of collegiate players speaks for itself as to their abilities.
Sic ’em, Kendal and USA Baseball!
Men’s basketball to play on ESPN 7 times this winter
Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in : Athletics
While living in Pennsylvania a couple of years ago, my wife and I rearranged our schedules any time we found out that a Baylor game would be televised there. We didn’t care what sport it was — football, basketball, baseball, softball, we watched them all.
Fans who can’t make it to the Ferrell Center this winter will have plenty of opportunities to catch the Baylor men’s basketball team on television. Thanks in large part to last year’s NCAA Tournament appearance, head coach Scott Drew’s team is already slated for seven nationally televised games on ESPN’s family of networks, including two “Big Monday” games. The Bears’ last “Big Monday” appearance came back in 2001, when the team upset No. 6 Kansas in the Ferrell Center. In all, 15 of the men’s 16 conference games have already been picked up for regional or national television. (The non-conference schedule has not yet been released.)
Sic ’em, Baylor men’s basketball!
Triple-A All-Star one of 22 Bears in pro baseball
Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in : Alumni, Athletics, Honors
Former Baylor all-Big 12 infielder Mark Saccomanno drove in the winning run in Wednesday night’s Triple-A All-Star Game (video available here), capping off a big first half for the former letterwinner. Through July 20, Saccomanno was hitting .294 and ranked among the league’s top 10 with 27 doubles (tied for ninth), 22 home runs (third) and 68 RBI (seventh).
Saccomanno is one of 22 former Baylor baseball players active in professional baseball. (Click on any player’s name to see his stats and more.) He is joined by Michael Griffin (Reds) and Steven White (Yankees) at the AAA level, one step away from the big leagues. Former first-round pick Mark McCormick (Cardinals) leads a host of Bears at AA that also includes Kyle Reynolds (Cubs), Kevin Russo (Yankees), Drew Sutton (Astros), Cory VanAllen (Nationals), Sean Walker (Astros) and Abe Woody (Diamondbacks).
Four more Baylor alums are active in A-ball: Zach Dillon (Orioles), Seth Fortenberry (Yankees), Jeff Mandel (Nationals) and Tim Matthews (Rockies). Last but not least, four Bears drafted just last month are playing at lower levels: Nick Cassavechia (Tigers), Randall Linebaugh (Reds), Mace Thurman (Reds), and just-signed Beamer Weems (Padres).
Of course, there are also the four Bears in the Major Leagues right now — American League Rookie of the Year candidate David Murphy (Rangers), catcher Kelly Shoppach (Indians), and veteran pitchers Jason Jennings (Rangers) and Kip Wells (Rockies).
Sic ’em, baseball Bears!
Another former Baylor coach to enter Hall of Fame
Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in : Athletics, Honors
Women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey gets a lot of credit for turning around the program, and it’s certainly well-deserved. After all, she’s taken the Lady Bears to the NCAA Tournament seven times in eight seasons, including the 2005 squad that won the second national championship in Baylor athletics’ history.
But we shouldn’t forget that it was Sonja Hogg — Mulkey’s coach during her playing days at Louisiana Tech — who began Baylor’s rise. For her work with the Lady Techsters and later at Baylor, Hogg was announced Sunday live on ABC as a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame’s class of 2009.
Hogg led Louisiana Tech for 12 seasons, winning the last AIAW national championship in 1981 and the first NCAA women’s basketball national title a year later. After spending several years in athletic administration, she returned to coaching in 1994 when she took the job at Baylor. Her 1998 squad lost in the finals of the WNIT championship, and the team’s success that year drew over 3,600 fans per game — more than double the program’s previous record.
When Hogg retired in 2000, her presence at Baylor and what she had done for the program were important factors in drawing Mulkey from Louisiana Tech to Waco, and the rest, as they say, is history. After stepping down as coach, Hogg moved over to Baylor’s development office where she works as a fundraiser for Baylor.
Hogg joins five six other Baylor-related coaches who are in their sports’ halls of fame. Grant Teaff and Morley Jennings were each inducted for their work at Baylor, while Hayden Fry and Jody Conradt each played at Baylor but coached elsewhere. Mulkey was honored as a player just as she was beginning her career as a head coach. [Edit: Also, Leon Barmore, who joined Mulkey’s staff as an assistant in May after 20 years at Louisiana Tech.]
Sic ’em, Sonja!
