As we close out the Easter season, you’ll forgive the RJB going a little old school with the selection. You see the RJB is young enough to enjoy the modern hits like Fergie. But it’s also old enough to appreciate when musicals on the silver screen during the 1950s were at the height of popularity.
Well, we’re going to back just a little bit before the 1950s. While musicals were a thing in 1930s and early 1940s, it can be said that the popularity started to rise in late 1940s.
The RJB can remember going with his mother to the MGM Hotel on the strip in Las Vegas and going into the theatre that played all the MGM classics. That theatre had couches and tables and what was then considered ahead of its time waiter service. (NOTE: The RJB saw this a couple of years before the MGM had the famous fire in 1980).
Now, sometimes the scripts of these movies were pretty flat. The music and dancing and star power saved them from being a total disaster. However, this script was pretty good.
One selection was 1948’s Easter Parade starring Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Peter Lawford and Ann Miller. So we bring you the title song from that popular movie written by the immortal Irving Berlin.
****
As Baylor’s Green & Gold finished and people filed out of the Allison Indoor Practice facility last Saturday, I ran into a mother and father of a player on the roster.
Remember, that parents were getting the high end treatment for the game even when it moved inside out of the rain.
When you talk with recruits, sometimes you get the parents. Most of the time of you don’t. This was one of those times where there was a history.
So names were finally connected with text message dialogue and three bubbles. When you get into the discussion and start talking about their son’s experience with Matt Rhule’s program, you’re going to find out through body language and facial expressions if their talk of the program is as sincere and they are suggesting.
I can tell you this mom and dad had no worries about their son, his situation and wherever his future was going to take within the program. And while the goal is for their son to eventually turn into a bona fide contributor, they have understood that the entire experience for the next 4-5 years will make him a better person.
Maybe this is what you call in the advertising game as a testimonial. They help sell something because somebody else has experienced the product or service and come away satisfied.
So this 10 minute discussion focused on how much they are in discussions with the coaching staff and position coach about how their son is performing and what he needs to get better. There are also calls with the training staff. Sometimes those are weekly. Sometimes, they are more than that.
Unsolicited, these are calls from the Baylor staff to the family keeping them apprised how things are going. Maybe other staffs do the same thing. Maybe they are as frequent. But this is what you can consider the little touches that go into making the whole experience complete. This is about football. This is also about working toward a degree. This is about getting something out of every day of the journey.
You can equate recruiting to when you marry someone. You’re not only recruiting the player, you’re recruiting the family. These parents had no misgivings about how their son was being treated.
Of course, you have to wonder if these and other parents wonder how long Rhule and his staff will be there. As transient as the coaching industry is, the players and coaches all recognize this is part of the game.
For the first two years of Rhule’s tenure, Baylor players dealt with the surprise interview with Indianapolis in January 2018 and then three months ago the near move to the New York Jets.
If Rhule continues to build Baylor in the direction that it appears to be headed, these January dances with NFL jobs or high profile college coaching jobs are going to come with the price of success. It’s natural for others in the industry to want what others have.
But if that concern was at the top of their list, their son wouldn’t be in Waco. There is something to be said for having their son in a beneficial environment even if that means for being there for a year or two. You want them to soak everything up like sponge.
The purpose of this story to give you something a little different from a perspective that you may very little about. Parents have to let go and entrust the care of their son to that program and university. It’s no different from those of us who watched our kids go off to college hundreds of miles away. But it is different because the responsibilities of living up to the athletic scholarship are coupled with it.
This couple’s confidence in the way things were going with their son and Rhule’s program was nearly as you say “one drinking the Kool-Aid”. Well, that phrase comes with a negative connotation. It’s not meant to be.
Maybe you could say they are “all in” just like their son was. And if Rhule’s culture carries that kind of response with the majority of the families of the 120 players on the roster, then it goes back to what I’ve said previously:
If it’s going to be right in the locker room, the chances are very strong that it will be right on the field.
****
On Monday, reality returns to the recruiting world for Baylor. The coaches hit the road for traveling throughout Texas and the rest of the country looking for the rest of the 2020 class and continuing to evaluate prospects for the 2021 and 2022 classes.
If you’re looking at Big 12 scorecards, Oklahoma has the most commits at seven and just picked up DB Ryan Watts who was considering the Bears. Iowa State has six. Baylor’s four is in a jumble with six other programs that either have five or six commitments. So in terms of numbers, this program is fine. Actually, Texas Tech and TCU are tied with the least at two apiece.
Baylor currently ranks seventh in the conference rankings. But equate to at batting average at the beginning of the baseball season. One day it’s sky high. The next day it drops like a stone.
****
A tough series loss for Steve Rodriguez’s baseball team at Texas Tech over the weekend. The Bears were six outs away from winning the series. But the cardinal sin is walks. And those ultimately came back to haunt this team on Friday as it lost Game 2, 3-2.
While Baylor’s starting rotation has managed to hang in there through the first five weeks of the Big 12 season, it’s also a little beyond stunning. Each week when we get the probable pitchers, Game 3 is listed as TBD.
Well, if you haven’t noticed, the Bears are in the challenging part of the Big 12 schedule. They travel to TCU this coming weekend, are home to Kansas State May 3-5 and then close out the regular season at Oklahoma State May 16-18. Yes, three of these final four league series are on the road.
And if you haven’t noticed, that series in Stillwater will mark only the second time the Bears will leave the state to play a series. The other was March 30-31 at Kansas.
****
Now a look at other Baylor sports…
>No. 2 seed and eighth-ranked Baylor men's tennis (22-4) won the doubles point and never looked back in its 4-1 victory over No. 2 Texas (23-3) in the Big 12 Championship final Sunday afternoon at the indoor courts of the Jayhawk Tennis Center in Lawrence, Kan.
Baylor won its ninth Big 12 tournament title and 22ndconference title overall in the 23-year history of the league. BU's ninth tournament crown came under first-year head coach Brian Boland.
BU came out firing to open the match. Johannes Schretter and Constantin Frantzen took a 6-2 win over Chi Chi Huang and Yuya Ito at the No. 3 spot, and then Matias Soto and Will Little clinched the opening point with a 6-4 victory over Colin Markes and Leonardo Telles on court two.
>On a day where the new Bill Adams Family Pavilion was dedicated and legendary coach Clyde Hart was honored for his final home meet, several Baylor track & field athletes made their marks Saturday on Senior Day at the Michael Johnson Invitational at Clyde Hart Track & Field Stadium.
"It was an incredible environment with great fan support," head coach Todd Harbour said. "We appreciate all of those that came out. We had some great teams, and we appreciate all of the teams that came. The facility ran incredible. We had some of the top marks in the country set. It was a special, special day."
It was also senior Wil London's final home meet, and he made the most of it with wins in both the 400 meters and 4x400-meter relay. He posted a time of 44.93 to take the 400 crown, and cruised to a four-second victory on the 4x4 anchor leg set up by Jayson Baldridge, Matthew Moorer, and Howard Fields III. The Bears' 4x4 time of 3:03.17 currently ranks No. 3 in the country.
"Wil's time in the quarter was one of the top times in the U.S. right now," Harbour said. "It was a great ending for those two 4x4s."
The women's 4x400-meter relay set the stadium record with a time of 3:32.63 as seniors Kiana Horton and Victoria Powell along with sophomores Aaliyah Miller and Sydney Washington took home the victory.
Freshman KC Lightfoot made history yet again, tying for the victory in the men's pole vault invite with a career-best and stadium record mark of 18-8.75 (5.71m). He is the No. 2 all-time performer at Baylor in the outdoor pole vault, and his mark ranks as the fourth-best performance in school history behind three of Bill Payne's jumps.
In the women's pole vault invite, Tuesdi Tidwell recorded a personal-best jump of 14-2 (4.32m) to finish as the third-ranked collegiate competitor. Her mark stands as the eighth-best pole vault performance in Baylor outdoor history.
>The undefeated Baylor acrobatics and tumbling team has earned the No. 1 overall seed for the National Collegiate Acrobatics and Tumbling Association National Championship Tournament, which will take place in Waco from April 25-27, as announced by the organization Sunday.
The Bears will take on No. 8 Gannon on Thursday, April 25 at 7:30 p.m. at the Ferrell Center.
>Baylor women's golf finished in second place at the 2019 Big 12 Championship with a 54-hole total of 50-over-par 914. The Bears shot 20-over 308 in Tuesday's final round at Golf Club of Oklahoma.
Baylor is expected to earn an at-large berth to the 2019 NCAA Division I Women's Golf Tournament, which will be announced at 4:30 p.m. CT on April 24 on Golf Channel. Tournament teams will be sent to four regional sites – Norman, OK., Opelika, AL., East Lansing, MI. and Cle Elum, WA – and the top six teams at each regional will advance to the NCAA Championship at Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, AR.
>The No. 7 Texas Longhorns ended the Baylor Bears' season Friday in the quarterfinals of the 2019 Big 12 Women's Tennis Championship with a 4-1 win at the Jayhawk Tennis Center. Baylor finished at 9-21.
>Baylor (17-27, 2-14) fell 4-0 to Iowa State (27-18, 4-8) Saturday afternoon at Getterman Stadium. Baylor hosts LSU for a three-game series next weekend. Game 1 is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Friday before a doubleheader on Saturday starts at 5 p.m. Friday's game will be televised on FOX Sports Southwest Plus. Friday will be a blackout game with a T-shirt giveaway.
Let’s make it a great week!
Well, we’re going to back just a little bit before the 1950s. While musicals were a thing in 1930s and early 1940s, it can be said that the popularity started to rise in late 1940s.
The RJB can remember going with his mother to the MGM Hotel on the strip in Las Vegas and going into the theatre that played all the MGM classics. That theatre had couches and tables and what was then considered ahead of its time waiter service. (NOTE: The RJB saw this a couple of years before the MGM had the famous fire in 1980).
Now, sometimes the scripts of these movies were pretty flat. The music and dancing and star power saved them from being a total disaster. However, this script was pretty good.
One selection was 1948’s Easter Parade starring Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Peter Lawford and Ann Miller. So we bring you the title song from that popular movie written by the immortal Irving Berlin.
****
As Baylor’s Green & Gold finished and people filed out of the Allison Indoor Practice facility last Saturday, I ran into a mother and father of a player on the roster.
Remember, that parents were getting the high end treatment for the game even when it moved inside out of the rain.
When you talk with recruits, sometimes you get the parents. Most of the time of you don’t. This was one of those times where there was a history.
So names were finally connected with text message dialogue and three bubbles. When you get into the discussion and start talking about their son’s experience with Matt Rhule’s program, you’re going to find out through body language and facial expressions if their talk of the program is as sincere and they are suggesting.
I can tell you this mom and dad had no worries about their son, his situation and wherever his future was going to take within the program. And while the goal is for their son to eventually turn into a bona fide contributor, they have understood that the entire experience for the next 4-5 years will make him a better person.
Maybe this is what you call in the advertising game as a testimonial. They help sell something because somebody else has experienced the product or service and come away satisfied.
So this 10 minute discussion focused on how much they are in discussions with the coaching staff and position coach about how their son is performing and what he needs to get better. There are also calls with the training staff. Sometimes those are weekly. Sometimes, they are more than that.
Unsolicited, these are calls from the Baylor staff to the family keeping them apprised how things are going. Maybe other staffs do the same thing. Maybe they are as frequent. But this is what you can consider the little touches that go into making the whole experience complete. This is about football. This is also about working toward a degree. This is about getting something out of every day of the journey.
You can equate recruiting to when you marry someone. You’re not only recruiting the player, you’re recruiting the family. These parents had no misgivings about how their son was being treated.
Of course, you have to wonder if these and other parents wonder how long Rhule and his staff will be there. As transient as the coaching industry is, the players and coaches all recognize this is part of the game.
For the first two years of Rhule’s tenure, Baylor players dealt with the surprise interview with Indianapolis in January 2018 and then three months ago the near move to the New York Jets.
If Rhule continues to build Baylor in the direction that it appears to be headed, these January dances with NFL jobs or high profile college coaching jobs are going to come with the price of success. It’s natural for others in the industry to want what others have.
But if that concern was at the top of their list, their son wouldn’t be in Waco. There is something to be said for having their son in a beneficial environment even if that means for being there for a year or two. You want them to soak everything up like sponge.
The purpose of this story to give you something a little different from a perspective that you may very little about. Parents have to let go and entrust the care of their son to that program and university. It’s no different from those of us who watched our kids go off to college hundreds of miles away. But it is different because the responsibilities of living up to the athletic scholarship are coupled with it.
This couple’s confidence in the way things were going with their son and Rhule’s program was nearly as you say “one drinking the Kool-Aid”. Well, that phrase comes with a negative connotation. It’s not meant to be.
Maybe you could say they are “all in” just like their son was. And if Rhule’s culture carries that kind of response with the majority of the families of the 120 players on the roster, then it goes back to what I’ve said previously:
If it’s going to be right in the locker room, the chances are very strong that it will be right on the field.
****
On Monday, reality returns to the recruiting world for Baylor. The coaches hit the road for traveling throughout Texas and the rest of the country looking for the rest of the 2020 class and continuing to evaluate prospects for the 2021 and 2022 classes.
If you’re looking at Big 12 scorecards, Oklahoma has the most commits at seven and just picked up DB Ryan Watts who was considering the Bears. Iowa State has six. Baylor’s four is in a jumble with six other programs that either have five or six commitments. So in terms of numbers, this program is fine. Actually, Texas Tech and TCU are tied with the least at two apiece.
Baylor currently ranks seventh in the conference rankings. But equate to at batting average at the beginning of the baseball season. One day it’s sky high. The next day it drops like a stone.
****
A tough series loss for Steve Rodriguez’s baseball team at Texas Tech over the weekend. The Bears were six outs away from winning the series. But the cardinal sin is walks. And those ultimately came back to haunt this team on Friday as it lost Game 2, 3-2.
While Baylor’s starting rotation has managed to hang in there through the first five weeks of the Big 12 season, it’s also a little beyond stunning. Each week when we get the probable pitchers, Game 3 is listed as TBD.
Well, if you haven’t noticed, the Bears are in the challenging part of the Big 12 schedule. They travel to TCU this coming weekend, are home to Kansas State May 3-5 and then close out the regular season at Oklahoma State May 16-18. Yes, three of these final four league series are on the road.
And if you haven’t noticed, that series in Stillwater will mark only the second time the Bears will leave the state to play a series. The other was March 30-31 at Kansas.
****
Now a look at other Baylor sports…
>No. 2 seed and eighth-ranked Baylor men's tennis (22-4) won the doubles point and never looked back in its 4-1 victory over No. 2 Texas (23-3) in the Big 12 Championship final Sunday afternoon at the indoor courts of the Jayhawk Tennis Center in Lawrence, Kan.
Baylor won its ninth Big 12 tournament title and 22ndconference title overall in the 23-year history of the league. BU's ninth tournament crown came under first-year head coach Brian Boland.
BU came out firing to open the match. Johannes Schretter and Constantin Frantzen took a 6-2 win over Chi Chi Huang and Yuya Ito at the No. 3 spot, and then Matias Soto and Will Little clinched the opening point with a 6-4 victory over Colin Markes and Leonardo Telles on court two.
>On a day where the new Bill Adams Family Pavilion was dedicated and legendary coach Clyde Hart was honored for his final home meet, several Baylor track & field athletes made their marks Saturday on Senior Day at the Michael Johnson Invitational at Clyde Hart Track & Field Stadium.
"It was an incredible environment with great fan support," head coach Todd Harbour said. "We appreciate all of those that came out. We had some great teams, and we appreciate all of the teams that came. The facility ran incredible. We had some of the top marks in the country set. It was a special, special day."
It was also senior Wil London's final home meet, and he made the most of it with wins in both the 400 meters and 4x400-meter relay. He posted a time of 44.93 to take the 400 crown, and cruised to a four-second victory on the 4x4 anchor leg set up by Jayson Baldridge, Matthew Moorer, and Howard Fields III. The Bears' 4x4 time of 3:03.17 currently ranks No. 3 in the country.
"Wil's time in the quarter was one of the top times in the U.S. right now," Harbour said. "It was a great ending for those two 4x4s."
The women's 4x400-meter relay set the stadium record with a time of 3:32.63 as seniors Kiana Horton and Victoria Powell along with sophomores Aaliyah Miller and Sydney Washington took home the victory.
Freshman KC Lightfoot made history yet again, tying for the victory in the men's pole vault invite with a career-best and stadium record mark of 18-8.75 (5.71m). He is the No. 2 all-time performer at Baylor in the outdoor pole vault, and his mark ranks as the fourth-best performance in school history behind three of Bill Payne's jumps.
In the women's pole vault invite, Tuesdi Tidwell recorded a personal-best jump of 14-2 (4.32m) to finish as the third-ranked collegiate competitor. Her mark stands as the eighth-best pole vault performance in Baylor outdoor history.
>The undefeated Baylor acrobatics and tumbling team has earned the No. 1 overall seed for the National Collegiate Acrobatics and Tumbling Association National Championship Tournament, which will take place in Waco from April 25-27, as announced by the organization Sunday.
The Bears will take on No. 8 Gannon on Thursday, April 25 at 7:30 p.m. at the Ferrell Center.
>Baylor women's golf finished in second place at the 2019 Big 12 Championship with a 54-hole total of 50-over-par 914. The Bears shot 20-over 308 in Tuesday's final round at Golf Club of Oklahoma.
Baylor is expected to earn an at-large berth to the 2019 NCAA Division I Women's Golf Tournament, which will be announced at 4:30 p.m. CT on April 24 on Golf Channel. Tournament teams will be sent to four regional sites – Norman, OK., Opelika, AL., East Lansing, MI. and Cle Elum, WA – and the top six teams at each regional will advance to the NCAA Championship at Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, AR.
>The No. 7 Texas Longhorns ended the Baylor Bears' season Friday in the quarterfinals of the 2019 Big 12 Women's Tennis Championship with a 4-1 win at the Jayhawk Tennis Center. Baylor finished at 9-21.
>Baylor (17-27, 2-14) fell 4-0 to Iowa State (27-18, 4-8) Saturday afternoon at Getterman Stadium. Baylor hosts LSU for a three-game series next weekend. Game 1 is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Friday before a doubleheader on Saturday starts at 5 p.m. Friday's game will be televised on FOX Sports Southwest Plus. Friday will be a blackout game with a T-shirt giveaway.
Let’s make it a great week!
