Alan Lefever

Transcript

Derek Smith:
Hello and welcome to Baylor Connections, a conversation series with the people shaping our future. Each week we go in depth with Baylor leaders, professors, and more discussing important topics in higher education, research and student life. I'm Derek Smith, and today we are talking homecoming with Alan Lefever. In 1909 Baylor hosted the first collegiate homecoming celebration in the nation, setting the stage for an annual celebration recognized nationally, not only for being the first homecoming, but for hosting the oldest and perhaps the largest homecoming parade. Generations have returned to campus for the past 115 years to enjoy homecoming, but not everyone knows the history. And for that, we turn to today's guest, Alan Lefever. Alan is the author of The History of Baylor Sports and serves as Director of the Texas Baptist Historical Collection. A 1984 Baylor graduate, Alan went on to earn his MDiv and PhD at Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary.
He today serves as an adjunct faculty member at Truett Seminary. This summer, he was appointed as the inaugural Russell H. Dilday Endowed Visiting Professor of Baptist Life and Leadership. He also gives of his time each summer during Baylor Line Camp traveling to Independence to tell incoming students more about Baylor's history. Well, Alan, it's great to have you on the program to tell us some stories about homecoming. I know this ties into your love of Baylor history, and thanks so much for joining us today.

Alan Lefever:
Well, thank you.

Derek Smith:
It's great to have you here. And let's start off with, I hope it's a fun one for you. Homecoming is personal for everyone. Everyone has their favorite memories, moments. What's your favorite? Do you have a favorite homecoming memory?

Alan Lefever:
Man, when you're Baylor, you just come to every one of them. And so probably one of my favorite memories would be the first one I had with Sara, my wife, and going to homecoming, freshmen, sophomore, but it was really my junior year that was the first homecoming that I had a homecoming date. And so we really enjoyed that time. In fact, the alumni just ran a picture of us from that time. And God, we looked young, but it was,-

Derek Smith:
Just the same, right?

Alan Lefever:
Yeah, that's right. That's right. It was a great time though.

Derek Smith:
Yeah. Homecoming date for life now.

Alan Lefever:
That's right.

Derek Smith:
Yes. That's great. Well, so it is about relationships. Obviously you think about Sara as part of it, but who else do you think about when you think homecoming?

Alan Lefever:
Well, really, and I think this year it means more than normal, but my youth minister in San Antonio growing up is very responsible for me ending up at Baylor. And so he was a Baylor grad, and he always had the same spot, kind of out in front of Carroll Library. We watched the parade as it ended, and he passed away this year. I was fortunate enough to do his funeral, and his name was Duane Wise, and he was probably personally responsible for at least sending 30 kids to Baylor.

Derek Smith:
Wow.

Alan Lefever:
He bled green and gold, and I'll be watching the parade from about that spot this year like I always do thinking of him.

Derek Smith:
Oh, well, sorry for that loss. Certainly sounds like quite a legacy he had.

Alan Lefever:
Yes.

Derek Smith:
Visiting with Alan Lafever. And Alan, a favorite homecoming activity. Is it the parade? Is it the game? Is it all the above? What is it for you?

Alan Lefever:
Kind of all the above, but I think one of the things that my wife kind of jokes about it when we get there, but working the parade along the side, because that's where you're going to see most of your friends really, it seems to be most of the time, is walking back and forth across. And you'll see people you hadn't seen in years, and you both go to the homecoming every year, but this is the year you see them. That's what I think is so unique because our homecoming is so large. And then the reunion years are always big. This will be my 40th reunion for the class of 1984, and we have quite a few signed up to come back for that, which is, kind of this is our big one before our 50th reunion when we're really old.

Derek Smith:
Nah, only as old as you feel, right?

Alan Lefever:
That's right.

Derek Smith:
Yeah. Talking Baylor homecoming with Alan Lafever. And Alan, talking about Baylor history, you wrote the book, The History of Baylor Sports. I mentioned that you go to Independence and talk to students at Line Camp. What is it about Baylor's history that just draws you [inaudible 00:04:24] really give of your own time to share?

Alan Lefever:
Well, our story, Baylor's story is intertwined so much with the earliest years of the Republic and of Texas, and we have larger-than-life characters that are part of that story. I mean, not only do you have guys like R.E.B Baylor and R.C. Burleson, but in this, or I should say in the 20th century, S.P. Brooks, which not a lot of people know, which is the father of homecoming. He was president here when homecoming came about in 1909, and he said, this is a great idea, we should do this. But he was also president during very turbulent times. That helped define, I think, who Baylor is still becoming. And so I want students to know the story. One is I look back all the time, I tell the students at Line Camp that every single important decision I have made since I was 18 years old was affected by the fact that I went to Baylor. I mean, it changed my life. And I believe that for many students here, many alumni, as we gather for homecoming, they could tell those same type stories, that they are different people because they went to Baylor University.

Derek Smith:
Absolutely. Well, it's a great perspective, and now we'll get to hear at least a little bit of what the students get to hear. So this'll be fun as you share more about Baylor's homecoming here on Baylor Connections. So let's go back to the fact that we're the original. So oftentimes when you hear about the founding of something, there's some discrepancy, there's a little controversy. I think there's a lot of places that say they have the first cheeseburger or controversy over who invented baseball. There's some dispute. How do we know that Baylor had it first?

Alan Lefever:
Well, we know that we had it first because we had it first. That's just,-

Derek Smith:
Yeah.

Alan Lefever:
The University of Missouri likes to say that they had the first homecoming. Southwestern University just down the road likes to say that they had the first homecoming. But an unbiased source known as the Smithsonian Institution has said,-

Derek Smith:
Yes.

Alan Lefever:
That we are the first. And I like to go with that. I mean, the Missouri is set apart from ours because we had ours in 1909. Theirs is after ours, but they have one every year after that. We won't have our second until 1915, but it's pretty indisputable that S.P. Brooks called the alumni back. We made announcement, put them out in newspapers across Texas. We set up special trains from Dallas-Fort Worth to come down. It's interesting that all the ads for the first homecoming that they took out in papers made it very clear that Baylor would not ask for money at any of the events. And I think that was one of the things that entice people back. And I think Baylor had only been here 23 years,-

Derek Smith:
Wow.

Alan Lefever:
At our first homecoming. So you had a lot of alumni that were coming back that had never been to Waco. They all went to Independence. So it was quite a unique event, that first one. But I think that if you look at University of Missouri site or when they like to point out that they had one every year after 1909, but Southwestern, they don't have any argument. We were just before they were.

Derek Smith:
Right. We were the first. Yep.

Alan Lefever:
That's right.

Derek Smith:
Visiting with Alan Lafever. And Alan, what do we know about the genesis of that idea that Dr. Brooks had?

Alan Lefever:
Well, it was really that he wanted to call the family back together, and he wanted to figure out a way to do it. So he thought he'd make an announcement, he'd organize, get the ad, say everybody, and I think that's, in part that's the genesis of the Baylor family. I like to point out to people all the time, we for a time used Baylor Nation, but it didn't quite fit who we were. And I think that's because we always have this family aspect. And so when he has the idea, let's call everybody back, let's have a gathering. And so he gets George Truett, who was an alum of Baylor, and to come back and be the keynote speaker. They set up the events and say, we're going to meet. They met in the chapel in Carroll Library, which we don't even know what that looked like today because it was destroyed by fire in 1922. But the top floor was our chapel with an ornate dome on the top.
So they call everybody back. In the opening ceremony, S.P. Brooks stands up before all the alum, and he says, he welcomed them back to Baylor University, "To those who always went to class, welcome." And then it says, "To those who rarely went to class or did your assignments, we welcome you too." And I thought students haven't changed much,-

Derek Smith:
That's true, yeah.

Alan Lefever:
Since 1909.

Derek Smith:
What else might we recognize? If you were to plop us down in 1909 and get a kind of look at what was taking place, what would we recognize on that first one?

Alan Lefever:
Well, you'd recognize the bonfire. We had a bonfire that first homecoming where, I don't know what this would've looked like, but the reports say that the alumni did some snake dance around the bonfire that night. And then we had a homecoming game against TCU. We beat them six to three. They've kind of been,-

Derek Smith:
Naturally.

Alan Lefever:
Tracing those three points, has really hurt them over the years. But it was, and it was a hard fought game because they were across town rival for many years before they moved to Fort Worth. So that was a big, big game for us.

Derek Smith:
So having a football game, a bonfire, what else might we recognized?

Alan Lefever:
Well, and of course there's the homecoming parade that is still the highlight for many people of our homecoming. And we say it's the largest, but we don't have any idea what largest means until you look at somebody. This last week was homecoming at Colorado, and they had this little small parade that went through a very small section of Boulder. We have over 140 pieces of our homecoming parade that go through downtown, and it's a highlight, and we'll have tens of thousands of people that watch it. It's the highlight for many people who aren't sports fans. That's the highlight of homecoming, is that parade. And no one has anything like that.

Derek Smith:
And yeah, again, people come back every year. Kids, that's maybe one of their earliest memories of homecoming when they were a kid. Someone throwing candy or yeah, you're just being there with family and friends. Alan, so after that first year, you mentioned there was a hiatus. Why was that? And were there other hiatuses?

Alan Lefever:
No, there weren't. Well, there was during the World War II, there was a little bit of break, but there wasn't any other, and I think it's because when Baylor did their first homecoming, it was such a big event that they didn't know if they would do it but every so often. By the time 1915 rolls around, other schools are doing homecoming and it's become an annual event, and it really does for Baylor after that.

Derek Smith:
So World War II, which is understandable in the end. So after that, yeah, it makes sense though. You think about it, they put a lot into it, and there was no template for that at that point. Right. We kind of invented the template.

Alan Lefever:
Right.

Derek Smith:
Yeah. Crazy to think about as we visit with Alan Lefever. So 1915, it comes back, and from then, other than World War II, it's on.

Alan Lefever:
Right.

Derek Smith:
What do we know about, I don't know if you want to call it those adolescent years or whatever, when it went from being, oh, this is new to this is a bedrock part of the Baylor experience, lifelong?

Alan Lefever:
Actually, once it starts continually in 1915, it quickly becomes just a cornerstone of our Baylor experience because, and again, I think it goes back to the fact that when Brooks started as president at Baylor, the student body was 750. So we were a small school with a small alumni base. So when you were calling the alumni home, you were really calling family home. By the time Brooks presidency ends in 1931, our student body is over 3000.

Derek Smith:
Wow.

Alan Lefever:
And so as the student body grew, I think the connection that came with homecoming became more important and more valued.

Derek Smith:
So it grew. And at this point, these traditions we're talking about really became embedded, the bonfire, the parade. Yeah. Little jazz riff section kind of, I guess if you would. Just any good stories that you know through the years? Let's just start with the bonfire. Any good bonfire stories?

Alan Lefever:
Well, one of the things that we always used to do with at the bonfire was that the sophomores would try to light it early. And so the freshmen built the bonfire and they built it early, and so then they would guard the bonfire until they could light it. And however the sophomores would try to lie to, they really weren't trying to lie to you. It was just kind of in motion and that, and then by the time I got here in 1980 as a freshman, we were taking fire extinguishers out there just in case they were successful. Of course, no one ever was, but we've kind of dropped that part of the tradition for fear of playing with fire and getting people. So we don't quite do that anymore. But that was a worried prank, that someone would light the bonfire.

Derek Smith:
Yeah. I feel like at most universities, you hear stories through the years and you're like, man, it was a different time.

Alan Lefever:
That's right.

Derek Smith:
And it was. Talking with Alan Lafever here on Baylor Connections. Alan is the Director of the Texas Baptist Historical Collection, author of The History of Baylor Sports, and is an adjunct professor in the Inaugural Russell H. Dilday and Endowed Visiting Professor of Baptist Life and Leadership in Baylor's, Truett Seminary. The parade, any good stories through the years on the parade?

Alan Lefever:
Well, usually our stories with the parade involve either floats breaking down or animals doing something crazy. So we really watch animals in the parade now. In fact, I don't know that we have animals in the parade anymore, and we are very careful as to how we set up floats in the parade now. But over the years, I can remember you'd be watching the parade and all of a sudden it would stop for a long time. And of course, some of those old floats, they would build on the chassis of old, old, old cars. And so many of those floats would break down over the years. But that's usually, when you got a long parade, something is going to break, something,-

Derek Smith:
Sure.

Alan Lefever:
And that has happened in our history quite a bit.

Derek Smith:
Well, and one thing I learned when I came down here is that what serious business the floats are for the student organizations, for the fraternities and sororities. This is like, it's like spy versus spy. It's crazy.

Alan Lefever:
Yeah. And sometimes I wonder how anybody in a sorority or fraternity actually goes to Baylor between sing, pigskin, and building a float. I don't know how they go to class, because each one of those is so important to the Baylor tradition that you want your float to be good. You want your singing act to be good, and you want to get into the pigskin. And so I always tell people when I bring friends to homecoming, and I've done it over the years, I'll tell them, I said, "You look at the floats. They're not your average school homecoming floats." The moving parts, the intricacies that these students have come up with sometimes is astonishing, and they never disappoint.

Derek Smith:
Yeah. Well, I'll tell you this, so you'll appreciate this. Hopefully the statute of limitations has passed. It's been probably 10 or more years ago that I did a story on the homecoming parade and how the student organizations prepared for it and to get the student organization to let us see it ahead of time, like I didn't have to sign an NDA, but it was close. And the building of the float took place in a metal barn on a county road North of Elmont that, they were very careful about where this was taking place so that none of the other student organizations got wind of what they were doing, because that best of show, if you will, some real bragging rights.

Alan Lefever:
That is a big deal. And they guard those secrets,-

Derek Smith:
Yeah.

Alan Lefever:
Really seriously.

Derek Smith:
Yeah. I couldn't get to that barn now if I tried. But they were all going out there every night, staying all night. I think they had some cots set up so that if they just needed to stay there and then get ready for class the next day, they could. Visiting with Alan Lafever here on Baylor Connections. And Alan speaking of talking about, I don't know, mischief as it relates to football, you often hear stories of buildings getting painted or a mascot getting stolen. Any good stories related with Baylor homecoming like that over the years?

Alan Lefever:
Well, people have, and I don't know why because our mascot is a bear, but the Aggies and the Longhorns from time to time have tried to take our bear. And in the 40s one time, the reports were so credible that the Longhorns had tried to make one attempt that in 1946, we actually let our mascot spend some time in jail under the security of Waco Police so that the Longhorns could not get to it. But I think one of my favorite pranks was when the Aggies tranquilized our bear once and put it in one of their cars in the 1950s, and the car was pretty brand new. Well, when the bear broke up or woke up, it panicked and it tore up the inside of this new car. And so much so that finally the Aggies panicked and called Baylor to come back and get the bear.

Derek Smith:
That's great.

Alan Lefever:
So we haven't had anything where we've stolen the Longhorn or we stolen somebody's dog, but they were after our bear.

Derek Smith:
Yeah.

Alan Lefever:
And I would always think it was a bear.

Derek Smith:
No one's ever accused them of an abundance of wisdom, right?

Alan Lefever:
That's right.

Derek Smith:
Yeah. Apparently not. As we visit with Alan Lafever. Alan, football. Obviously we're going to be rooting for a big win against Oklahoma State. Any homecoming games over the year, particularly state?

Alan Lefever:
And we've had some wacky games. In 1982 when I was in school, and we were just a very mediocre team. Arkansas came to town. Lou Holtz was their coach. Ranked fifth in the country, seven and oh, and we beat them 24 to 17. And there was a time under Grant Teaff where if you were in the top 10 and undefeated, the last place you wanted to come to was Waco because it didn't matter what our record was, we were going to send you out of town with a loss. And that game was just wild.
And probably one of my all-time favorite homecoming games was with J.J. Joe, and he's been doing the radio so long. People forget that he was not just a really good quarterback. For the option that we ran he was incredible. And when Melvin Bonner was here against Georgia Tech in 1992, they had two incredible deep pass plays. And both times, man when one was a flea flicker, but the other one was just a run option fake it. I mean, J.J. Joe could tuck that ball behind his back and the runners would still be coming, and they would stop because they thought they'd given the ball away, and then he'd just flick it at Bonner for a touchdown. That was a really incredible game.

Derek Smith:
Great memories there. If that era kind of near the end of the Grant Teaff era.

Alan Lefever:
Yeah. Yeah.

Derek Smith:
J.J. Joe helped close it out strong. Let's turn our attention briefly to pigskin. Pigskin is a great tradition of Baylor homecoming weekend over the years. What would impact does that had on campus?

Alan Lefever:
Well, I think pigskin is a nice kind of end to the whole sing experience throughout the year. Sara and I don't miss a sing in the spring to see what acts will make pigskin. And I think when they do the pigskin acts for homecoming, it's just another way for alumni, many of whom were in pigskin, that get a chance to come back and remember what that experience was like and hearken back to the good old days of the fraternities and sororities they were in.

Derek Smith:
Were you ever involved in that as a student?

Alan Lefever:
I was not.

Derek Smith:
Yeah.

Alan Lefever:
I was the Associate College Minister at First Waco, so church kept me pretty tied up.

Derek Smith:
You were pretty, pretty busy. Pretty busy. Well, Alan, we're winding down on the program. So final question for you. What's the perfect homecoming for you?

Alan Lefever:
The perfect homecoming for me, I hope will be this one.

Derek Smith:
Yes.

Alan Lefever:
I'll see all my friends that I graduated with in 1984. We'll go to the parade, see more friends, visit about old times, meet up with some of my students that are at Truett today, and talk to them about the shocking Baylor experience and how big homecoming is. And then we'll go out on the field and we will beat Oklahoma State on our way to a bowl season this year.

Derek Smith:
That sounds like a pretty good win to me. Well, Alan, thanks for taking the time to share with us. Thanks for all you do to share Baylor history beyond this. I'm glad we could capture some of this on the podcast today.

Alan Lefever:
Thanks for having me.

Derek Smith:
On the program today, Alan Lefever, author of The History of Baylor Sports. He's the Director of the Texas Baptist Historical Collection and Endowed Visiting Professor, Russell H. Dilday Endowed Visiting Professor in Baptist Life and Leadership in Truett Seminary. He's our guest on Baylor Connections. I'm Derek Smith. Reminder, you can hear this and other programs online, baylor.edu/connections, and you can subscribe on iTunes. Thanks for joining us here on Baylor Connections.