MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

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This is the sixth in a series of stories profiling this year's inductees for the Baylor Athletics Hall of Fame and Wall of Honor, which will be posted every week at BaylorBears.com.

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider

Baylor eighth-year offensive lineman Cooper Lovelace has nothing on David Sibley.

While Baylor is Lovelace's fifth college stop, Sibley spent a total of 16 years at Baylor, earning three degrees and doing a four-year oral surgeon residency.

"Sixteen years, (Baylor president Dr. Herbert Reynolds) told me that it was the longest anybody had ever gone to Baylor, without repeating a year," said Sibley, the former Waco Mayor and Texas State Senator and this year's electee for the Baylor Athletics Wall of Honor. "Dr. Reynolds was very careful to throw in the qualifier . . . without repeating a year. I would hate to meet the person that did 16, repeating a year."

A true man for all seasons, Sibley has had almost as many careers as grandchildren (8). From oral surgeon to Waco City Councilman, to Mayor, to lawyer, to Texas State Senator, to lobbyist. And now in retirement, "I dote on my grandchildren."

"We have eight smart, beautiful grandchildren," Sibley said. "And that's what my wife (Pam) and I do, we help where we can."

And as Sibley puts it, the family is "riding the brand." All three of his children graduated from Baylor, one grandson has already graduated from Baylor and his oldest granddaughter is in nursing school in Dallas.

There was no Baylor brand, though, when David Sibley came in as an 18-year-old freshman walk-on with the men's basketball team.

Writing letters to SMU coach Doc Hayes, Leon Black at Texas and Bill Menefee at Baylor, the 6-foot-6 Sibley got only one response back.

"Coach Menefee was the only one who answered, and he said I could try out," Sibley said. "In Houston, we played some pretty rough pick-up games against the UofH guys, Elvin (Hayes) and (Don) Chaney. So, I was used to playing a pretty rough game. I get here, and I beat out guys ahead of me pretty quick."

Part of the freshman Southwest Conference championship team in 1967 with Tommy Bowman and Larry Gatewood, Sibley started the next year as a sophomore and was the team's No. 2 scorer and rebounder at the semester break when Menefee decided to put him on scholarship.

"He didn't know it, but I would have played for free," Sibley said. "I just loved playing ball."

As a junior, Sibley was involved in a bench-clearing brawl at Texas A&M's G. Rollie White Coliseum, when he rushed on to the court after a Baylor player was injured.

"People talk about a cow getting caught in a hailstorm," he said. "That's what it was like. I thought I'd be lining up with Billy Bob Barnett, and I ended up getting hit from everywhere. If I line up here, I'm getting hit from there. if I turn here, I'm getting hit from there. It was literally a hailstorm. And they ended up playing the national anthem to stop it."

The next year, Sibley was a senior captain and earned honorable mention All-SWC honors for a team that finished 15-9 overall and tied for third in the SWC.

"Coach Menefee was very thoughtful. He would really analyze the game," Sibley said. "Him and Coach (Carroll) Dawson teamed up really well. At the time, they were the only coaches we had. I look now, and I see 20 people on the bench. It's unbelievable."

After earning his undergrad degree, Sibley spent the next four years in Baylor College of Dentistry and had a four-year residency in oral surgery before returning to Waco in 1978. When his hand went numb after a neck injury, Sibley had to pivot and opted to go back to school for a law degree at Baylor Law School.

"Everybody has to be some place, so I went to law school," he said. "I couldn't practice surgery, so what am I going to do? Honestly, I just liked school."

After three years on the Waco City Council, Sibley was appointed mayor in 1987 and served a one-year term.

"I love Waco," he said. "It's so neat to see the things we talked about then come to fruition now. . . . I always thought (growth) would happen. We're halfway between Dallas and Austin. And it just never happened. But you knew the potential was there."

Following Chet Edwards, Sibley campaigned for and was elected to the Texas State Senate out of District 22, representing an area that stretched all the way to the Texas-Oklahoma border and served for 12 years, retiring in 2002. Recognized as one of the top legislators in the state, Sibley served four sessions as chairman of the powerful Senate Business and Commerce Committee.

In 1995, Sibley joined with Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock – a fellow Baylor Law School graduate – and a pair of legislators representing Texas Tech that pushed for Baylor and Tech to be part of the new Big 12 with Texas, Texas A&M and the eight Big Eight schools.

"I feel bad about the four that got left out," he said. "But there was a song from the '60s that said, 'We'd be friends until the end, and this looks like the end, my friend.'

"Bob Bullock was very instrumental in what's going on and what's happened at Baylor for the past few decades."

Sibley is the 34^th inductee to the "B" Association Wall of Honor, which recognizes Baylor letterwinners and graduates whose meritorious accomplishments in public or private life following graduation have brought positive public recognition, credit and honor to Baylor and the athletics department.

David and his wife, Pam, have three children, Rachel (and husband David Reid), Adam (and wife, Sheridan) and Jonathan (and wife, Suzanne), along with the eight grandchildren.

"I'm overwhelmed by this honor," he said. "I did not lobby for it. I didn't know you could lobby for it. When (Baylor Director of Athletics Doug McNamee) called, I was gobsmacked. I'm looking forward to being on the stage (with John Morris, "Voice of the Bears). We'll add a little gray hair to the group."

Morris is part of the 2026 Baylor Athletics Hall of Fame class that includes football's Corey Coleman, basketball's Quincy Acy, baseball's Zane Carlson, Hayley Davis from women's golf and track and field's Trayvon Bromell, Tiffani McReynolds and the late Bill Martineson. Sibley and the Hall of Fame inductees will also be recognized at the Nov. 21 Baylor-Tech football game.

The 2026 Hall of Fame Banquet is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 20, in the Hurd Welcome Center Grand Ballroom on the Baylor University campus. Registration is available here.

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