Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Dave Campbell appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.
It was the kind of weekend that left Dwain Moss oh so proud to be a Baylor Bear, and eager to tell other Baylor graduates and supporters they should be equally proud.
"We ought to be just breaking out in pride," he said.
"Just look at the weekend. Our baseball team went to Los Angeles and swept USC, rated one of the top teams in the nation. Our Lady Bears beat Texas in basketball, and that was right after Texas had defeated Tennessee. Our men's basketball team went to Kansas and played toe-to-toe with the Jayhawks in basketball before losing, and the Jayhawks were rated No. 2 in the country. Our men's tennis team won big (over Louisiana-Lafayette), our women's softball team won big (in a Houston tournament).
"I don't see how anyone who cares anything at all about the green and gold could fail to be proud.
"Twelve of our 17 sports participated in post-season play last year," Moss pointed out. And they are on pace to equal or beat that yardstick this year.
No wonder Moss, 55, beamed like the president of an up-and-coming sports enterprise. Which he is.
Actually, he is the new president of the Baylor Bear Foundation, beginning a two-year term in the office formerly occupied by Cary Gray of Houston and before that by such strong and active Baylor loyalists as Don Kimball of Dallas and John Burleson, David Lacy and Bill Nesbitt, all of Waco. Quite a succession of Wacoans preceded them but that was in the days of the Baylor Bear Club, before it reorganized and expanded and became the Baylor Bear Foundation.
Moss' avowed goal: to lead the BBF to new heights both in membership and money raised. He points out that all the money raised by the BBF goes to help pay for scholarships for Baylor student-athletes.
"Our goal this year is to raise $2.5 million. That's up from the $2.3 we raised last year. And we want to get our membership up to the 3,500 mark. We're now about 3,200. And I can't think of a single good reason why we shouldn't be able to do that.
"Aside from raising more money and expanding our membership, we have three goals. We want to make sure that everybody knows this is not just a Waco organization and not just a football organization.
"We want to make sure everybody knows we don't deal in bricks and mortar. All the money we raise goes to pay for scholarships for our student-athletes.
"And we want to make sure everybody knows we are a foundation with members from all over the country who love Baylor and support the education of all Baylor student-athletes. I think David Lacy said it best. Baylor sponsors 17 teams in Big 12 and NCAA competition. We members of the Bear Foundation comprise the 18th team. That's our mission, supporting all Baylor athletes. We don't do coaching. We leave the coaching in the hands of the coaches.
"We're excited now that the Foundation is fully staffed and we have in Doug Smith (executive director) one of the premier fundraisers in college athletics. And we're very, very excited about the membership campaign."
Moss is a native Wacoan who graduated from Baylor in 1969. "I saw coach John Bridgers' last game at Baylor and I didn't see another Baylor game until Grant Teaff arrived because I was in the Navy all that time. But my ties to Baylor go back to 1956 and Baylor's big victory over Rice. That was a great Baylor team, it proved it by beating Tennessee in the Sugar Bowl. It really whipped up on Rice in 1956 and I was hooked," he said.
"I've followed Baylor ever since. Baylor has been very much a part of my life."
His present position -- consumer market executive for Bank of America, based in Waco -- assigns him the task of overseeing 27 banks located just about all over Central and South Texas and the Gulf Coast, ranging from the Rio Grande Valley to Beaumont in East Texas and a lot of points in between. Yes, lots of traveling, he says, "but I get to see a lot of Baylor folks."
"Our teams are doing very well, we've just had a very encouraging recruiting year in football and we now have great athletic facilities, second to none," he returned to a favorite theme.
"We sent out a letter to 3,000 (BBF) members along with renewal notices. If they will go ahead and send back their renewals right away, we can concentrate on going after new members. That's the key to our future: attract new members and retain the ones we already have."
