New Baylor Football Uniforms 2009

Photo gallery of new uniforms: http://www.baylorbears.com/view.gal?id=50597

I'll come back to this post, in a day or so, with specific uniform opinions.

In the meantime: the inserts on the sides of the jersey are irrational and ... bad. The design has no relevance to Baylor, to football, or to bears. The design is sort of modernistic - as if intended to be forward looking and progressive.

Article describing jersey changes at BaylorBears.com. In article, Baylor Coach Art Briles:

"The players and equipment staff worked with NIKE to design a contemporary set of uniforms that would represent Baylor well and appeal to recruits."

Players ... equipment staff ... Nike ... represent ... contemporary ... appeal to recruits.

I like allowing players to have input. I do not like ceding too much of the process to unguided players. You may as well pick up your gun, blindfold yourself, spin around, and then shoot.

Young men come to university for guidance. Players working inside this process needed guidance in order to clearly understand the target they were aiming for. Here's what was lacking: the players, and their Nike co-conspirators, did not have a sense of history; did not have a sense of their place inside a noble timeline of Baylor football players which extends from before they were born to well ahead of them - to Baylor football players who have yet to be born. And those playing football - for the world's largest Baptist university - exist on an eternal timeline which runs from before Adam and Eve to beyond the Apocalypse. Therefore, "contemporary" must be approached with caution.

Baylor University celebrates values which are traditional and loving and warm: these are the selling points and the appeal; these are the values which allow Baylor to recruit and to compete as a private school; this is the family and religious atmosphere which is a draw to some of the top athletes in the world.

Baylor is never going to be cool and forward looking and progressive as the world sees cool and forward looking and progressive. If an athlete wants worldly contemporary, he goes to U. of Oregon or U. of Miami. A Baylor recruit might like a little contemporary style to his Christianity, i.e. a little electric guitar and rock and roll drums at his Saturday night church service, but contemporary Christian style is as far as it does go and as far as it ought to go. If you go beyond Christian style, you are no longer Baylor. The very idea of Christianity is to not accede to fads: to stand stable in the wind of worldly whim; to embrace eternal values which are truly fulfilling and satisfying. Matthew 7:24-27:

24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

Whoever approved this jersey design doesn't understand what Baylor is selling. It's worrisome: "it fell: and great was the fall of it".


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