"The Baylor Proud Team"

Sic' em Bears!

Baylor Football Fans

(Image from Wikipedia)

Baylor is really helping me write my blog these days. Just this morning, I received an email from "Baylor Proud," an official 'brag' newsletter from "The Baylor Proud Team" at the University:

Two Baylor profs make ALA Top 10 books list

Posted by The Baylor Proud Team in: Baylor 2012, Research, Honors

Not one, but two books by Baylor professors made the American Library Association's list of the Top 10 Books in Religion for 2007.

The Listening Heart: Vocation and the Crisis of Modern Culture, by the late Dr. A.J. "Chip" Conyers, and Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief, by Dr. Rodney Stark, were among the list of 10 books that were honored in what the ALA noted was an exceptional year for books on religion.

An honor like this is nice recognition that Baylor professors are among the leaders in the study of religion -- one of the goals of Baylor's Vision 2012, and a status befitting the world’s largest Baptist university.

Sic 'em, Baylor professors!

I've never received one of these before, so the serendipity of receiving it precisely when I'm blogging about Baylor's "pride" is . . . well, serendipitous.

While I'm glad to hear that Baylor's professors are ranked so highly in the eyes of the world, I'd suggest that the tone of the email is wrong in this case.

The expression "Sic 'em" is a cheer used by Baylor sports fans to whip up support for the football team, but it's often used in other contexts, and that's fine with me. Yet if I read the email correctly, one of the two professors is "the late Dr. A.J. 'Chip' Conyers," which means that he has passed away and is thus in no condition to 'sic' anybody.

A less triumphalist email would sound better.

The website that the email links to is marginally better, for it adds a bit more about Professor Conyers:

Before his death from cancer in 2004, Dr. A.J. "Chip" Conyers was one of Truett Seminary’s first professors. A prolific writer, Conyers finished his final book not long before his death.

This confirms that Professor Conyers has indeed passed away, but the additional information only increases the pathos of the award and thus makes even more striking the inappropriateness of ending with the cheer "Sic 'em, Baylor professors!"

But thus does the pride of boosterism so easily hit a wrong note.

Just in case anyone's wondering, I am 'proud' to be a Baylor alumnus, for I have fond memories of the school, where I received a very good education and a very gentle transition in my passage from Ozark Hillbilly to Berserkeleyite.