Editor’s Note: For now over 75 years, The Baylor Line has been publishing vivid storytelling from across the Baylor Family. I don’t think our archives full of deep, inspirational features should live solely on shelves, so we are bringing them back to life in BL Classics. This June 1986 Classic article is particularly relatable to recent Baylor graduates and current students as they witness firsthand the growth of Baylor bear cubs. However, times have clearly changed, as Indy and Belle never lived in a student’s apartment.
Just being furry and cuddly made Rufus C. Burleson a baby celebrity in his first months as Baylor’s new mascot. Students fussed over his cute antics and made adoring faces at him, and bear trainer Brad Akin couldn’t escape congratulations on managing the university’s child star. But those admiring fans haven’t had to live with a baby bear, said Brad, who kept Rufus in his apartment for a month.
Rufus didn’t quite fit in with Brad’s other two roommates, who agreed that the bear was “a pain in the neck.” He was sloppy, knocking over the lamps, spilling bags of pecans, and tearing up an already-messy living room; and he literally tied up the phone.
Rufus refused to eat his peaches-pineapple-cantaloupe-and-dogfood dinner; when he did nibble a canned peach, he left a wide trail of sticky syrup on the kitchen floor. And his three former roommates are still wondering how Rufus jumped five feet to knock their mounted deer head off the wall.
For a solid month, whenever he was left alone, Rufus sat on the sofa crying and watching ESPN until someone he could follow—or pester—came home in the afternoon.
He earned nicknames like “Buddy,” Ruby,” or just “Rufus C. Burleson!” depending on how bearishly he behaved. The furry tyke wriggled between his crib bars to sleep with Brad the first night; by the time he was too large to slip between the slats he was big enough to crawl over the top to nap with his favorite bear trainer.
With his tumbling, baby-bear gait, Rufus followed Brad’s every step around the apartment. Brad could have complained about the lack of privacy—Rufus even tagged along into the bathroom. “The last two mornings he’s taken showers with me,” Brad said in early May. “He just crawls in and sits down.”
Brad bottle fed Rufus every four to six hours when he first came to the apartment in April, and the parental concern has stayed. “I didn’t realize how much I was going to worry and think about him. I went home for a weekend and called back four times,” said Brad.
Like the baby he is. Rufus cried when Brad finally took him to his new home, the Steve Hudson Memorial Bear Plaza. After declawing in June and professional animal training in July, little Rufu will be ready to fling some green and gold for the next two years as Baylor’s traveling mascot.
Starting with the first football game at Wyoming, Brad will be “bottle feeding” Rufus Dr Pepper, showing him to off to crowds that already love the new arrival. After all, it’s easy to love a baby when he’s not your own.
