More than 7,200 bricks make up the Bear Walk that leads to McLane Stadium and one of those bricks is mine.
My parents bought it for me more than a year before I would receive my acceptance letter from Baylor as a part of the class of 2020. They told me, whether I went to Baylor or not, it would always be there reminding me of how much they love me.
My dad is a Baylor graduate, so I grew up dreaming of the day when I would be a Bear too. Once that dream became a reality, my brick was a concrete (pun intended) reminder of my parents’ love and support, even though they are a thousand miles away.
“Ry, you can do it. Very proud of you. Love, dad and mom,” the brick reads.
Thousands of similar messages of hope and love line the Bear Walk, left by alumni who want to be re- membered, proud parents of Baylor students and gradu- ates and entire families of Baylor Bears.
More than half of the bricks on the Bear Walk were purchased by alumni, says Angie Ranger, Donor Recognition Coordinator at Baylor. The second largest group to purchase bricks were parents, she told me.
Some of the most common inscriptions commemorate graduation years, recognize families or share a bible verse, according to the Baylor Proud website. Two bricks on the Bear Walk were even used to “pop the question.”
Erin Bellue graduated with an undergraduate degree in Science in Education in 1989 and a master’s degree in Science in Speech Pathology in 1990. It was an exciting time for savior when the stadium was being built and the football team was doing well and she wanted to be in on the action. Now her name will forever be part of the Bear Walk.
“When I first went to find mine, I was there for hours and I just walked up and down and read everybody’s brick,” Bellue said. “I wanted someone to forever be able to come back and say, ‘there’s her brick.””
Kim Harris ’93 received her brick as a birthday gift. She returns to Baylor often and first saw her brick at the opening game at McLane stadium.
“My name is now a part of [the stadium] forever. It’s fabulous to walk by that when I go to a game,” Harris said.
Seeing the old and the new, students and alumni, coming together at the open- ing of McLane was heart- warming, she said. The same sentiment is reflected in the bricks on the Bear Walk.
“It’s an amazing story,” Harris said. “You see all the different years for the alumni, you see scripture verses on the bricks, you see statements of love… parents gifting to their children or husbands gifting to their wives. It’s great to see those different things, the lineages within Baylor.”
