Thursday, March 08, 2007
Baylor History, Part 19
The negative reviews of Baylor in the 1920's were wide-ranging. Even the normally staid Princeton Review was effusive in its disgust with the Baylor of 1926. “Promoting claptrap and skullduggery does not an education make. If you want to learn something, you would be better off asking the local soda jerk or motorist in distress than the typical Baylor professor, many of whom are near illiterate themselves and received their positions by bribery, fraud or worse.” In the Time Magazine college rankings, Baylor was ranked last among “miscellaneous institutes and trade academies,” mistakenly listed as a branch campus of West Texas A & M, and described as, “suffering from equal infestations of grackles and ignorance, where students are taught by toad-headed men who are stern of opinion and always wrong.”
Needless to say, such poor reviews were not well-received on campus. An uproar developed, further, when it was found that the language quoted above was not created by those publications, but rather was provided to them by Baylor’s own Provost at the time, a man named Tony (“Big Rock”) Lucci, who was formerly a member of the Johnny Torrio organization in Brooklyn. The faculty and alumni were outraged, and their protests were only redoubled when both Consumer Reports and the Princeton Review provided to the Waco Evening Enabler (Waco’s leading afternoon daily) copies of the letters they had received from Lucci on Baylor letterhead, which specifically referred to the faculty as “near illiterate degenerate pig-men,” “pompous gasbags,” and “sub-human primates only interesting in cracking open nuts and other closed objects containing food.”
Lucci quickly reacted to the controversy, making clear that he never would have made such statements on the Baylor campus, and that his statements were being taken out of context. “These are statements I made in private letters to these publications as part of my job. They certainly do not reflect any lack of respect for the Baylor Faculty, who do a wonderful job, and of whom I am quite proud.”
Brooks, of course, supported his Provost and as part of his support added several jewels to the tiara worn by Lucci at a lavish ceremony. For his part, Lucci issued a second, clarifying statement explaining that “these letters were written in my private residence and delivered by the United States mails as part of my important job responsibilities, and in no way should be seen to reflect any disrespect to the Baylor faculty.”
Needless to say, such poor reviews were not well-received on campus. An uproar developed, further, when it was found that the language quoted above was not created by those publications, but rather was provided to them by Baylor’s own Provost at the time, a man named Tony (“Big Rock”) Lucci, who was formerly a member of the Johnny Torrio organization in Brooklyn. The faculty and alumni were outraged, and their protests were only redoubled when both Consumer Reports and the Princeton Review provided to the Waco Evening Enabler (Waco’s leading afternoon daily) copies of the letters they had received from Lucci on Baylor letterhead, which specifically referred to the faculty as “near illiterate degenerate pig-men,” “pompous gasbags,” and “sub-human primates only interesting in cracking open nuts and other closed objects containing food.”
Lucci quickly reacted to the controversy, making clear that he never would have made such statements on the Baylor campus, and that his statements were being taken out of context. “These are statements I made in private letters to these publications as part of my job. They certainly do not reflect any lack of respect for the Baylor Faculty, who do a wonderful job, and of whom I am quite proud.”
Brooks, of course, supported his Provost and as part of his support added several jewels to the tiara worn by Lucci at a lavish ceremony. For his part, Lucci issued a second, clarifying statement explaining that “these letters were written in my private residence and delivered by the United States mails as part of my important job responsibilities, and in no way should be seen to reflect any disrespect to the Baylor faculty.”
Labels: Baylor History
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Brilliant-- Touche to all those who try to defend themselves by saying their statements were taken out of context. "Taken out of context" is right up there with "ironic" as one of the most misused, misunderstood terms these days.
# posted by 
: 9:53 AM
: 9:53 AM
I believe, Prof. Osler, that this was shortly before the underground "Guns for Real Christians" plot was foiled. It could have been ugly but turned out to be quite a wild period of time.
It began when Lucci heard that a group of Baptists on the Priesthood of the Believer Magical Bus Tour was going to perform in Waco. Opposed to this performance, Lucci contacted Torrio, asking the latter if it were possible to bring in a group of Catholics instead. Torrio agreed, and through a direct contact with the Vatican, exchanged fifteen Browning M1918A2 automatic rifles with the Archdiocese of New York for a band of thirty-six wiseguy Catholics. The new recruits were instructed to hijack the Priesthood buses, discard the Baptists, and come to Waco disguised as Baptists in order to infiltrate Baylor.
And it just might have worked were it not for Terrence Lee Bates, a mole who worked inside the Provost's office. This straight-laced, clean-cut gentleman (who later migrated to Minnesota or Wisconsin or one of those places up north to start his own clan) managed to warn the Priesthood buses to bypass the Dallas/Fort Worth area where the Catholic thugs were waiting. This left the thugs stranded in Fort Worth, where they were later pummeled while trying to enter the yard of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
It began when Lucci heard that a group of Baptists on the Priesthood of the Believer Magical Bus Tour was going to perform in Waco. Opposed to this performance, Lucci contacted Torrio, asking the latter if it were possible to bring in a group of Catholics instead. Torrio agreed, and through a direct contact with the Vatican, exchanged fifteen Browning M1918A2 automatic rifles with the Archdiocese of New York for a band of thirty-six wiseguy Catholics. The new recruits were instructed to hijack the Priesthood buses, discard the Baptists, and come to Waco disguised as Baptists in order to infiltrate Baylor.
And it just might have worked were it not for Terrence Lee Bates, a mole who worked inside the Provost's office. This straight-laced, clean-cut gentleman (who later migrated to Minnesota or Wisconsin or one of those places up north to start his own clan) managed to warn the Priesthood buses to bypass the Dallas/Fort Worth area where the Catholic thugs were waiting. This left the thugs stranded in Fort Worth, where they were later pummeled while trying to enter the yard of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
# posted by : 10:01 AM
: 10:01 AM
I had to look this up, but it was indeed a part of the same Bates clan. Serving as a mole in Lucci's ring took quite a bit from Terrence Lee Bates. When he moved to start his own clan up north, he let his hair grow and refused to wear anything but jeans and a t-shirt. This fashion statement became widely adopted around Bates Colony, from which Baylor's Professor Bates originated.
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# posted by : 11:51 AM
: 11:51 AM << Home
