BASKETBALL IS HER PASSION
3/18/2021 6:18:00 PM | General
Baylor President, Former OSU Letterwinner Excited About NCAA Tournament
By Art Stricklin
Special Contributor
Baylor enters the 2021 NCAA Tournament as the defending women's champion in one bracket and a heavy favorite to make its first Final Four in 70-plus years in the men's tournament, buoyed by plenty of fans and lots of winning momentum.
You would be hard-pressed to find a Baylor couple more interested and avid – and with a better knowledge of what the basketball players are going through during the 2021 tournaments – than Baylor University President Dr. Linda Livingstone and her husband, Brad, also referred to as the First Gent.
"Basketball has always had a special place for us," said Dr. Livingstone, the school's 15th president.
That's because she was a star high school player and four-year letter winner while playing collegiately at Oklahoma State, as did her husband. Presidential or otherwise, they are Baylor's most hardcore and knowledgeable basketball fans.
"Love the game, passionate about the game, but it's actually harder to watch than it was getting to play," she said.
Hired at Baylor in 2017, Dr. Livingstone was the first NCAA female basketball letter winner to serve as president of a major Division I university.
While attending Baylor events is certainly part of her presidential duties, there are parts of the job that are more endured than truly enjoyed. But, there is no missing her and 6-foot-10 Brad Livingstone at every Baylor men's and women's game, actively waving their hands, shouting for and encouraging the teams.
"It's fun to win a lot of games, but what makes it so exciting when I played and now is that you're not always going to play your best and you're not always going to win," she said, "but at any time you could see the high point of somebody's career. It's fun to watch the sport I played so much in high school and college."
A top player at Class 2A Perkins High School in Oklahoma, Linda earned a scholarship to Oklahoma State, the school her dad had attended, where the 6-0 Livingstone still holds the Cowgirls' all-time freshman record with a 55.5 field goal shooting percentage.
"I love to hold the record, it was fun, but I knew professional (basketball) wasn't something I was going to do," she said.
In the early days of Title IX, Livingstone played at Oklahoma State when the Cowgirls weren't part of the Big Eightand didn't compete at the NCAA level. Comparing her high school and college playing career with the three-time national champion Baylor Lady Bears and a top-seeded Baylor men's team, she said it almost seems like two different sports.
"The quality of play is so much better and more athletic these days," she said. "They have so many more advantages than we did when I played. All we could do was basketball and track."
In high school, Livingstone played 6-on-6 basketball, where there were three players from each team on both ends of the court and they could never cross the midcourt line. Oklahoma was one of the last state associations to use that format for high school basketball, and then she made the switch to full-court, 5-on-5 basketball in college from 1978-82.
"Now, there is focus on weight training, conditioning and nutrition," she said. "They are in so much better shape than we were."
At 6-foot tall, Livingstone said she mainly played forward at OSU, but would probably be more of a shooting guard or small forward in today's game.
"It's a faster, much higher-paced game today than when I played," she said.
One thing that Dr. Livingstone and the First Gent have noticed from their courtside seats at the Ferrell Center and other arenas they've been to is that great coaching works in any era.
Her dad, Doyle Parrick, was a longtime basketball coach and was the head women's basketball coach at the University of Oklahoma about a decade before Linda played at the in-state rival. Her dad also played for and coached with Hall of Fame coach Henry Iba at Oklahoma State.
Dr. Livingstone sees some of the same traits in Iba, Baylor women's basketball Hall of Fame coach Kim Mulkey and men's coach Scott Drew, a probable Hall of Famer down the road.
"They all studied the game; they all had the drive and the competitiveness, where they are never satisfied with the outcome," Livingstone said. "They always learn to adapt their coaching styles to the players they have available and they have produced consistent quality. They never get complacent in anything they did."
In her previous stint at Baylor, Dr. Livingstone was actually on the search committee that brought Mulkey from Louisiana Tech to Baylor as the Lady Bears' head coach in 2000.
While she is planning on making trips to San Antonio to see the Lady Bears in action this month during the NCAA Tournament and hopes to see the men play in Indianapolis, there are a few downsides to her Baylor hoops fandom.
Her day job as president of the university, with all the duties it entails, doesn't allow her time to go to practices or have any lengthy discussions with the coaches about their players or specific strategies.
Plus, multiple knee surgeries, partly as a result of her years on the basketball hardwood, have robbed her of the ability or desire to head over to the McLane Student Life Center or the Ferrell Center for a quick game of hoops with current students.
"Don't worry," she laughed, "there is no risk of me doing that. But, I can't wait to watch and support our teams, who are such good representatives of our great school."
Coming off their first conference championship in 71 years, the No. 1-seeded Baylor men (22-2) play 16th-seeded Hartford (15-8) at 2:30 p.m. CDT Friday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
The second-seeded Lady Bears (25-2), who won their 11th-straight Big 12 regular-season championship and added a Big 12 tournament title in Kansas City, will open against 15th-seeded Jackson State (18-5) at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
