Owls provide Rice Centennial Celebration homecoming win

Wearing throwback uniforms to honor the 1957 football team, which upset No. 1 Texas A&M to earn a berth in the Cotton Bowl, the Owls beat the University of Texas-San Antonio 34-14 Saturday during the Centennial Celebration. It was Rice’s eighth straight homecoming game victory, dating back to 2005.

“How nice was that?” asked head football coach David Bailiff. “All we had going on this weekend was a football game, a 100-year birthday party, Tommy Kramer coming in with the College Football Hall of Fame and homecoming.”

Rice and the National Football Foundation (NFF) honored former Rice quarterback Tommy Kramer with an on-campus salute. Kramer will be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame at the 55th NFF Annual Awards Dinner at New York City’s historic Waldorf-Astoria Hotel Dec. 4.

“Playing at Rice University was truly an honor for me,” Kramer said. “At that time, we were one of the only teams who were putting the ball in the air all of the time.

“All my thanks go to Rice University for what it has built upon my life. You could not find a finer university than Rice University,” he said.

Semicentennial class gives a record-breaking $6.7 million at halftime

Celebrating their golden reunion and representing Rice’s semicentennial Class of 1962, Anne Baillio, Suzy Casey, Jim Fox, Quin McWhirter and Dick Wright presented the university a record-breaking $6,789,046 during halftime ceremonies at the homecoming game.

“We have class members who are extraordinarily generous,” Wright said. “We had four co-chairs and 20 committee members who made the contacts. It was a real big team effort.”

“I think our class has responded in historic proportions in our generosity to give back to this school that gave us so much,” Casey said. “I’m so incredibly grateful. I feel so privileged to have had the honor of going to Rice. It was Rice that gave me the real opportunity of my life, and I’m happy to have given back.”

Each year at homecoming, classes celebrating milestone reunions present donations as part of the Reunion Giving Program, an intensive effort led by alumni. To commemorate their Rice graduation, each class raises unrestricted gifts for the Rice Annual Fund.

This year, the classes of ‘62, ‘67, ‘72, ‘77, ‘82, ‘87, ‘92, ‘97, ‘02 and ‘07 presented checks to the university. The donations recognize gifts to both the Rice Annual Fund and designated purposes since July 2011.