Claude and Becky Lindsey
- Baylor Legacy Award
Awarded to individuals who demonstrate extraordinary service and philanthropy to Baylor or to causes that fit our mission as a Christian university.
Growing up in nearby China Spring, Claude and Becky Lindsey began attending Baylor football games at an early age, inspiring their lifelong support of Baylor. No one can question the Lindseys’ commitment to the green and gold. During some of the lean years of Baylor football, Lindsey Contracting—the family construction business—would buy 500 tickets for the UT games and give them to employees … just to keep orange out of the stadium.
For more than 40 years, Claude was president of the business that the Lindseys and their two sons built into a 350-employee organization before selling to Oldcastle Materials in 2011. Becky, a nurse, has assisted Baylor’s sports medicine physicians and Assistant Athletics Director for Athletics Training Mike Sims for 12 years. Although she did not start the Baylor Spirit Program—which provides local businesses with Baylor flags and promotional materials to support the University—Becky personally signed up more than 300 businesses in an effort to promote school spirit by infusing Waco with more green and gold. The couple even kept the live bear mascots, Lady and Joy, on their ranch for more than a year while the bears’ campus habitat was remodeled.
The Lindseys generously donated asphalt work for residence hall parking lots and athletics facilities, including paving Grant Teaff Plaza at Floyd Casey Stadium, where they also donated the recruiting center. They contributed a riding arena at the Willis Family Equestrian Center and a court in the Hawkins Indoor Tennis Facility. Lindsey Contracting performed site work throughout campus, including at Baylor Law School, Baylor Sciences Building, McLane Student Life Center and virtually every athletics facility from 1988 to 2011. In addition to their generous in-kind gifts, the couple gave profits from their Baylor projects back to the University.
The 2007 Alumni by Choice recipients are members of the 1845 Society, the Bear Foundation and Barnabas Circle, among others. They have endowed The Rebecca and Claude Lindsey Athletic Training Scholarship, and both the Athletics Training and Women’s Tennis programs bestow annual student awards named in Becky’s honor. Many of Claude and Becky Lindsey’s undertakings on behalf of Baylor have been outside of the spotlight, but their ceaseless contributions have been absolutely critical to the Baylor family, to the lives of so many students and to the wellbeing of student-athletes.
