Baylor is opening a new 45,000-seat football stadium this fall. Robert Griffin III is a big part of the reason the Bears outgrew their old facility, so the team is thanking him in a big way. According to David Ubben of Fox Sports Southwest, Baylor has decided to honor RG3 with a statue at McLane Stadium.
The 9.5-foot bronze statue will be installed and unveiled in the south end zone before Baylor’s regular-season opener against SMU at the end of August. Tom White and his wife Marcey, owners of Tom White Studios in Texas, built the statue after taking photos of Griffin in his Baylor uniform and allowing him to choose his favorite ones.
“We’d like to keep all photos of it private and anything to describe the pose so there’s some surprise at the unveiling,” Marcey told Fox Sports Southwest. “It’s gonna be awesome. It’s a great tribute to him and all of his wonderful accomplishments.”
RG3 won the Heisman Trophy at Baylor in 2011 after racking up nearly 5,000 yards of total offense and throwing 37 touchdowns and just six interceptions. He scored another 10 touchdowns on the ground. Griffin also led Baylor to its first bowl game in 19 years and helped put the football program back on the map.
Despite the aforementioned accomplishments, plenty of people feel that the statue is premature (see some tweets here) considering RG3 has yet to accomplish anything significant at the NFL level. Baylor is honoring him for what he did at Baylor, not what he has done with the Washington Redskins.
