On hating BYU

On hating BYU September 16, 2016

 

Bell Tower and Temple spire
BYU’s Centennial Bell Tower, with the Provo Utah Temple in the background
(Wikimedia Commons)

 

Here’s a serious question for some of my fellow Latter-day Saints:

 

I know many Mormons who love Brigham Young University and who are passionate fans of BYU sports.  I understand them.

 

I also know members of the Church who are either going to other schools or who went to other schools and who, consequently, root for the teams fielded by those schools.  Or they cheer for a local college or university near their homes.  Perfectly fine and completely understandable.

 

Occasionally, though, I run into devout members of the Church who hate BYU, and who especially oppose its athletic teams.  You know:  The kind who wear shirts saying something like “My favorite teams are [insert non-BYU school] and anybody who’s playing against BYU.”

 

I would understand such sentiments from non-members or from alienated nominal members of the Church, and I certainly understand them when they issue from hostile critics of the Church.

 

But what I don’t understand — honestly, I don’t — is when active, communicant members of the Church express such feelings.  And I’ve heard a few do just that.

 

BYU is a major investment for the Church.  It’s a major representative of the Church.  When it does well, it brings publicity to the Church. And that’s so with regard to athletics (for good or for ill) perhaps more than in another area:  Returned missionaries are interviewed in Sports Illustrated, for example, and glowing profiles of the University (which invariably mention its sponsoring church) appear on national (and sometimes even international) television.  BYU is one of the most widely recognized affiliates of the Church, one of the most visible institutions connected with Mormonism.

 

I genuinely don’t understand how a believing, faithful member of the Church can want BYU to fail.  (Heck, I don’t want the University of Utah to fail.)  Is there any committed Latter-day Saint who says, “I want the Family History Department to be mediocre,” or “I hope that the Missionary Department messes things up on a massive scale”?  Frankly, is there any faithful Mormon who yearns for the civil engineering program at BYU to be rated poorly, or for BYU’s accounting program to lose its high national ranking, or for BYU’s well-respected language programs to falter and to fail to do a good job? So why would any believing Latter-day Saint want BYU’s athletic programs to lose?

 

To me, the desire to build the Kingdom and to see it grow ever more respected and glorious means that I hope all elements of it will flourish and prosper.    Even BYU’s football program.

 

But I would like to hear from any committed Latter-day Saints out there who feel otherwise.  And I hope that they’ll explain why.

 

Please note:  I can easily grasp being upset with BYU over this action or that policy.  When, say, a son or daughter was rejected for admission, or a professor (odds are good that I’m the guilty party) treated you poorly, or a BYU bureaucrat wasn’t responsive.  Believe me:  I know what it’s like to feel mistreated, even betrayed, by all-too-human folks affiliated with BYU; my unexpected encounter with university politics in mid-2012 has damaged me, and has damaged things that I deeply believe in, in ways that continue to have repercussions even now.  But, although I was and am profoundly disappointed by that experience, I haven’t managed to come to hate BYU.  I still love it.  I simply hope that it will become better, and then better still.

 

So, if somebody could please explain the very real hostility that at least a few believing Latter-day Saints claim to feel for the University, I would deeply appreciate it.

 

 


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