A question for active, believing LDS who claim to hate BYU

This article reminded me of a question that has occurred to me from time to time:

I can’t say that I “hate” any team in sports — though, at one point, the San Francisco Giants came close in my mind, and though I can’t claim to think many positive thoughts about the New York Yankees.

But that’s not the real background of my question.

I’ve never understood how an active, believing Latter-day Saint can “hate” Brigham Young University, in the sense of hoping, for example, that its athletic teams do really badly.

As a committed member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I want every department and every program and every effort of the Church to do well.  I want our humanitarian efforts to succeed.  I want our temples to multiply.  I want the Church to be known as the good and beneficial organization that it is.  I want my fellow Latter-day Saints to establish reputations for competence, charity, intelligence, goodness, and honesty.  As part and parcel of that, I want BYU to prosper and to succeed in its manifold mission.

That doesn’t, of course, mean that Latter-day Saints can’t root for the University of Utah or Notre Dame or UCLA or Harvard.  Of course they can.

It doesn’t mean that they can’t be critical of BYU.  I sometimes am.

But shouldn’t they at least also have positive feelings toward a school sponsored by the Church, a school named after the second prophet of the Restoration, a school whose board of trustees includes many of the Twelve and other general leaders of the Church and that is chaired by the president of the Church?  Since BYU’s athletic and other successes typically bring favorable media attention to the Church, how can they, as citizens of the Kingdom, seriously want it to fail?

I honestly don’t understand.

Posted from Salt Lake City, Utah