BYU football: Cougars have reputation, but no invite

Deseret News ^ | June 16, 2010 | Jeff Call

[Colofornian]

PROVO — Over the past 30 years, BYU has won a national championship in football, expanded its stadium to 64,000 seats...

Yet, when it comes to conference realignment, the Cougars remain on the outside, looking in. It's arch-rival Utah, not BYU, heading to the greener (read: money) pastures of the Pac-10.

The man who served as BYU's athletic director from 1976-93, Glen Tuckett, remembers a time when the Pac-10 — at least on an athletic director level — coveted the Cougars. Adding the Utes didn't seem like even a remote possibility.

"In those days, Utah was struggling. They weren't a player," Tuckett said. "Now, it's kind of reversed. Now it's Utah that's the glamour girl."

So does Tuckett believe Utah is a good fit in the Pac-10?

SNIP

Pac-10 presidents, who make expansion decisions, have never been interested in BYU joining the Pac-10, Tuckett said.

During the 1980s and early 1990s...Tuckett said. "But they never invited us to dinner. There was never an invitation. It was always speculative talk. If they were going to do something, we would have been their No. 1 choice, according to the athletic directors. The presidents and (board of regents) at Cal and Stanford made their wishes known about BYU. I'm good friends with (former Pac-10 commissioner) Tom Hansen. He talked very plainly to me, all the time, about how things were and where we stood. It was different then than now, but there was never any invitation..."

SNIP

Sources say Pac-10 presidents have blackballed BYU simply because of their biases against the school.

"It's religious prejudice masquerading as academic snobbery," one source has told the Deseret News. "They're trying to find an excuse to avoid the real issue, that they don't want a school that is tied to the LDS Church."

[Colofornian]

From the article: Sources say Pac-10 presidents have blackballed BYU..."They're trying to find an excuse to avoid the real issue, that they don't want a school that is tied to the LDS Church."

Yes, it is the real issue. But no more of "the real issue" than a father who says to his 16 yo daughter, "No, you're NOT going to go out with that one particular guy."

From the article: ...when it comes to conference realignment, the Cougars remain on the outside, looking in. It's arch-rival Utah, not BYU, heading to the greener (read: money) pastures of the Pac-10.

The Utes have a classier program.

From the article: The man who served as BYU's athletic director from 1976-93, Glen Tuckett..."The presidents and (board of regents) at Cal and Stanford made their wishes known about BYU."

What has been Stanford's stand on BYU going back over 40 years? See Anniversary of Protest Against BYU

Stanford was the first school to stop scheduling competition against BYU because of its racist policies, as noted by the above-linked BYU Daily Universe article last year: The Wyoming incident pushed an already scrutinized LDS church and BYU athletic department into the forefront of the national civil rights movement. Within days, Mormons and BYU were under fire, according to an AP article printed Nov. 3, 1969, in The Daily Universe. Stanford University publicly announced that it would no longer schedule any athletic competitions or have any academic relations with BYU. Church officials made no formal comments on the matter at the time, but BYU did address the situation...Many of the student body of 1969 were affected by the attacks of racism made against the LDS church and BYU.

[Tennessee Nana]

Bookmark

[JeffChrz]

Cal apparently had an issue with the Pac-10 inviting Baylor due to its religious affiliation (Baptists?). What would you expect its opinion about inviting a school owned by the LDS Church would be, especially after the Prop 8 vote?

[MplsSteve]

College Football PING?

[Bad~Rodeo]

PROVO, Utah — In a game featuring two of college football’s most successful programs over the past four seasons, BYU and the University of Texas today announced they will play each other during the 2011 season. The Cougars and Longhorns will meet at Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas, on Sept. 10, 2011. Game time and television plans will be announced at a later date. “We are very exited to announce this game vs. Texas,” said BYU Athletics Director Tom Holmoe. “It’s a great opportunity for BYU

[Logophile]

As an alumnus of BYU, I think the university should consider dropping intercollegiate athletics entirely. At most universities (and I have no reason to think BYU is an exception), the athletics programs are big money-losers, which do little to enhance the teaching and research missions of the university.

There is a precedent. When Ricks College was expanded into a four-year school and renamed Brigham Young University-Idaho, the intercollegiate athletics program was scrapped. (I am told that BYU-Idaho has one of the best intramural programs around.)

If the elimination of athletics is seen as too drastic a step, BYU-Provo might follow the lead of the University of Chicago, one of the founding members of the Big Ten:

[President Robert Maynard] Hutchins heaped scorn upon schools which received more press coverage for their sports teams than for their educational programs, and a run of disastrous seasons gave him the trustee support he needed to drop football in 1939. The decision was hailed by many, but few other schools followed Chicago's lead. (Office of the President, University of Chicago)

In 1946, the University of Chicago withdrew entirely from the Big Ten. The university resumed playing football in 1969, and now competes as a member of the University Athletic Association (UAA) in Division III of the NCAA.

Playing in Division III has had no discernible effect on the reputation of the University of Chicago. Some 85 Chicago faculty and alumni have won Nobel Prizes. Personally, I would prefer a Nobel Prize to a national championship any day.

[Oztrich Boy]

I’m only here for the pictures

[GOP_Raider]

Ping!

[GOP_Raider]

Over the past 30 years, BYU has won a national championship in football

Which is easily the most discredited national championship in the history of the game. Yes, I say this with crimson-colored glasses, but still...

[Bad~Rodeo]

Not only did Hutchins buck the dominant trends in philosophy and instruction, he also challenged higher education's emphasis on intercollegiate football. Hutchins abolished the university's football team in 1939 because he believed students needed to focus on scholarship and Chicago should play football only if it could remain competitive with major athletic programs. This was a momentous decision as the Maroons were a founding member of the Big Ten Conference and once a national powerhouse under the famed coaching of Amos Alonzo Stagg. In fact, Stagg, who had retired from Chicago in 1933, had been the first coach in the nation to be a tenured professor, and his large athletics' budget was exempted from normal institutional review. Even as late as 1935, Chicago's Jay Berwanger became the first Heisman Trophy winner, but by 1939 Chicago's scoreboard indicated that the glory days had passed, including a 61 - 0 loss to Harvard. Therefore, despite the legacies, and partly because of them, after much debate the university dropped football.

University of Chicago!

[aft_lizard]

I am not sure it is that easy.

I would offer up Colorado’s 1990 championship as evidence.

[Elsie]

 

"It's religious prejudice masquerading as academic snobbery," one source has told the Deseret News. "They're trying to find an excuse to avoid the real issue, that they don't want a school that is tied to the LDS Church."

 

Yup; that's the REAL problem all right!

 

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"You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind.

The first man that committed the odious crime of killing one of his brethren will be cursed the longest of any one of the children of Adam. Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings.

This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race--that they should be the 'servant of servants', and they will be, until that curse is removed."

Brigham Young-President and second 'Prophet' of the Mormon Church, 1844-1877- Extract from Journal of Discourses.

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Here are two examples from their 'other testament', the Book of Mormon.

  2 Nephi 5: 21    'And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.'

  Alma 3: 6    'And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men.'

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August 27, 1954 in an address at Brigham Young University (BYU), Mormon Elder, Mark E Peterson, in speaking to a convention of teachers of religion at the college level, said:

"The discussion on civil rights, especially over the last 20 years, has drawn some very sharp lines. It has blinded the thinking of some of our own people, I believe. They have allowed their political affiliations to color their thinking to some extent.I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the Negro is after."

"He is not just seeking the opportunity of sitting down in a cafe where white people eat. He isn't just trying to ride on the same streetcar or the same Pullman car with white people. It isn't that he just desires to go to the same theater as the white people. From this, and other interviews I have read, it appears that the Negro seeks absorption with the white race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by intermarriage."

"That is his objective and we must face it. We must not allow our feelings to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for Negroes that we will open our arms and embrace them with everything we have. Remember the little statement that we used to say about sin, 'First we pity, then endure, then embrace'...."

(Rosa Parks would have probably told Petersen under which wheel of the bus he should go sit.)

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 1967, (then) Mormon President Ezra Taft Benson said,

"The Communist program for revolution in America has been in progress for many years and is far advanced. First of all, we must not place the blame upon Negroes. They are merely the unfortunate group that has been selected by professional Communist agitators to be used as the primary source of cannon fodder."

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We are told that on June 8, 1978, it was 'revealed' to the then president, Spencer Kimball, that people of color could now gain entry into the priesthood.

According to the church, Kimball spent many long hours petitioning God, begging him to give worthy black people the priesthood. God finally relented.

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Sometime before the 'revelation' came to chief 'Prophet' Spencer Kimball in June 1978, General Authority, Bruce R McConkie had said:

"The Blacks are denied the Priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty.

The Negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain blessings are concerned, particularly the priesthood and the temple blessings that flow there from, but this inequality is not of man's origin, it is the Lord's doings."

(Mormon Doctrine, pp. 526-527).

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When Mormon 'Apostle' Mark E Petersen spoke on 'Race Problems- As they affect the Church' at the BYU campus in 1954, the following was also said:

"...if the negro accepts the gospel with real, sincere faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory."

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When Mormon 'Prophet' and second President of the Church, Brigham Young, spoke in 1863 the following was also said:

"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God is death on the spot. This will always be so."

(Journal of Discourses, Vo. 10, p. 110)

[sean327]

“Which is easily the most discredited national championship in the history of the game. Yes, I say this with crimson-colored glasses, but still...”

And none of the other so called national championships can be discredited? BYU was the ONLY undefeated team that year, so what was so different then than any other bogus championship in any other year?

You BSC snobs kill me. When Utah handed Alabama their ass in the Sugar Bowl all we heard were excuses. None of you gave Utah their props for whupping an SEC team in what was pretty much a home game for Bama. MWC teams have been beating so-called BCS teams on a regular basis lately. Hell Wyoming strolled into Knoxville 2 years ago and beat the Vols(Wyoming was very bad that season). Utah also beat Michigan in the Big House. The MWC has a winning record against the PAC-10, the Big-12 , and the mighty SEC over the last 3 seasons. They have done this with half your budget and with 2-3 star recruits. The BCS is a crock and everyone knows it.

[Logophile]

From the Wall Street Journal, 30 October 2009:

Mr. Hutchins never would've had enough support to ax the football team in 1939, historians say, if Chicago's teams had still been the mighty Monsters of the Midway. (That nickname, now associated with the NFL's Chicago Bears, originated with Mr. Stagg's Maroons; "Midway" refers to a park that runs through campus.) Aiding Mr. Hutchins's cause was Chicago's massive decline on the field—due in part to Chicago's higher academic standards. In 1939, Chicago's final major-college season, the Maroons lost 85-0 to Michigan and 61-0 to Ohio State and Harvard.

Dropping football helped build Chicago's image as a top destination for serious-minded graduate students and faculty. Over 80 Nobel Prize winners have studied, taught or researched at Chicago. "That's part of the magic of Chicago," says Robin Lester, who wrote a book about Mr. Stagg and Chicago football. "That's their thing. It's still a serious place for kids to get an education."

Today, Chicago is once again embracing athletics as part of a larger push to invest in campus life beyond the classroom. Last week, the school celebrated the 40-year anniversary of the return of varsity football; Chicago now plays on the non-athletic-scholarship Division III level. "We're still being true to the notion that it's not in the interest of universities to create mass-entertainment spectacles," says John Boyer, dean of Chicago's undergraduate college. "I always tell people that those games in '39 were the best thing that ever happened to us."

I would like to see BYU emulate Chicago and concentrate on becoming "a serious place for kids to get an education." (It would also be nice to see some BYU alums and faculty win some Nobel Prizes.) I believe that a Division I athletics program is an obstacle to academic success, if only because of the expense.

Frankly, I am also worried that a major scandal involving the athletics programs will tarnish BYU's reputation.

Unfortunately, BYU is not likely to eliminate their intercollegiate athletics programs or even move down to Division III so long as they are still competitive in Division I. As a longtime fan of BYU, it pains me to say this, but here goes: Perhaps the best thing that could happen to BYU would be a few seasons like the ones Chicago had in the late 1930s.

[N3WBI3]

Perhaps its something to do with the LDS but I more believe its the schools ‘we don’t play on Saturday’ policy..

[GOP_Raider]

And none of the other so called national championships can be discredited? BYU was the ONLY undefeated team that year, so what was so different then than any other bogus championship in any other year?

I actually agree w/ you for the most part, but I just get tired of byU fans using their 1984 MNC as a rhetorical "get out of jail free" card and they've been doing it to us for 25 years now.

[Thurston_Howell_III]

Has nothing to do with prejudice, these types of decisions are made based on how much can be generated by including certain new markets over other would be markets.

[Colofornian]

I would offer up Colorado’s 1990 championship as evidence.

(I appeal to Invincibly Ignorant's authoritative opinion on this)

Which NCAA team had the most discredited national championship in history: Colorado, BYU, or somebody else?

[NorCoGOP]

It's arch-rival Utah, not BYU, heading to the greener (read: money) pastures of the Pac-10.

And they will stop right there on adding schools.

Think of the merchandising rights!

Can you imagine the scramble of beer marketing executives going on right now?

Now that they have added two schools, they can officially re-organize...

...and...

...offer a brewery the chance to become the "official sponsor" of

The 12 Pac

It's genius...pure genius...and you thought it was about the money....

[Invincibly Ignorant]

I am not sure it is that easy. I would offer up Colorado’s 1990 championship as evidence.

Why? Because of a blown call by an official regarding a 5th down in Missouri? That's lame. You can take away titles from many teams in any sport because of blown calls by officials, refs, etc. No matter what part of the season it happens in. Are you an McCartney hater?