Basketball season starts today for our youngest son. I’ve spent the past 15 years teaching, coaching, and encouraging my four sons in hundreds of games. I’ve screamed and yelled and complained in nearly every game. I’ve been thrown out of dozens of them. I’ve been angry. Real angry. I have used foul language in front of grandmas and little children. Curiously, I’ve never been in a fist fight at a game. I’ve come close, but no punches thrown.
After each game, after I cool down, I hit my knees and pray to God that I can be forgiven for being such a jerk. Now, I’m pretty sure that real forgiveness is predicated on real repentance and it’s hard to say that I’ve really repented when I’m such a serial offender. One day, I tell myself, I’ll get over it. After all, it’s just a game.
Getting angry at my boys’ basketball games is the only time I really get angry. Nothing else in life seems to get under my skin. I can get mocked and ridiculed by political opponents…and nothing. I can get physically threatened by a hostile audience at the University of Utah…and nothing. I don’t get love mail; I get hate mail…and nothing. When I confessed my anger anomaly with a friend at Church, he said “first I’d like to congratulate you that basketball is the only thing that sets you off.”
But somehow, for some reason, a basketball game triggers deep anger in me.
And so I’m a bit ambivalent over BYU quarterback Max Hall’s recent tirade against the University of Utah. Of course he shouldn’t have said what he did. A class act wouldn’t have gone where Max went. A class act would have let it go taking solace in the big win. All he needed to say was “scoreboard.” Not to mention, if he really despised the Utes, why waste his breath?
Okay, so if I know this, why is there a big part of me that cheered him on? What is it within me that shouted “boo-yah!” When I first heard Max’s comments I thought, it’s about time someone said out-loud what we’re all thinking. I have to admit it: I can’t stand the University of Utah. But why do I feel that way?
I don’t know if the answer to that question has anything to do with a sports rivalry. I certainly don’t really “hate” anyone. I don’t wish anyone ill-will. I don’t know if I could name more than ten people I know at the U. And yet I can’t stand all of them.
Here’s what I think it is. In my world of politics, the University of Utah represents a very liberal, cynical, aggressively secular view of the world. In my world, the U. is like anti-matter. It’s destructive, not constructive. I have to think Max Hall is seeing them the same way only in his world of football. The U. isn’t just another opponent. It represents something that is the opposite of what BYU represents, whether real or imagined.
I have to agree with many of the comments I’m seeing that it seems as if very few Utes are actual Utah fans as much as they are BYU-haters. In my world of politics, the sense of hatred coming from that corner of the valley far outweighs any sense of simple disagreement.
I know that there are many fine people who go to and teach at and work for and have graduated from the University of Utah – far more than the ones filled with hatred for anything religious or virtuous or traditional. But the bad apples are poisonous and they give the rest of the school a bad name.
So, for now, I agree with the pre-apologetic Max Hall – I hate the University of Utah. Until I see the good people in the majority up there keep the cretins in line, I’ll continue to hate them. Even as I speak there to groups of wonderful students of all stripes, I’ll continue to hate them. And even though I hate the abuse of the word “hate,” I’ll continue to hate them. And I’ll continue to hate them until they give my boy a full-ride scholarship for basketball. And then I’ll love them. (Although I am secretly rooting for my boy to go to USU…go Aggies!!)
I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.
