Brett Yormark’s first order of business as commissioner of the Big 12 is to keep the league from imploding, but somewhere on his to-do list must be to have a sit down with incoming member BYU.
The introduction starts with, “Yeah, we’re not doin’ this.”
There is a reason why a school with such a large enrollment (33,500), alumni base, history of athletic success and a healthy amount of T-shirt fans was never asked to join a top athletic conference before the Big 12 reached out last year.
It wasn’t because the school has refused to play athletic events on Sunday.
It wasn’t because their men’s basketball and football teams have a well-earned reputation in college sports as some of the dirtiest in the nation.
The real reason was on display over the weekend during a women’s volleyball match between Duke and BYU.
On Friday night, Duke outside hitter Rachel Richardson, who is Black, was the target of racial slurs during the Blue Devils’ match against BYU. The slurs eventually turned into threats.
Why Duke coach Jolene Nagel and BYU coach Heather Olmstead didn’t agree to suspend the match shortly after the slurs were obvious is another rant.
Nagel should have told her players to leave the floor until the fan was ejected from the arena.
BYU said in a statement that it was one fan, who was kicked out and has been banned from BYU sporting events. The fan was reportedly sitting in the BYU student section, but is not a BYU student.
Why didn’t anyone (everyone?) in the student section call this person out?
Why didn’t anyone (everyone?) in the student section summon a member of security to have this idiot removed?
Maybe such confrontations made them uncomfortable. That’s plausible.
Or, maybe they thought it was funny. Also plausible.
On Saturday night during a BYU volleyball match, BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe, who played for the Cougars’ football team and was a member of the San Francisco 49ers from 1983 to ‘89, read an apology to the crowd.
“If you would have met her, you would have loved her, but you don’t know her, and so you don’t feel that way,” Holmoe told the crowd. “As children of God, we are responsible, it’s our mission to love one another and treat everybody with respect, and that didn’t happen (Friday). We fell very short. We didn’t live up to our best.”
Yes. You didn’t live up to your best. Starting with this terrible apology.
Holmoe suggests that the BYU fans in attendance apparently have to know Rachel Richardson to think that tossing a bunch of racial slurs at her is not a good idea.
You don’t have to be a child of God to know that Richardson’s treatment at this match is deplorable. The children of the corn would know that.
A bunch of people all over Utah issued statements condemning the behavior, but the only one who seemed to get it right was Utah Gov. Spencer Cox.
On Saturday night, Gov. Cox Tweeted, “I’m disgusted that this behavior is happening and deeply saddened if others didn’t step up to stop it.”
How ironic it took a politician to nail a situation in one sentence.
Cox isn’t one of those ugly, dumb libs’, either.
He’s a Republican who stated the obvious. It’s terrible that it happened. Why did so many of the people in charge wait so long to do a thing about it?
Located in the scenic town of Provo, Utah, BYU has always had a reputation in college sports as a little too right of right.
Provo is to conservatism as Portland is to liberalism.
Provo can be a time warp to 1955-era repression.
There are plenty of schools in major college athletics that are not only private but are religiously affiliated universities; Baylor, Notre Dame, Boston College are the most prominent that fit that description among the Power 5.
While there is some holier-than-thou annoyances that come with those schools, none of those three broach the level of irritation inspired by a BYU.
There has always been something just a bit too much that often makes fans, coaches and players from the competing schools comfortable.
It could be the Mormon dogma.
It could be the fact that many of the BYU student athletes are married with kids.
It could be the fact that many of the BYU student athletes are older, because of the mandatory two-year missions they are required to serve.
It could just be that in major college athletics, BYU is just so overwhelmingly white. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, “roughly 81 percent” of BYU’s student body is white.
In February of 2021, a faculty committee at BYU released a report that students of color “feel isolated and unsafe as a result of their experiences with racism at BYU.”
BYU was founded in 1875, and this was the first time in the school’s history that it acknowledged this problem.
Despite the issues, the Big 12 invited BYU for a reason.
BYU historically fields competitive teams and brings good crowds. Once Oklahoma and Texas leave the Big 12, the conference’s lone member to win a national title in football since 1940 will be BYU, which won it in 1984.
Before the Cougars join the Big 12 in 2023, Yormark needs to have a sit down with all of the suits at BYU and set real expectations.
If BYU can’t handle this, then Yormark and the Big 12 will.
