Did you watch BYU vs. Michigan in 1984 live on TV?
 

I'm so grateful that I was able to watch that. Flashing "national champions" I think it was, in a ghetto graphic block-letters. Bosco limping around. So much at stake. All the build up with Bo Schembechler mouthing off. Barry Switzer whining and crying about BYU the whole season.

Thank you God, for making me a Mormon, a BYU fan, and letting me be alive and mentally cogent to take in 1984 and remember it til now.

When I die, I know "1984" will be on my lips before I slip away.

I should add that I am really the only sports fan in my family. My two brothers never cared much for sports. My dad liked track and field and that's about it.

But for a time, when I was young, my dad liked watching BYU football. We would go to the church and get the games on Satellite. When we had cable we watched the televised games. And when we didn't have cable, we would go to a LDS neighbor's house.

I don't know why he had that time in his life where he cared about it somewhat (he was never even a big fan then), but I think a strong argument could be made it changed my life dramatically. Without that, I don't know that I attend BYU later in life.

If Farrah wouldn't mine, I think Pac and I would love to spoon with you.

I was there Mike. I was only 12, but I was there in my Waymon Hamilton throwback jersey behind the north endzone at the Murph. I can still recall the excitement that shot through my veins when I saw Bobby Roscoe limping back onto the field. Koz's catch and the Pride of Beaver taking in that swing pass.

Good times.

Yep. At a party member's house on my mission.

After the New Year's Bowl, after OU had lost to Washington in the Orange Bowl, I broke open the paper, the Bryan College-Station Eagle, tore to the sports section to see the announcement that BYU had won the national championship! I scanned quickly. Nothing. And there on page B1, at the far bottom right was a 2-inch article saying BYU had been voted #1. I was indignant, and a bit letdown.

At this young tender age, I felt this national championship had established BYU as a power that would be reckoned with...forever. That we would get better and better players. It was not to be, and that 2-inch article presaged the nation's reaction.

I was 3 years old and have similar recollection to the rest of the nation.

Killed by the mormon induced insatiable appetite for acceptance and outside approval. Better to have just enjoyed the achievement rather than how you thought others would esteem the accomplishment.

"To thy own self be true and it shall follow as the day follows the nights, big hooters will await you."
----Ralph Waldo Goatnapper

Chupa tu madre, maricon.

Suck your mother, Queer.

I watched it. That season was the first one where I began to understand the power that an oddly shaped leather ball held over my parents.