Very dissapointing. I am one who sustains the leaders of the church. To me that means, if they decide to do something I agree they have the right to do it, it doesn't mean I agree. If they do away with sports and some nice BYU student calls up and asks if I want to contribute to the BYU general fund, my answer will be "hell no" I'm a Ute.
Maybe BYU has gotten way bigger than any of them imagined. It is probably a lot bigger problem than some of them care to deal with.
The problem with athletics is that it does provide visibility. I still maintain there were influential people who got jealous of the visibility the athletic programs got in the 80's and 90's and they have a hard time figuring out how the two can coincide. This is what Holmoe, Bronco and Rose are up against. It is why some people sit on pins and needles worrying about an honor code scandal or something like Max Hall dropping the F bomb and hurting the "image".
No one gives a crap if someone in the humanities dept. tries to kill their wife or a professor is caught doing some voyeurism (sp). They can handle that because no one cares and it doesn't get any press.
Look, a lot of America considers us a cult. Drop athletics and BYU becomes worse than Bob Jones West. A lot of people won't see that though, remember what motto is on the campus entrance, "the campus is our world".
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