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Old 08-21-2016, 09:57 PM   #1
MikeWaters
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Default Jared Ward, BYU statis prof, and olympic marathoner

I had never heard of him before watching the marathon today. He finished 6th which is amazing.

He got quite a bit of air time on the broadcast (the marathon by nature is pretty boring, so you have to fill up the time talking about something).

It was mentioned about him being a professor at BYU, doing his master's on marathon pacing, about him not running on Sundays. About his students in his class at BYU celebrating when he made the Olympic team.

I noted with some irony that he was choosing to compete on a Sunday. So there will be no stories a la Chariots of Fire where he chose not to compete because it was the Sabbath.

But had he not competed, he probably wouldn't have been mentioned. And certainly would not have been talked about to the degree he was.

To be in the world, but not of the world. There's a balance there.

BYU sports is facing that balance right now, and if the crap doesn't hit the fat now, it soon will in the future. Will they compromise as Jared Ward did, or will they quit the game?
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