My Visit with Cecil

[BYU71]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Overall, spectator and participating sports are healthy, good releases. They provide exposure and mainstreaming. The Church desires mainstreaming so much it can't see straight, yet with the same voice the leaders complain when we become as others.

What is Cecil's vision? I still see him punching a timeclock, waiting anxiously for his assignment to Outer Mongolia where he won't have any more exposure.

Remember the people called to be Presidents of BYU are GA types, not types who run Universities.

While most people who run Universities have a certain mandate, the President who runs BYU has quite another. Keeping the flock under control is the first mandate. I mean really wondering about kids going to Vegas and the bad influence. Is the real mission of BYU, send us your kids and we will keep them safe until they get married and have couple of kids.

Although statistics will prove if they get them married and with kids, the success rate of keeping them in the church goes up, a lot of those early marriages and quick kids end up in some difficult marriages down the road.

We were just discussing the other day with a group of friends how many rocky marriages we know about that started with some RM telling some girl he had a vision and God wanted her to say yes.

[Goatnapper'96]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Overall, spectator and participating sports are healthy, good releases. They provide exposure and mainstreaming. The Church desires mainstreaming so much it can't see straight, yet with the same voice the leaders complain when we become as others.

What is Cecil's vision? I still see him punching a timeclock, waiting anxiously for his assignment to Outer Mongolia where he won't have any more exposure.

From a sports perspective what are the President's options?

1.) Support and be actively engaged in furthering its success. See Holland, Lee and Bateman.

2.) Do nothing and hope for the best. See Samuelson.

Notice a trend? Legitimate University professors involved is a good thing. Ecclesiastical babysitters who are taught that they talk for God involved was not a good thing. Like most BYU fans I would prefer a President passionate about BYU sports and willing to do what it takes to make them better, but if the President is a GA and there to ensure young men and young women stay pure, I would prefer they take the Samuelson approach. Bateman was passionate in his own way and involved, however he believed, as did others, that his ideas were revelation. I say keep those guys happy in luxurious press boxes and allow Holmoe to run it the best way it can given its circumstances. Perhaps BYU is not great but the peformance under the indifferent President appears better than it has been for some time.

[exUte]

Originally Posted by All-American

So as luck would have it, President Cecil O. Samuelson was on our flight home. I had a chance to visit with him a bit before we boarded the plane. A couple of interesting moments:

-- During the last week of classes, some BYU students had converted the huge statue of the Ute chief on BYU campus into a gigantic snowman. I asked him what he thought of it. Given His and BYU's reputation for being somewhat heavy handed, I was somewhat surprised by how much he liked it. "Hopefully," he joked, "they took the snow from off of the sidewalks."

-- He and other bigwigs are indeed aware that BYU ought to have a better bowl game available to them. His reasons are somewhat different than, say, MY reasons. Among the problems he sees are students who are exhausted after finals and making long drives down to the bowl game, and the general seedy atmosphere of Las Vegas. He briefly mentioned the Mtn. and conference debaucles, noting (off the record, I'm sure) that BYU and Utah had a good draw, but none of the other conference members seem to pull their weight.

-- Notwithstanding the aforementioned problems, he seems to feel that BYU is largely handcuffed by the current state of affairs. Whether by contract or conference, there are not very many aveneues of redress open to the university. He has learned, as he said, to argue over the things he actually has some ability to change.

I'm not sure if this next bit stems as a result of this, or vice versa; it seems a bit of a chicken and egg problem. He and other leaders recognize the importance of athletics at BYU (he was at Vegas, after all), but if we were to start over completely from scratch, he wouldn't have sports at all. It's worth maintaining now that it's here, but it distracts so much from the time and focus in other directions that there will always be a sort of reluctance in regards to athletics. The fact of the matter is that sports at BYU is not very high on the priority list.

With these two factors combined (the inability to change and the reluctance to make an issue of anything related to Athletics), we will likely find that the university leaders will only act in a benificiary manner for the athletics program when given an especially monumental impetus to do so.

would go away to benefit his beloved Utes.

[BYU71]

Originally Posted by Goatnapper'96

From a sports perspective what are the President's options?

1.) Support and be actively engaged in furthering its success. See Holland, Lee and Bateman.

2.) Do nothing and hope for the best. See Samuelson.

Notice a trend? Legitimate University professors involved is a good thing. Ecclesiastical babysitters who are taught that they talk for God involved was not a good thing. Like most BYU fans I would prefer a President passionate about BYU sports and willing to do what it takes to make them better, but if the President is a GA and there to ensure young men and young women stay pure, I would prefer they take the Samuelson approach. Bateman was passionate in his own way and involved, however he believed, as did others, that his ideas were revelation. I say keep those guys happy in luxurious press boxes and allow Holmoe to run it the best way it can given its circumstances. Perhaps BYU is not great but the peformance under the indifferent President appears better than it has been for some time.

Very good points. As long as he stays out of the way, I am happy.

[Jeff Lebowski]

A former high-profile VP at BYU told a friend of mine that if he were in charge, he would immediately disband the engineering, law, and business schools and make BYU strictly a liberal arts school. In other words, get rid of the the only three programs that have any kind of national respect. I took some solace in the fact that dumbass ideas like this are tough to pull off unless one can build a broad concensus among the leadership. Not bloody likely. I suspect that dropping sports would be similarly difficult. One can only hope.

[BYU71]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

A former high-profile VP at BYU told a friend of mine that if he were in charge, he would immediately disband the engineering, law, and business schools and make BYU strictly a liberal arts school. In other words, get rid of the the only three programs that have any kind of national respect. I took some solace in the fact that dumbass ideas like this are tough to pull off unless one can build a broad concensus among the leadership. Not bloody likely. I suspect that dropping sports would be similarly difficult. One can only hope.

I am not kidding you. A lot of folks think the place should just be a holding tank for the masses until they can get them off on a mission, back and married with kids. Some think that should be what it is all about there.

[dut99002]

I believe that Bednar was involved with BYU football back in the day (as a student athlete).

He is a BYU football fan. I know I spoke with him about their season in back in '04.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

A former high-profile VP at BYU told a friend of mine that if he were in charge, he would immediately disband the engineering, law, and business schools and make BYU strictly a liberal arts school. In other words, get rid of the the only three programs that have any kind of national respect. I took some solace in the fact that dumbass ideas like this are tough to pull off unless one can build a broad concensus among the leadership. Not bloody likely. I suspect that dropping sports would be similarly difficult. One can only hope.

I cannot believe an administrator would think that way, but maybe I can.

[il Padrino Ute]

Originally Posted by realtall

I wonder if his feelings would run the same way if he was the president of the yew.

I doubt he'd feel the same. He didn't take the job at BYU because he's a BYU football fan. I believe that because he's a devout member of the LDS church, he viewed the job as a calling - which in truth it kind of is a calling.

Bateman was a BYU fan and loved BYU fans, but had he put too much emphasis on athletics, my guess would be that the Brethren in SLC would have had a chat with him about how important athletics really is in BYU's mission as a university.

If folks like Jay Santos have a problem with the way Samuelson is doing things, they ought to take it up with the Brethren. They may allow the President at BYU to make decisions, but I'm guessing it needs their approval.

[realtall]

Originally Posted by il Padrino Ute

I doubt he'd feel the same. He didn't take the job at BYU because he's a BYU football fan. I believe that because he's a devout member of the LDS church, he viewed the job as a calling - which in truth it kind of is a calling.

Bateman was a BYU fan and loved BYU fans, but had he put too much emphasis on athletics, my guess would be that the Brethren in SLC would have had a chat with him about how important athletics really is in BYU's mission as a university.

If folks like Jay Santos have a problem with the way Samuelson is doing things, they ought to take it up with the Brethren. They may allow the President at BYU to make decisions, but I'm guessing it needs their approval.

I don't have any problems with his decisions to date. What I was commenting on was a hypothetical based upon the conclusion that you drew from aa's post.

Besides, if Samuelson(and the Brethern) decided to cancel BYU athletics, including the fb program, what fun would that be for Utah?