#22: I’m not a sports fan, so I have no reason to want to see any money at all go to the sports teams. But the sports teams raise their own money, through contributions, television, etc. They don’t get money from the budget allocated to BYU by the Church. So, though the contributions of alumni might move to educational programs, I doubt it. There is even, I believe, some evidence that people who give to teams tend also to give to the university. If that is true, then the end of the teams they give to might mean fewer contributions to the educational programs rather than more. In any case, MET and philosophy don’t evoke the kinds of emotion that team spirit does, so they aren’t going to be able to get the same kinds of contributions. Besides, MET is a pretty well-funded program, all things considered.

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NJ, in my experience TCU, USC, ND, and BYU fans are class acts. Of other fandoms I speak not.

I have significant and compelling reasons to criticize the way BYU is operated. When I think of the teeming millions of dollars devoted to that silly game, and how a professor confided in me that he might not be able to squeeze $300 out of his operating funds for a year’s worth of casting analysis software for any number of MET students, I believe I have the right to wonder loudly and impetuously where the school’s priorities are. Or at the very least where the priorities of the alumni have gone off to. And I say this as a currently enrolled student (albeit at a distance; BYU has what I think is an excellent degree completion program for half-finished people like me.)

And I am entertained, not a little bit bitterly, every single time I look, at the fact that the top 10 browsed stories on the Deseret News and SL Trib websites seem to be 80% about BYU or U of U sports.

I worked in television and attended many games all over the intermountain west. Not only did I feel that BYU fans were tame by comparison, but, after one bowl game of which BYU was a part, many of the other workers (who came from all over, none of whom were either Mormon or Utahn) commented on how much better-behaved the BYU fans were.

Take it for what you will, but whining, on either side, is rather ludicrous.

With regard to the “missionary value” of the football program, I think Ty Detmer and James Dye (among others) would like to comment…

I don’t think either BYU or Utah are the epitome of bad behavior by fans. I’d have to give that award to Stanford, with their polygamy skit at a BYU game a while back.