I'm Charlie Brown, a die-hard BYU football fan

Well, they did it again. BYU football brought me in and then punched me in the stomach. I feel like Charlie Brown after he was fooled into having Lucy hold a football for him, flat on his back wondering how the hell he allowed himself to be sucked in yet again. This love affair began so long ago. In 1983, my dad moved our family from California to Provo, UT, where he worked on his master’s degree for two years. This put us in Provo for the 1983 and 1984 football seasons. At the time, I was 8-9 years old and just starting to enjoy watching sports. My father graciously took me to most of the games where BYU football was ingrained in my soul. It just so happens, that this was also a time of resounding success for BYU's football team. In 1983, the team went 11-1, finished ranked 7th in the nation, and featured Heisman trophy runner-up Steve Young, a future NFL Superbowl MVP for the San Francisco 49ers. During one memorable game, I even got Steve Young's autograph, a piece of memorabilia that I treasure to this day. Than came 1984. For those of you who despise the BCS system as much as I do, much of the blame falls on this season, squarely on the shoulders of BYU's success. You see, BYU finished 13-0, the only team undefeated in the nation, and were voted as the number one team in the nation by both the AP and the Coaches poll. Yes, a team from the Western Athletic Conference was the undisputed national champion. Well, at least undisputed in the polls. Many, many people were upset at this and it set in motion the exclusive BCS bowl club we have today, that shut's out the mid-major schools in an attempt to preserve traditions of exclusivity of past years of big-name programs like Oklahoma, USC, Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Penn State, etc.... Now, for a nine-year-old kid living in Provo, UT, I didn't hear any of these rumblings until years later, and was blissfully cocooned in the aura that accompanies a national championship. A few years later in 1990, I watched as BYU upset then #1 ranked Miami and in the same season saw Ty Detmer win the Heisman trophy. A few more years, I was there myself, as an 18-year-old freshman, residing in the dorms and living the dream of attending every home game with a great group of friends. That year, 1994, BYU finished #10 in the nation after trouncing Oklahama in the Copper Bowl 31-6. After a two-year mission, I returned in 1996 to witness Steve Sarkisian lead the team to their first and only New Year's Day bowl game, a 19-15 win over Kansas State in the Cotton Bowl, which ended a 14-1 season ranked #5 in the nation. As the son of an alum, and now an alum myself, there's not much that gets my blood moving like sitting down for BYU football. But recently, it's been so depressing to be a fan. Every time I get my hopes up, they are quickly dashed, leaving only emptiness. In 2000, our legendary coach Lavell Edwards retired after a mediocre 6-6 season. The next season brought with it promise, and the Cougars delivered, started off 12-0 under new coach Gary Crowton. There were talks of being the first non-BCS school to receive an at-large bid to a BCS bowl. And then, they lost the final game of the season, missed out on a BCS bid, and landed in the Liberty bowl, where they got pounded by Louisville. This stomach-punch end to the season is something that fans still haven't overcome. It's been difficult to. 2002 was the first losing season in 29 years, followed by another in 2003, which ended with a crushing shutout at the hands of hated rival Utah (final score: 3-0), which was the first time BYU had been shutout since 1975. In 2004, Crowton led the team to its third losing season in a row, and much to the appeasement of the Cougar fan base, resigned. At this point in my fandom, I was cautiously optimistic about the future of the program. The current coach has done well to bring back the winning seasons, yet the teams seem to fail when the stakes are highest. On paper, 2006 looks great, with a 10-2 record, but to lose to medicore BCS teams Arizona and Boston College? Then, similar things in 2007, with a loss to dreadful UCLA and then to Tulsa to start the season 1-2, only to end up rebounding for a second undefeated conference schedule. So now, I'm coming to the conclusion that BYU can beat up its conference opponents at will, but against even mediocre schools from the BCS conferences, they can't hang. And that's depressing. And I keep getting sucked in, only to be thoroughly disappointed. It happened three times this season, which started out as the "Quest for Perfection", a theme adopted by the team, knowing that to be included in the BCS party, they would have to go undefeated. They started out well, trouncing UCLA 59-0, followed by another shutout a week later of Wyoming 44-0, eventually making it to 6-0, ranked 8th in the nation. Then came the first real test of the season, conference opponent TCU ranked #24, which blasted BYU 32-7 in a nationally televised Thursday night game. Ouch. So much for perfection. After that humiliating loss, BYU won the rest of its games and was set for a showdown with Utah. BYU had climbed back to 14th in the rankings with a 10-1 record. Utah was sitting at #7 at 11-0, poised to secure its second BCS bid with a victory. What a better time for BYU to rise to the occasion and play spoiler against their biggest rival. The outcome? A painful 48-24 ass kicking, sending the Cougars to the corner with their tail between their legs while watching the Utes ride off into the proverbial sunset, receiving a Sugar Bowl bid to play against national powerhouse Alabama. The shock of this loss, and not just the loss, but also the way BYU was trounced, was like a kick to the groin. The reward? Another Las Vegas Bowl bid against University of Arizona, a very mediocre Pac-10 team, unranked with a 7-5 record. What a better way to get the ugly taste of the Utah game out of our mouths than to go out and crush a BCS team from the Pac-10. This was literally my mind set leading up to the game. I was not hoping for a victory, but a crushing win, something like 42-10. And shoot, the 16th ranked team in the nation with a 10-2 record should be able to do this to a 7-5 middle of the road BCS conference team, right? Once again, I had convinced myself. Arizona 31 - BYU 21. And once again, I was crushed.

Hail to the Chief!

Today, ODS really started. And I thought being woken up by someone yelling in the hallway outside my door was unpleasant. That was downright peaceful compared to what happened this morning. Sometime between the hours of 3 and 4 AM, I was abruptly shaken from my slumber by what I thought may have been artillery fire. This loud, booming, shaking was accompanied by shouting which can only be described as guttural. I was out of bed, but still mostly asleep, and completely disoriented. It took me what felt like forever to slip my shorts on and find my arm-band. I felt this sense of panic rise up inside of me that was both uncomfortable and unfamiliar. After taking a few deep breaths in a fruitless attempt to calm myself, I was about to get outside and stand in the hall with the other members of my company, when I thought a bomb went off outside my room, followed by bellowing, "If you're not outside this door in 30 seconds, you will regret it for the rest of your life." Now, I don't know about you, but this definitely did not increase my motivation to leave the room. As I slowly opened the door, I noticed what must have been my mistaken bomb, a distinct shoe scuff that had been applied with a well-timed kick to get us out in the hallway. The only reason I identified this mark so quickly is because I soon witnessed this tactic in use on another member of my company's door. Soon, we were all standing outside at the position of attention, listening to this man bark commands at us. I took this opportunity to slowly scan the hallway, and observed that everyone looked as disheveled as I felt. The poor guy across from me even had his shorts on backwards. As I was slowly coming to, I started to actually listen to the man bellowing at us. Found out he was a Navy Chief and would be in charge of our sorry states for the next 5 weeks. At this time, I actually was able to relax and see the humor in this situation. I mean, when you look at it, here's this funny looking dude, marching up and down screaming his head of at nothing in particular, and he expects us to call him "chief". Up until this point in my life, on the rare occasion that I had referred to someone as "chief", it had not been a term of endearment. So, the use of "chief" for this guy making an ass of himself in an attempt to intimidate, seemed very appropriate. I even got to the point that I had to hold back laughter at this entire ridiculous situation. Here I was, standing outside my hallway in Navy PT clothes, watching this funny man pace back and forth yelling orders at us. In a sense, I felt like I was in 7th grade gym class again. Luckily, I did manage to hold in my laughter, someone a company mate of mine did not quite do. In what seemed like 15 milliseconds, chief was in his face screaming, "IS THERE SOMETHING FUNNY ABOUT THIS?" To which he replied, "NO, SIR!" Uh-oh. This was NOT the right thing to say. Apparently, an officer is to be referred to at "Sir/Ma'am", but saying this to a chief is almost considered derogatory. The correct reply was , "NO, CHIEF!" But, he didn't give this response. The volume of chief's voice went up 10-fold and the saliva started to fly when he started, "SIR???? I AM NOT A SIR!!!! I WORK FOR A LIVING!!! NEVER CALL ME SIR!!!! YOU WILL REFER TO ME AS CHIEF!!! YES, CHIEF; OR AYE, AYE, CHIEF; BUT NEVER SIR!!!!" Now, to someone new to the military, it was a bit difficult to tell who was an officer and who was a chief, but making this split second decision became a crucial one for each of us to make. Chief would drop up on our face quicker than you can say, "YES, CHIEF!" and have us doing push-ups until we wanted to cry. If we really pissed him off, we would head to the infamous sand pit. This looked like a beach volleyball court, but without the nets and girls in bikinis. And, the sand seemed to be specially formulated for jaggedness, as kneeling in the stuff would slice up your knees quickly. Trips to the sand pit were threatened often, but luckily rarely carried through. After a morning with chief, we collectively got our sh*t together and did pretty well to stay out of trouble for the rest of our time there. We had seen what chief could become that first morning, and during a particularly memorable trip to the sand pit, and wanted to avoid this at all costs. Turns out, he was a pretty cool guy when you caught him during off hours or later off base when we were finally allowed some liberty, but don't mess with him while you're supposed to be doing military things, or watch out! As time went on, our quality of life slowly improved. We still had to march everywhere, carrying our ridiculous water bottles, and attend hours and hours of terribly boring powerpoint lectures, but evenings and weekends we were given our cell phones back and at times even allowed to go off base and get a decent meal. Aside from push-ups when we got in trouble, we did very little organized PT, which was very disappointing. I was hoping to have ample chance to work-out as a group and use this time to get in better shape. This did not happen, though due to the quality of food, I still lost 15 lbs while I was there. For the most part, I think the important information could have been passed on in about a weeks time, not the 5 weeks that we had to endure. I made some wonderful friends, but was happy to get out of there upon graduation, 5-long weeks later.