If you think your favorite World Cup athletes are talented check out this guy.

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Khao San Road in Bangkok, Thailand is the traveler’s gateway to SE Asia. It feels like an adult circus atmosphere, a mixture of Thai food, cheap hotels, tacky clubs, partying, street performers, loud music, and vendors hawking anything they think tourists will buy.

This guy obviously fits into the “street performer” category. Today is the final of the World Cup 2010, and this is my contribution to the game.

I write this letter to minimize your effort in finding suitable teams for the Pacific 10 Conference proposed expansion. Here is your answer: Add BYU and Utah. Done and done.

Let’s be frank. We all know that the proposed augmentations of the Pac-10 and Big-10 (11) have more to do with money than anything else. These conferences want to increase revenue. In practical terms, that means that the conferences are looking specifically at football programs. In today’s fraudulent BCS setup, the more teams a conference has, the greater the likelihood of  placing two teams in BCS bowls.Having two teams in BCS bowls means enormous amounts of money for the conference and its schools. None of the money will go to the athlete-students (yes, I purposely put “athlete” before “student”) doing the dirty work, but that’s their problem, and besides, they’re getting an education, right. Additionally, by adding top-performing teams from the non-BCS conferences, the many people criticizing the money-making BCS scheme and its subjective, figure-skating-like ways of ranking teams and selecting games, will be silenced for a while.

Okay, now that we are on the same page after leveling with each other, let’s talk about what teams are best suited to join the Pac-10: BYU and Utah.

-BYU and Utah are major rivals. This rivalry is often ranked in the top 10 or 15 in the country and regularly generates national attention for the close games and fierce intensity among fans. All other schools in the Pac-10 have paired rivals (USC/UCLA; Cal/Stanford; Oregon/OSU; Arizona/ASU; Washington/WSU). The BYU/Utah rivalry is a natural fit.

-BYU and Utah are close to one another. Like all the other rivalries mentioned in the first point, BYU and Utah are not more than a short drive (1 hour) from each other.

-BYU and Utah are close to the other Pac-10 schools, which will mean better attendance ($$$). Rather than forcing players to stretch their road games halfway across the country, Utah is right smack in the middle of Pac-10 territory.  Arizona is close. Oregon and California are close (10-14 hours drive). Washington isn’t so close, but the distance from Utah is still less than the Los Angeles-to-Washington road trip.

-Utah opens up the Pac-10 to the Rocky Mountain region. Again, this means more fans, bigger television ratings, and more money for the conference.

-Utah and BYU are academically excellent schools. You would have to reach all the way to Texas and then into the East Coast to find another pair of schools better than BYU and Utah. The Pac-10 is not just about athletics. Rather, it’s a collection of high quality national universities that compete and cooperate with each other.

-BYU and Utah are athletically excellent schools. Utah has been to two BCS games this decade, and was the only undefeated team last season, destroying Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. BYU was the season-ending #1 ranked team in 1984 and has arguably produced the best quarterbacks of any program over the past few decades. They nearly always field a strong football team. Utah reached the NCAA Basketball National Championship several years ago, and regularly has one of the strongest women’s gymnastics teams in the country. Both Utah and BYU have unconventional recruiting techniques, which is what has allowed them to excel in a fairly low density, homogeneous state.

-BYU brings a huge international fan base. Enough $aid.

-BYU has always had a strong national reputation. Utah’s reputation has grown exponentially this decade with its massive successes. Both of these schools are of high enough caliber academically and athletically to jump right into, and add quality to, the Pac-10 mix.

Please, if you have any questions do not hesitate to call!

Happy Holidays,

Brook

Today, Max apologized, noting that his comments were directed at the specific individuals responsible for insulting his family. Only he knows whether or not he truly regrets his post-game comments. Regardless, I suspect in several years, if not already, he will feel a sense of embarrassment over his words.

What I find particularly silly is how personally the players and fans take this “Holy War” football rivalry. I had a good chuckle over Max’s comments, and haven’t lost any sleep over them. I appreciate his raw emotion, having had my own share of regrettable comments. Fortunately, I am not in the public spotlight and have never been surrounded by a bunch of reporters drooling over my comments and egging me on. Max, on the other hand, has the highest student public profile at a top-notch and internationally recognized university that has had, arguably, the greatest string of quarterbacking talent in the past 30 years (Jim McMahon, Steve Young, Ty Detmer, Steve Sarkisian). Do people listen to BYU’s quarterback? Yes.

The question begging to be answered is why are Utah and BYU fans so rough on each other? Other famous college rivalries, while ruthless in their challenging of one another, don’t show this deep-rooted (religious?) level of hatred. I love good-natured pranks and jokes, but there’s no need to be mean, right?

BYU and the U of U are not enemies. They are an hour drive apart and are more intertwined than any of us can imagine. Students transfer between the two schools regularly, have degrees from both schools, do academic research with each other, etc. They are two of the most academically and athletically talented schools in the entire mountain region. In fact, a student-athlete would probably have to go as far West as California or as far East as Texas to find a better opportunity than what they would get at the U or the Y. These schools got there by working with and challenging one another.

So why do we see this deep hatred between the two rivals? Granted, not all the fans feel this hatred, but enough do that we have players and fans making headlines over mean-spirited comments and actions. I believe the reason is because of a difference in how segments of the two schools’ fans identify with Utah, the state. More specifically, I think out-of-state students and fans new to the state have such little understanding of other religions and the Utah culture that they totally buy into the imaginary hatred being fueled by locals.

Even though I’m not formally affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Ladder-Day Saints (LDS), I consider myself “culturally Mormon.” I was born in Utah, raised in an LDS community where Cub Scout meetings were held in the Mormon church and started with a prayer, went to Utah public schools where I was usually the only non-Mormon in class, and had exclusively Mormon friends until I left for college. Obviously, I was heavily influenced by traditional LDS values and believe I am a better human being for having been raised in Utah.

Above all the local religious and cultural influences, however, I identify with the state of Utah, my home state, and am proud of anything great accomplished by any Utah team or individual, from the Jazz making the NBA Finals, to the Utes making the NCAA basketball championship under Coach Majerus, to BYU football’s 1984 season-ending #1 ranking, to the Utes crushing Alabama in last year’s Sugar Bowl, to child archer sensation Denise Parker, to the Sanderson brothers. My small immediate family has undergraduate and graduate degrees from Utah, BYU, and Weber State, so I feel some attachment to nearly every major university in the state. I believe this connection I have to all-things-Utah is something lacking in many U of U and BYU fans. I believe the reason for the displays of fan hatred between the two schools has as much to do with a lack of connection to the state as it has to do with religion. This makes sense when you consider that the majority of Utes football players are LDS members, the U of U head coach is a BYU alum, and many LDS leaders have degrees from both schools.

Most out-of-state students and families recently transplanted from elsewhere have few or zero connections in Utah, so they create in their minds a total devotion for one school and a total hate for the rival. As it turns out, Max Hall is not from Utah, and it’s quite possible the Ute fans who insulted Max Hall’s family were out-of-staters as well. Had Max Hall been from Utah, I can’t imagine him saying those things…he’d probably have a close relative or high school coach who graduated from the U, making him think twice about such a comment.

Even though the football rivalry is called the “Holy War” what creates a lot of the strong emotional division of U vs. Y fans is not just religious differences, but Utah identification differences. BYU, as a private school, has a much higher percentage of out-of-state students (about 70%) than the U of U (about 20%). Broken down religiously, nearly all BYU students (99%) are LDS, regardless of origin. I cannot find a source, but I believe the majority of the U of U student body is LDS, and would imagine that most out-of-state students are NON-LDS. That leaves us with a whole lot of Mormons moving to a new state to attend the ultra-conservative BYU and quite a few non-Mormons moving to a new state to attend a fairly liberal U of U. Their schools are rivals and these people don’t accept each other’s lifestyles or understand much about their new state.

When looking at out-of-state students, if we put the religious differences AND the Utah non-identification differences together, you can see how easily real hatred can form in a hyped up rivalry. Bluntly stated, these transplants to the state don’t understand the culture, haven’t had the chance to make Mormon or non-Mormon friends, have little understanding of the state’s other educational institutions, and generally get sucked into believing all the nonsense they hear without ever having a chance to learn firsthand what their rivals are all about.

All those non-Utahns attending the Y are devoted (religiously and as fans) to BYU, but haven’t the slightest emotional connection to anything else about the state. It’s easy for them to create a real hatred for the U of U and the Godless, debaucherous heathens who they are led to believe go there. Likewise, a lot of Utes fans, especially those from out-of-state or without any LDS friends, haven’t the first clue about BYU’s role in the state and beyond, and find it easy to stereotype BYU fans as holier-than-thou snobs.

Religion is, without a doubt, an underlying factor in the animosity between many U and Y fans, but how connected they are to the state’s citizens and its many institutions is just as big a factor. What’s the lesson? Make some Mormon friends if you don’t have any, be accepting of people who drink coffee or beer even if you don’t, show some tolerance and curiosity about other ways of living, and then root like heck for your favorite team! Most of all, don’t be mean.