Five long years

I meant to get back to this post and edit, but forgot all about it, and now I don't want to bother, so here it is in it's raw form:

Its been a long time in coming, and man it feels good. I didn't grow up loving sports. I didn't even grow up loving BYU sports. I guess that happens when you grow up in a single parent home, and the parent happens to be your mother. And you live on the other side of the country from BYU. I knew about BYU of course, both my parents went there. I even went to a couple of football games with my dad. I don't think I was there for the Miami game in '90, but I was there during the Detmer years. I remember my mom talking about the Miracle bowl though I had no idea of its signifigance. I stopped playing sports when we moved to Florida, but I took up the trumpet and lasted through four years of Marching band. I went to all those games and never really knew what was going on. Didn't help that my high school team was inept. We always claimed that the crowds came out to see us perform rather than the football team. So when I enrolled at BYU myself in '98 and joined the band, I really didn't know what I was getting myself into. '98 was an ok year by BYU standards, but it was pretty exciting for me considering the only winning teams I ever witnessed were on the other sideline. BYU didn't lose at home that whole season. I liked to think that they needed the band to win. And that theory held through the Utah game. RES was pretty rowdy and the Utah fans heckled us most of the game. So it was pretty sweet when Utah drove the ball within kicking range at the end of the game to win it. Well, that wasn't sweet, but what happened next was. LaVell called the last two of BYU's timeouts to 'ice' the kicker, and it worked perfectly. Doink! It was so nice to see the worst of the Ute fans leave sulking after they thought they were going to win for sure. My theory of the band supporting to team to victory faded in the WAC championship game in Las Vegas, and then at the Liberty Bowl. I saw first hand what losing star players to Honor Code violations could do to the team. I later went on my mission and missed the whole 'bib' phase in the evolution of BYU's uniforms. I also was gone for LaVell's final season, for the most part not a tragedy, but it would have been nice to be there for the last two games. When I came back I considered rejoining the band, but financial needs ruled it out and I started watching the games as just a regular fan for the first time. What a time to come back to! I listened to nearly the entire Tulane game on KSL on the way up to Yellowstone, and I didn't know what to think of the 70-35 final score, but it was amazing. I watched and listened as the season progressed and got more and more emotionally invested. I wonder what would have been if the season hadn't been interuppted by the events of September 11th. Things would have been different, and maybe BYU would have ended undefeated and had a chance to play in a BCS game, who knows. It was a special season, but like in '98, BYU lost the last two games. One of the things to come out of that season, was that I started watching the games with my friends the Henrichsens. I got my season passes with various members of that family over the next four years. We endured a lot of bad football over that span. And they endured alot of misery for sitting with me during all the losing. I was not any fun to be around. I don't know what happened. I don't know where my school spirit came from, but somewhere on the road I picked it up and I haven't let go. In recent years I have tried to tone down my rage when the team is playing poorly, but I still get very emotionally involved in the games. Right before the season starts, if I hear the fight song, I can choke up. When BYU ended last season with a .500 record I could tell change was in the air. The new coach Bronco Mendenhall brought something that had been missing during the years the Crowton was the coach. One of the best things was reverting to a classic style for the football uniforms. Another was reconnecting the team to its past. And most important was a focus on accountability for the team. 2006 was going to be different, for alot of reasons. I had to get a job that required me to work Saturdays. All of my Henrichsen connections left Provo, or got married, or both. On days when I could see the games, I no longer had my usual group to cheer with. So of course the team starts winning. And not just winning, but winning big. This has been a season of purging. After losing two close games at the beginning of the season, the team lead the rest of the way. Blowing out teams both decent and otherwise.