Should go w/o saying that most of us here or any forum that is primarily about sports, we're in the 99th percentile of neurotic fandom.
Something happened to us that made us this way. Maybe more happened to me than happened to most.
What was it for you? Probably doesn't need to be said that for a lot of Ute fans, the day they didn't get into BYU was a transformational fan-making moment. But I assume that it goes much deeper than that for most of the CUF Ute fans. And for all of you Y/U fans - why do you care this much?
I think the majority of diehard BYU sports fans have been sipping on a uniquely dangerous cocktail all their lives - we fuse the institution with our religious identity and then we can't help letting that bleed into our affection and zeal for the most public manifestations of the institution, its sporting successes (and failures). I will even confess to being a third-hand Jazz fan (my main squeeze is Boston, secondarily the Kings) simply because I know when people hear "Utah" they think "Mormon." As a more self-aware adult fan I've worked on separating the sports-fan Oxcoug from the LDS guy Oxcoug, but I'd be lying for the benefit of Ute fans if I claimed that it's a clean separation at this point (BTW, I know there are plenty of totally secular BYU fans, so I'm not speaking for everyone obviously).
But it's wayyyyy more than that. It has a lot to do with timing. BYU's biggest breakthroughs in the world of sports occurred, for me, between the impressionable ages of 5-10. When Jimmy Mac saved us in the Miracle Bowl I was 6. I saw grown men - at least three of them attorneys, including my Dad - dogpile on a living room floor. It was witnessing a miracle. When Danny Ainge went coast-to-coast vs Notre Dame I was just a little older. I and my bros were crowded around the old family radio (radio!) and the moment was electric. When Steve Young scored his improbable winning TD vs Mizzou I was 8 and remember letting out a primal scream (probably more like a loud squeak at that age). When we won the national title a year later I was 9. Then, a few years later, when Detmer toppled #1 Miami in Provo, I was months removed from the death of my older brother and that win - in a very real way - jarred me out of the lethargy that had dogged me since he died late the preceding year. I won't claim that isn't weird, but it's true.
All of those dramatic wins packed into the most impressionable years of boyhood just blistered my imagination with the possibility of impossibilities, with the seeming inevitability of BYU's march to sporting greatness, with my personal right to see my team triumph, with the irrelevance of Utah sports (it never occurred to me to think twice about Ute sports until I actually got to BYU... but... yes OK, I think about them a lot now, ya happy?).
So in all seriousness - BYU sports of 1980-1985 were a big part of what shaped my outlook on life and Detmer's run at greatness actually had a restorative impact on me.
Suffice it to say - at this point, it ain't ever going away.*
[*unless BYU rehires Gary Crowton, then it might]
Something happened to us that made us this way. Maybe more happened to me than happened to most.
What was it for you? Probably doesn't need to be said that for a lot of Ute fans, the day they didn't get into BYU was a transformational fan-making moment. But I assume that it goes much deeper than that for most of the CUF Ute fans. And for all of you Y/U fans - why do you care this much?
I think the majority of diehard BYU sports fans have been sipping on a uniquely dangerous cocktail all their lives - we fuse the institution with our religious identity and then we can't help letting that bleed into our affection and zeal for the most public manifestations of the institution, its sporting successes (and failures). I will even confess to being a third-hand Jazz fan (my main squeeze is Boston, secondarily the Kings) simply because I know when people hear "Utah" they think "Mormon." As a more self-aware adult fan I've worked on separating the sports-fan Oxcoug from the LDS guy Oxcoug, but I'd be lying for the benefit of Ute fans if I claimed that it's a clean separation at this point (BTW, I know there are plenty of totally secular BYU fans, so I'm not speaking for everyone obviously).
But it's wayyyyy more than that. It has a lot to do with timing. BYU's biggest breakthroughs in the world of sports occurred, for me, between the impressionable ages of 5-10. When Jimmy Mac saved us in the Miracle Bowl I was 6. I saw grown men - at least three of them attorneys, including my Dad - dogpile on a living room floor. It was witnessing a miracle. When Danny Ainge went coast-to-coast vs Notre Dame I was just a little older. I and my bros were crowded around the old family radio (radio!) and the moment was electric. When Steve Young scored his improbable winning TD vs Mizzou I was 8 and remember letting out a primal scream (probably more like a loud squeak at that age). When we won the national title a year later I was 9. Then, a few years later, when Detmer toppled #1 Miami in Provo, I was months removed from the death of my older brother and that win - in a very real way - jarred me out of the lethargy that had dogged me since he died late the preceding year. I won't claim that isn't weird, but it's true.
All of those dramatic wins packed into the most impressionable years of boyhood just blistered my imagination with the possibility of impossibilities, with the seeming inevitability of BYU's march to sporting greatness, with my personal right to see my team triumph, with the irrelevance of Utah sports (it never occurred to me to think twice about Ute sports until I actually got to BYU... but... yes OK, I think about them a lot now, ya happy?).
So in all seriousness - BYU sports of 1980-1985 were a big part of what shaped my outlook on life and Detmer's run at greatness actually had a restorative impact on me.
Suffice it to say - at this point, it ain't ever going away.*
[*unless BYU rehires Gary Crowton, then it might]
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