First a disclaimer: I'm not saying there isn't a cultural problem for BYU in the PAC 10. There is. No doubt. But I regularly see it getting blown up into something way more fundamental than it is.
My brother - a social conservative on everything from gay marriage to abortion and a committed supply sider on economic issues - spent eight years in Berkeley completing his Phd in Political Science. A big part of the reason he spent eight years instead of six or seven is because he loved it so much and had such a positive experience. He and his wife had three kids while at Berkeley and were pregnant with the fourth. They lived in a development surrounded by non-LDS Berkleyites many of which are still close friends. And they enjoyed a strong LDS community as well.
There they were, right in the alleged heart of PAC 10 academic and cultural snobbery, Mormons pro-creating like Mormons do, for eight years. And they found nothing but warm friendships which have lasted. Meanwhile my brother excelled under the tutelage of the late-great Berkeley political thinker Nelson Polsby and he moved on from there.
That was Berkeley. The LDS community and presence in PA, Menlo Park and the area (where Mormon developers own huge amounts of property and are well known) is much larger.
Obviously my brother's experience is anecdotal. But it sheds light on some of the popular misconceptions about hostility to LDS in PAC 10 country. Again - that's not to say it doesn't exist. It does and there's plenty of it.
But unlike Big XII country, almost everyone who grows up in California knows Mormons. Same is largely true of most areas of WA, OR and Arizona. Knowing people of a given background as human beings tends to be the best antidote to hard prejudice, which means that Mormons at least have an anchor in PAC 10 country in this: More LDS in California than in all of the Big XII states combined. Factor AZ, OR and WA and you end up with a PAC 10 LDS population that would guarantee sizable road attendance for BYU games.
Having said all of this - I don't really buy that we're going to the PAC 10 or the Big XII. But I don't get it when people say that they think the Big XII is a better fit. On top of everything else - I much prefer the hostility of rational secularists to the hostility of born again fundamentalists. At least the secularists don't think we're going to hell.
[Hope it's not a CUF sin to repost junk from Cougarboard]
My brother - a social conservative on everything from gay marriage to abortion and a committed supply sider on economic issues - spent eight years in Berkeley completing his Phd in Political Science. A big part of the reason he spent eight years instead of six or seven is because he loved it so much and had such a positive experience. He and his wife had three kids while at Berkeley and were pregnant with the fourth. They lived in a development surrounded by non-LDS Berkleyites many of which are still close friends. And they enjoyed a strong LDS community as well.
There they were, right in the alleged heart of PAC 10 academic and cultural snobbery, Mormons pro-creating like Mormons do, for eight years. And they found nothing but warm friendships which have lasted. Meanwhile my brother excelled under the tutelage of the late-great Berkeley political thinker Nelson Polsby and he moved on from there.
That was Berkeley. The LDS community and presence in PA, Menlo Park and the area (where Mormon developers own huge amounts of property and are well known) is much larger.
Obviously my brother's experience is anecdotal. But it sheds light on some of the popular misconceptions about hostility to LDS in PAC 10 country. Again - that's not to say it doesn't exist. It does and there's plenty of it.
But unlike Big XII country, almost everyone who grows up in California knows Mormons. Same is largely true of most areas of WA, OR and Arizona. Knowing people of a given background as human beings tends to be the best antidote to hard prejudice, which means that Mormons at least have an anchor in PAC 10 country in this: More LDS in California than in all of the Big XII states combined. Factor AZ, OR and WA and you end up with a PAC 10 LDS population that would guarantee sizable road attendance for BYU games.
Having said all of this - I don't really buy that we're going to the PAC 10 or the Big XII. But I don't get it when people say that they think the Big XII is a better fit. On top of everything else - I much prefer the hostility of rational secularists to the hostility of born again fundamentalists. At least the secularists don't think we're going to hell.
[Hope it's not a CUF sin to repost junk from Cougarboard]
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