yes, this is a 'whippersnapper' story...

years ago, I was everything sports. I followed football, basketball, baseball, the Tour de France, tennis, golf, triathlongs, etc. just about anything sports related.

I played just about all those sports as well, some of them to a very high degree.

Then, I got married, went into the military as an officer and into flight school. Something had to give, so some of the less serious stuff fell away, I watched 1-2 NFL games on a weekend, maybe only a couple college games (in those days, there was very little hope of catching BYU on TV, maybe once a year) on a Saturday. I listened to BYU football on KSL when I could get it. I still played golf, played a little ball with post intramurals, and trained for triathlons.

But over the years, with kids, work, jobs, and then 'coming to China' (as if it was really a choice more than where the path led me), all I have left really is Yahoo! and ESPN for sports news, I watch BYU football via a slingbox, I listen using an app.

Thing is, during the years I was a sports nut, BYU would do okay now and again. But basically every year, would dash my hopes of beating the GOOD teams outside the WAC. Then came the MWC and we would still lose the games that I thought would make us respectable. Especially when I tried to talk sports with my fellow officers who want to places like TA&M, Texas, tOSU, and ND.

Then my wife got cancer. Nothing mattered, the entire 2000 season to me is a blank, I didn't watch or listen to a game. And in 2001, it was almost the same, I just caught small pieces. My wife survived, I got some interest back.

But I never found a reason to be upset about a BYU loss beyond the 2 minutes following the game. Because nothing in my life was going to change as a result of the games final score.

That's what I mean by perspective. It's okay to have an opinion. Maybe people don't like Bronco as a coach, or as a person. I'd hazard a guess most don't know him very well. Maybe you don't like losing games, or playing crappy teams... guess what 50% of teams lose games. It's in the rule book. Crappy teams? When we think of crappy, does it really matter if it's Wagner, Savannah State, or Southern Virginia? Evidently, the SEC thinks playing them is okay.

There are a lot of things I might want to change if coaching BYU football was MY job. But it's not, I am just a fan. So, the schedule, the coaching, the results, I leave to people who are smarter, and have a lot more experience than I do at the way football is handled at BYU.

And NONE (ZERO), NADA of them are on Cougarboard. Of that I can assure you.