Merlin Olsen, Peter Vidmar, Ken Niumatalolo, Todd Heaps, Rulon Gardner, Bryce Harper (strange huh?) has generated a lot of pub for the LDS Church, so did Dale Murphy etc.

It's such a dumb article that HB wrote. One of his worst to date. What does it have to do with anything? If you listen to conversion stories you learn one thing, there is no pattern to it. Every conversion story is different. I've yet to hear one that said they were converted because they read an article about a BYU athlete (or any LDS Athlete anywhere). The way HB makes it sound, all the eggs have to be in the BYU basket or the athlete is robbing the church of good pub.

To be truthful, the most effective impression making that goes on in a non-LDS person's life regarding the church is the guy next door, the guy at work, the guy he goes to school with, etc. It's the guy he got to know personally who let his light so shine that the non-LDS friend was able to see it and notice it was different and it inspired him in some way. You don't have to go to BYU to do that.

As a matter of fact, the church makes a point now to encourage LDS kids to stay home and go to their home universities and build up the LDS Institute programs in their areas. Even the church disagrees with HB.