As usual, both Dave Rose and Kalani Sitake spoke, and then they and Tom Holmoe answered questions. Then, President Worthen finished up with some great stories:

As TH was introducing Dave Rose, he shared a little story about the first Coaches Circle dinner back several years ago. He said the coaches were told it was to be casual, so DR showed up in shorts and a hawaiian shirt, and coach Mendenhall showed up in a suit an tie.

DR has been in continual contact with Eric Mika. Mika reported that he has been to 14 workouts with 13 teams. He said the quality of the workout experiences was pretty much quality of the teams; meaning, the more successful NBA teams had higher quality workout sessions. Mika felt like his best workout was with the Celtics.

Earlier today, Zac Seljaas was shooting balls in the Annex, and one of his missionary companions was shagging balls for him. DR said shagging balls for Zac is a pretty easy job--most of them go in.

DR talked about the Nashif situation. He said that Nashif's status had been talked about between them for the last few seasons. Terry has had some goals in basketball, and almost left before last year, but backed out at the last minute. At the conclusion of the season, Terry had some alternatives before him, and they mutually agreed that the moment was right for him to move on. He had a potential opportunity back east, but ultimately chose one that keeps him in Provo for now. DR believed he as making probably more now than he would had he continued here at BYU.

DR said this spring has been like no other. Coaching change, player leaving early for the NBA (hopefully), coming off a tough season. Said that the players energy and focus has been as good as its ever been. Dave said that he knows not all fans have great expectations for this year's team, but he does (I remember him talking about his team during last season, and he's much more upbeat about them now). Focus has been on being tough and disciplined.

TH had mentioned that its much tougher to coach now than it used to be. He talked about social media, distractions, handlers that players and coaches didn't have years ago. DR followed that up later with stating that a few distractions exist, and he mentioned at least two players are currently involved social media battles. If that's with any of you, stop it.

KS said that his goal is for himself is to not get any penalties this year. Then he quickly followed that up by stating that the biggest help to him on that goal is if the refs make the right calls; otherwise, he might struggle.

According to KS, several FB coaches had offers to go elsewhere for next year. No one gave it any serious thought.

KS talked about how much Lavell meant to him, and how much he had done for him. Last year, when we were 1-3 and heading into the Toledo game, KS received a text/message from Lavell telling him how proud he was of KS and that the program was in good hands and headed in the right direction. KS said that that encouragement came just at the right time.

KS said Lavell was a great mentor to him. During KS's freshman year, he was getting playing time, feeling really good about himself, and IIRC, had no real plans to serve a mission. He was called into Lavell's office, and Lavell told him that he would make a great missionary and that he should go. The rest is history.

KS said that the 40 times were down and the weight lifting was up. Said the team was demonstratively stronger than they were last year. A big reason for that goes to the outgoing seniors, like Taysom and Jamal, who showed great leadership in helping the team develop.

KS again talked about the quality of players on the team. He talked about getting involved in some programs and causes that were special to Lavell, like the Boys and Girls Club. He shared the experience of their Christmas event, where each player was assigned a boy or a girl to buy gifts for (totaling gifts for 104 boys and girls). KS mentioned that many schools do that, but what the BYU players did in this case, was that they placed the gifts under the tree with tags saying from their parents. While each kid was distracted, the parents in turn were ushered to an area where the gifts could be given secretly to the parents so that the gifts would appear to have come from their parents. KS got a bit choked up as he said, "These are the kind of kids we get to coach."

As they were in the tunnel getting ready to take the field against Michigan State, KS said that he had a belief in these kids, because they were good kids, they had served missions, and these were the kind of men he wanted to go into battle with. Later he brought up LSU in the same context, whether we win the game or not, these were the kind of kids that gave him confidence to take them on.

KS mentioned that last year, Taysom flat out won the job, and they went with him as starter and didn't look back. He said Ty understands very well the damage that can be done by having your starter constantly looking over his shoulder.

Someone asked KS about the Haka again. Again said they will not do it. It's a war chant, with the primary words to the effect of "We will kill you." He said that's not what we're about. He mentioned, we start with a team prayer and go from there. He said the team derives a lot of its energy from the crowd. Also mentioned that it's a Maori custom/tradition that should probably be used only with permission.

KS said we have the most amazing fans. He said when playing at Cincinnati, at the coin toss, their players commented to ours how amazed they were at our fan support.

KS mentioned during the Gonzaga game up there, some furniture in his house got broken in the excitement.

Someone asked TH about Big 12 aftermath and going forward. He said after that decision, they grouped together as a department and made it a point to keep moving forward and not worry about what they didn't have. He said things are continuing to move forward. He said financially, people tout the 25-30 million dollars these other teams are getting, but he believes that, because of who BYU is and what we represent, BYU has the ability to do more with less (but he did say things financially are moving forward). As a note, he mentioned at least 5 (maybe 6) athletic facilities that have either been recently added or upgraded. He said we'll always run in the black, but we are the same time improving.

TH was asked about this years bowl game. He mentioned that he was in contact with ESPN two days ago on the matter (didn't indicate what was discussed). He said that the P5 conferences have 6-7 contracted bowl games, that each year many of the conferences don't meet that obligation, so there are "free" games. He said because of these free games, there's a good opportunity to get into a game that has a better payout than what we have had in the past several years.

TH mentioned there would a BYU/ESPN announcement tomorrow, but he could say or hint what it would be. IIRC, he said something to the effect that it was nothing earth shattering.

President Worthen finished off the night. He talked about coaches, where the word had come from, what it meant symbolically, and then talked about how proud he was of BYU and that we had great coaches in the traditional sense. He used a story from Coach John Wooden's book about something that happened in their first NCAA championship (in their run of ten). I can not do justice to this story here, you'll have to read about to get the full gist and meaning.

President Worthen then shared a story from the Michigan State game. He said after the game, as he was walking in the BYU area (close to where their bus(es) were), when he was approached by one of the policemen providing security. The policeman asks President Worthen, "Do you anyone associated with the BYU program?". President Worthen chuckles, and says (to the effect of), "Well, I am it's President". The policeman says, paraphrasing, "I have worked security many years for MSU games and NFL games in Detroit, and I have never had an experience with a team like BYU. Your young men were polite, well-mannered, etc... They let us eat with them..."

Pres. Worthen finished by stating what a special place BYU is and what a special group of coaches and players that represent BYU. Amazing comments by Pres. Worthen to cap off the night.