PROVO — Clayne Jensen was a quiet, behind-the-scenes kind of guy who spoke softly and preferred to work out of the limelight of the growing notoriety of the sports world. He was most effective doing his job deep in the background behind walls, away from the lights and cameras.

Yet, Jensen was part of some of the most important decisions, proposals and expenditures in BYU athletics during the glory days of the school’s athletics programs from the early ’70s through the ’90s. Jensen passed away at age 89 a few weeks ago and his funeral services will be this Saturday in Provo.

The times I talked to Jensen, he was more inquisitive than forthcoming with notable quotes for a story. He was a former record-setting sprinter and Marine, but an academic at heart. He’d written 15 books that have been used by some 600 colleges and universities.

He was always kind, humble and kind of quiet. He was a thinker.

Back at Provo High, I ran track alongside his oldest son Craig, also a sprinter. But at the time, as a teen, I had no idea that in the future, his father would be part of a powerful BYU threesome that included athletic director Glen Tuckett and football coach LaVell Edwards.

Edwards and Tuckett were front and center. They were media savvy, the faces of the program, but they never made a move without running it up the flag pole and in front of Jensen, who held the real clout and worked with the administration and leadership council.

Jensen spent three decades working at BYU, doing everything from being a professor to dean of the College of Physical Education to a short stint as athletic director between Tuckett and Rondo Fehlberg. He was a faculty representative to the NCAA and chaired seven committees. He later became an associate vice president at BYU.  

To many on the national level, Jensen was the administrative face at BYU, the one through which they drew a perspective of what this large private school operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was all about.

During his tenure, BYU football went to 23 bowl games, won the 1984 national championship in football, expanded the football stadium to more than 65,000 seats, and did major facelifts on the track and field facility, Smith Fieldhouse and the facilities.

He made sure money got in the right hands and at the right time. He was involved in hires and advancements and even the times when an employee had to be let go. His fingerprints are all over BYU athletics and have been for decades. He retired from BYU in 1995 right after Steve Sarkisian set an NCAA passing record in his final game as a junior against Fresno State on the road.

Jensen’s clout was always in the background, working where the proverbial sausage was made at BYU. He understood how to move around the political structures, the kingdoms some faculty build around their protective realms. He was nicknamed the “Silent Mover,” or the “Invisible Cougar,” by some who knew him.

The most amazing thing about this man is that he came from such meager surroundings near Gunnison, Utah, a child of the Great Depression, and he really didn’t have any inkling there was this big world out there he’d be a part of someday. 

But sports changed all that. Jensen, you see, could run fast. He became a state champion hurdler and earned a scholarship to the University of Utah. There, he lettered all four years and won conference championships in the low and high hurdles.

After joining the Marines and rising to the rank of captain, he coached two all-Marine championship teams in track and field and as a Marine athlete, set hurdle records and received high honors. At Camp Pendleton, his 13.9 time in the high hurdles was the third-fastest time in the world, only three-tenths of a second off the world record.

His fame parlayed into a faculty position at Utah State after he earned a master’s degree at Utah and he later earned his Ph.D. from the University of Indiana. He arrived at BYU in 1964 and became the youngest full-time professor at age 34.

In time, Jensen sat in NCAA councils with all the big movers and shakers from the Big Eight, Pac-10, SEC and Big Ten. He worked closely with the executive directors of the NCAA over the decades, and found a way to parlay his views before four university presidents, be it Ernest L. Wilkinson, Dallin H. Oaks, Jeffrey R. Holland or late Rex E. Lee.

How he ever kept so back in the shadows almost all of the time is one of the great mysteries of BYU athletics.