not because i think we should all just sit in our arm-chair's and slander BYU athletes to death because it's our "right"...but because people need to recognize what CB is and what it isn't.

what CB is (per mission statement on front page):

"CougarBoard is the largest independent online community of BYU Cougars sports fans. With thousands of posts each day, and thousands of active users, it's a vibrant community where all sorts of current events and other topics are discussed along with the majority of sports-related posts."

let's dissect that a bit...

"largest" = means HUGE...i.e. LOTS of people.

"independent" = this site is not owned or operated by BYU or the LDS church...expect opinions to vary.

"online community" = with the online nature and anonymity come some flair for the extreme but that also means we can speak our mind without fear of retribution...it works both ways

"fans" = is short for "fanatic"...let's all stop acting surprised when a bunch of people (usually alumns) who invest tons of time and thousands of dollars to see, attend and support BYU athletics gets a little carried away after a loss or a bad season or whatever. again, this is a SITE FOR FANS. it's not a support group for family members of player or players themselves...IT IS FOR FANS.

"thousands of posts each day" = again, variety...some or pessimistic, some are optimistic, some deal with losing or success or failure differently...it's what makes this site great, even if we all don't agree with each other all the time.

"vibrant community" = inherently implies differing views respectfully expressed. while some get out of hand (i'm sure we all have) most on here are respectable and back up their opinion with facts or anecdotes as best they can. CB will fail if we all just become a bunch of wrubell fan-boy spin machines.

as someone who has had family members and good friends play at BYU and as someone who was "outed" by certain family members who read the board and didn't like my opinion and outed me to coaches who then proceeded to call me and ask me to stop posting, this subject is EXTREMELY important to me b/c if family and players are on here they need to remember all of the above-mentioned items and remember that it's probably not the best place for you to be at all times. and if you are on a FAN site and cannot handle the "variety" of the "thousands of posts each day" made by this "vibrant community" of "fans" then YOU NEED TO GET OFF and stop trying to ask us all to talk about rainbows and unicorns all day long.

the vast majority of posts on here are very reasonable. there are occasional trolls and people that get suspended but the mods do a great job regulating the content on here. i'm all for trying to remain positive but what is even MORE important, IMHO is that everyone feel free to speak their mind in the ONLY forum that exists for most of us to do so. if you're a player or family member and want to focus on positive things to build up the player, get off CB...not because it's a bad place, but because it can be brutally honest, maybe even unfair but it is, by far, the best, most "vibrant" and exciting online FAN forum for BYU sports...period.

the end.