I graduated 20 years ago. I remember going to the Marriott Center to watch nearly every home game and barely being able to convince anyone to go with me. A couple of times I went by myself. And, with the exception of one year, the team won at least 20 games every year and either went to the Big Dance or was in contention right up until the end. If it wasn't Utah or some other good team, the place was eerily quiet.

Compare that to the student section we have today. They are noisy and into the games. And they are knowledgeable. I happened to sit a couple of rows behind the student section at the WCC tournament game against Portland. The students were the ones who knew Collinsworth was closing in on another triple double.

The last football season I was there, we still had rotating student seats. One game, we got pretty good seats. They were close to the field. The only problem was, the players on the bench blocked our view unless we stood. So we stood the whole game. Students behind us yelled at us to sit down and escalated as the game wore on. Then, they started pelting us with hot dog wrappers and empty soft drink cups. Finally, they went to ask security to force us to sit down. We calmly explained to security that we couldn't see without standing up, we liked our seats and we had the right to stand up. The security guy agreed and asked us to sit down between plays simply to show that we weren't trying to antagonize anyone. We did and that seemed to calm things down. Lame. But that's the example of the non-nerdy student body we're pining to get back to?

My son, who is now on a mission, and his fellow students, were way more into the football and basketball games the year before last than the average fan. Students showed up hours before some of the football games. Even the Texas game with the downpour of rain.

Furthermore, my son and his friends were at least as well rounded as me and my friends when I attended BYU. They participated in high school sports, debate, plays, band, clubs and a whole bunch of other things.