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Mar 1, 2018
10:53:14am
gwalker All-American
Often when reading expansion posts I wonder if the author is very young or has
a little difficulty with memory. First, let's talk about hate. There is what I call "sports hate" and real hate. Sports hate is what most Americans feel toward the New England Patriots. They want the Patriots to lose and they cheer against them every time they play. Sports hate is what a lot of us feel toward the University of Utah. Very few want Tom Brady to get injured or get cancer. Most of us get along just fine with the majority of Utah fans we know.

Real hate is wishing injury on a player. Real hate is choosing to hire someone who is less qualified than an applicant that went to BYU or is a BYU fan. I don't have any way to accurately quantify the percentages, but it's safe to say a significant percentage of MWC fans actually hates BYU and us fans in a "real hate" way.

Now for a review of history: Starting in the late 80s, BYU pulled much more than its fair share in the conferences in which it was a member (WAC and MWC). From a revenue standpoint, BYU was a "donor" to the rest of the conference. Yes, Utah came on in the 2000s, but even then BYU was bringing in the eyeballs and the money much more than the average MWC school.

Along the way, BYU asked for concessions on things like rebroadcast rights for games and the right to air games that weren't going to be aired unless we did it. The other schools consistently said, "You have one vote. We're going to outvote you."

When CSTV was formed and "grew" into the Mountain Channel, BYU was given assurances about broadcast rights. Those assurances didn't make it into signed contracts. BYU took them at their word. When it came time to honor their word, the other schools basically said, "Is it in the signed contract? No? Then take a hike, BYU." And they resented us for asking them to do what they had told us they would do.

Utah and TCU left the MWC with next to no resentment from the MWC. BYU left the same season and you would have thought we pistol whipped their grandma and stole her jewelry. When we tried to arrange a landing by going to the WAC, the MWC tried to destroy what appeared to be our only option. They ended up destroying the WAC in the process. They didn't care one bit about BYU. They wanted us to come crawling back in a position of unconditional surrender.

Right after we left, Boise State came along and asked for some of the same things BYU had requested for years. What was the answer? You only have one vote and we're outvoting you Boise? No. It was, "Sure, Boise. Whatever you want."

The WCC stepped up and offered to have us take our non-football sports to their conference. As near as I can tell, they have honored everything they ever said they'd do for us. There may be some sports hate from some, but there isn't real hate. They have treated BYU with respect and gone out of their way to encourage their fans and students to respect BYU and the LDS church.

It hasn't taken long for us to forget all of that (remember, this all happened less than ten years ago). It hasn't taken long for us to whine incessantly about the size of gyms. Something we knew when we considered ourselves fortunate to get a landing spot in the WCC. And, really, who the yewt cares if our team is playing in front of 3,000 people at Pepperdine or 5,800 at Air Force? Is it really that big of a deal? Sure, we would get large, fun crowds at New Mexico and San Diego State. And some of those games were a lot of fun. But New Mexico has been down for a long time now. And San Diego State really only had one brief "glory period" in its entire history. The arenas might still be full. But not for marquee games. They'd be full of people who feel the same way about us the average Missourian did in the mid 1800s.

The WCC knew if a P5 league came calling, we'd be out the door. For whatever reason, that hasn't happened. We also, if I'm not mistaken, gave them some assurances we weren't going shopping elsewhere. I don't know the extent of those assurances or the duration we intimated to them. But I believe the assurances were made.

Of course, if Gonzaga were to leave, that changes things. And I couldn't fault BYU for making a move at that point if it's the right thing to do. It may actually be the best thing to rejoin the MWC if Gonzaga is going there too. For everything but football, that is.

If I never have to hear, "Your team has a great record, but you play in the [insert league here]" again for the rest of my life, independence will have been worth it. Among the things people have forgotten is how frustrating it was to have a gaudy record and not know how good the team was because we never got a chance to prove it. For three decades many of us practically prayed for a chance to have our teams have strong schedules, knowing we'd take lumps some years but that we'd know how good we were in the good years. That's still worth a lot more than a watered-down MWC Championship to me.

I think it's embarrassing to watch so many of us forget what we went through and look at the MWC like its an SI Swimsuit model in appearance.
This message has been modified
Originally posted on Mar 1, 2018 at 10:53:14am
Message modified by gwalker on Mar 1, 2018 at 10:56:33am
Message modified by gwalker on Mar 1, 2018 at 10:59:04am
Message modified by gwalker on Mar 1, 2018 at 2:44:24pm
Message modified by gwalker on Mar 1, 2018 at 2:45:54pm
Message modified by gwalker on Mar 2, 2018 at 10:57:52am
gwalker
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gwalker
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