for a lot of the reasons you mention here. The community and sense of being a part of something larger than myself was huge. I loved BYU from childhood and then when I applied to college it was the only school I applied to. (I probably didn't have the grades to be that confident, but luckily it worked out for me.)

Once I was on campus, I was home. It may seem kind of corny, but in a lot of ways I felt about BYU the way Harry Potter felt about Hogwarts. I'm not saying I had a tough childhood or family life. I definitely didn't. But it's where I had some of the most important formative experiences of my life, in all phases of my life: professional, social, spiritual, relational, etc. I've never felt quite as at home anywhere else before or since. As such, my love for their sports teams, while strong enough to drive my wife up the wall at times, comes second to my love for the school itself and the community it represents and creates.