Copied and pasted from my post a few years ago:


I don't post often, but I thought I would share the reason I am a BYU fan (because I enjoy hearing others stories), and quite dislike the U of U in general. I am not from Utah, so growing up, the "rivalry" wasn't really a big deal to me. I was definitely a BYU football fan, but I didn't dislike U of U at all. In fact, I cheered for them, believing that they probably had a Symbiotic relationship, and what was good for one school was probably relatively good for the other. (My roommate in college fully explained the true nature of the rivalry to me years later) I finished my associate degree with some BYU credits in my home state, then was accepted to the Marriott school at BYU. Sparing details, it was not a good fit for me, so I was accepted and transferred to the Eccles school of business at the U of U. I started institute, and met some pretty cool people, and joined the LDSSA.

The LDSSA decided to sponsor a big school-wide pep rally for the football team. but were told by school officials that we could not do it on campus because we were a religious institution, and they couldn't allow it on campus. The person that told us was actually really nice about it, and appreciated the fact that we wanted to support the football team. I understood, really not a big deal.

A couple days later (again, being fairly new to Utah) I stumbled on to Shawn McCraney's TV show on local TV. If you are unaware, he is that really angry ex-mormon that has, or had a TV show dedicated to nothing but ripping on the LDS church. I watched a whole episode, because again, not being from Utah, this level of anti-Mormonism was very foreign to me, but again, not a big deal. Free country, he can talk about whatever he wants, all I have to do is change the channel. The thing that piqued my interest though, is that he held his weekly sermon (at least at that time) ON THE U OF U CAMPUS, where we were not allowed to sponsor a non-religious football pep rally.

The true nature of the U of U and the rivalry though was not totally clear until I made the mistake that year of sitting in the student section wearing my BYU gear. I will not go into details, but I heard more F words directed at me and at my church than I did in the 2 years of my mission combined. I transferred to UVU the next term, then graduate school in State, but I have not been to Rice Eccles stadium since. Just my little story, of no real consequence.