Spirit. Tander123 may not have been serious, but I’m gonna do my best to share some anyway.

I grew up in upstate NY. I was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints but had never heard of BYU. (Parents were converts.).

My family was not into sports at all. The first football game I watched was the Bears v Patriots (I think it was 1986). I stayed up alone to watch it. I didn’t understand much but I loved it.

My older brother graduated high school and went to BYU. My parents wanted me to go there to - I didn’t care so when I graduated I went there and started the summer term of 1990. I saw Ty Detmer on campus and my friends talked about how great a football player he was. I couldn’t believe it - he was smaller than I was. Then as the first home game approached the Tysman Rap came out. I was staying in the dorms and we were all so excited. We believed - as insane fans often do - that we would beat the #1 team in the country.

My face and chest were painted for the game - my nose bleed seats in the south end zone were excellent. I watched as BYU systematically picked apart Miami and then as Miami did the same to BYU. Ty was amazing! Our defense was amazing. We won the game and I was hooked - forever a BYU fan.

After that game I ignorantly believed that no other team could beat us. We were invincible!! Not so...

After beating Miami and a few others we moved up in the rankings to #4 when we played UNRANKED Oregon - who stomped us, 32-16. Very disappointing. We won all our games after that and then Ty was announced as the heisman winner just before the last game of the season in Hawaii. We played Hawaii and they crushed us, 59-28.

But still we made it to the Holliday Bowl and played Texas AM, who murdered us 65-14.

I didn’t understand football well that year and I thought we were terrible because we lost those games - we weren’t - but I still loved my team! My school!

Years passed and we had some great ones (1996, 2001), plenty of ok years, and some really bad ones. But I never stopped loving my cougars!!

Luke Staley - Brandon Doman - Johnnie Harlene - John Beck - Max Hall - Jonathon Pittman - even Riley Nelson and Jake Heaps - Harvey Unga - Harvey Langi - all the Kaufusis - Taysom - Tanner - there are too many guys to list including all our guys now.

They are my team - my guys. Some of them were better than others - some made down right boneheaded plays - some were heros, even just for a brief moment in BYU lore.

So now we are in a slump. Feels like we’ve been here for a long time. It’s sucks. It hurts. It’s frustrating. Maybe changes are coming - not my call.

I can control one thing - do leave or am I loyal?

I AM BLUE! I AM BYU and I always will be.

If you read this far... thanks and sorry for a lonnnnnng post.

Go cougars!!!