I was about 20 feet away from my three boys, all dressed in Cougar blue. They were checking out nerf guns and I was looking at printer ink cartridges. An older (40's) and rather large man walked up to them (my boys were 12, 10, and 8 years old) and started giving them crap about BYU and really harassing them in a mean way. I heard him getting kinda nasty with my boys, so I walked over to him and asked, "Excuse me, but is there a problem? Why are you pissed at my boys? What did they do?". He looked at me, grumbled something and quickly walked away. This was unprovoked and my boys understand that he verbally attacked them only because they were wearing Cougar shirts. It burned an impression on my boys that will probably last a life time. What decent human adult would try to verbally attack some kids in a Target store when he thought an adult wasn't around to stop him?

I have a LOT more stories. There are a LOT of hateful Utes - and Aggies out there. It is real and it is pervasive. My impression is that it exploded after the Utes joined the PAC and grew exponentially with the nine game win streak. Honestly, it happens way too much. And I've only lived in Utah for ten years. It's not just in Davis County, I've had really bad interactions with Utes at LES/home games. They are in your face and try to find things about the religion to get in your face and provoke a fight. It is really pathetic and sad.

Are there good Ute fans? Sure, but they remain very silent and refuse to police their own. Some of them will even awkwardly laugh at such interactions to avoid the confrontation. It's a shame.