You are on an Utah sports message board. But many people do find it off-putting that Elder Gibson says they aren’t going to be paying top dollar for BYU athletics, and then they do.
Of course you like it, but as an “ALUF” I can think of a lot better uses of donor dollars represented by the Church and supporting its mission. Or put another way, if BYU athletics is indeed a missionary tool for the church, it has to be the most expensive, least effective tool.
Don’t play the victim card here either. I didn’t make a distinction about Utah or BYU, I simply said that one of the things that would hopefully keep Scalley here if Whit decided to return is he wouldn’t want to uproot his kids in the middle of high school.
I have NO idea what that statement even has to do with BYU, other than you made it that way.
I’m leaning towards Whitt staying simply because he’s enjoying it and 3 losses in a row to the TDS is a bad way to go out.
That said, I’m a little surprised that so many here are worried about losing Scalley. I don’t think anyone is going to be offering Scalley a better HC position simply because the U has annointed him our coach-to-be. Then again, I’ve always been tepid on the U making the succession plan so public, so far in advance. I know it’s not likely that we’d get anyone of Whitt’s caliber after he retires, but our AD should be looking for the next Urbanesque up-and-comer. You never know who could be available when Whitt retires. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I’d like to see Scalley get HC experience somewhere else before handing him the keys.
You’ll get no disagreement from me that it’s expensive, compared to two young men in white shirts, knocking on doors, paying their own way to do so and doing missionary work. If Harvard Business School did a case study on the Church, you’d get a thick volume of inefficiencies that could be improved. Mission calls could automated, using a database that tracks worldwide needs against applications and issues them that way. However, I don’t think that will ever happen, even with the added cost and inefficiencies.
Are there people, who join, due to exposure to BYU athletics? Absolutely. Was it a waste or inefficient use of time and resources? I suspect that if you ask them, they’ll tell you that it was worth every penny it cost. Different people are reached in different ways.
Growing up as a Utah teenager in the early 1970s the Osmonds and their music did absolutely nothing for me. I had zero interest and lived where it was often considered socially unacceptable to like their music, much less be caught listening to it. However, I personally know more people than I can count on my fingers, who converted because of the Osmonds. Each is reached in his/her own way.
I totally understand that people who have zero interest in BYU athletics see no missionary or PR value for the Church. Those who do, see it differently and have first-person stories to support their position too.
As an entirely non-religious person, the idea of someone converting to a religion due to exposure to a football game or a singing group is just SO incredibly bizarre.
LDS Church has nothing on inefficiencies compared to the Catholic Church. Almost 2 millennia of bureaucracies and culture has built those inefficiencies. Both institutions could use some clean up.
There are several things that we Catholics could learn from the LDS: fellowshipping and missionary outreach being among them.
You just made me think, so I chimed in, hopefully in a constructive and joking manner.
My experience has been that athletic fanhood rarely has anything to do with a thoughtful prospective college student’s decision about which university to attend.
Is that really what you were just sayin? The way I took it was you being a douche bag. What’s Scalley supposed to do here? Forbid his child from going to her school of choice?
Missionary work without the obnoxious overt PROSELYTIZING, which is not something the Apostles were sent to do.. Be the light in the world so that the Holy Spirit draws people to you inquiring. THis door-to-door salesmanship business bothered me immensely even growing up LDS.
Two thoughts, the worth of a Division 1 athlete is great in the eyes of the Lord, certainly more than DIII.
Also, as bizarre as you may think it is, every year Notre Dame has been good at football I nearly convert to Catholicism. And Baylor? Man did I get close to evangelical Christianity.
Are these the same first-person accounts of Ute fans knocking over BYU fans in wheelchairs, urinating on children while the police laughed, and pouring bear on family members?
Okay, in all sincerity, missionary work is not the only mission of the Church. There are a lot of things that could be supported with the top dollars being spent, even if it is a donor’s choice. It just troubles me in light of those things, and stuff like this has troubled me before.
For example - in my ward recently the YM were all taken to a catered night at Top Golf and had a great time. The YW then asked if they could do the same and the bishop informed them that the YM had a ‘benefactor’ who paid for it, and the YW couldn’t do the same because it wasn’t in the budget. You can imagine the local firestorm that resulted.
BYU is just doing this on a churchwide level is all.
The question is then what charitable endeavor could better use those athletic funds? What about meetinghouses in impoverished areas?
Someone told me recently they were golfing with Taylor Randall and discussing NIL and all the issues around it. President Randall told them something along the lines of the U has plenty of donors who have the money, the ‘problem’ is that they are more interested in funding education, supporting research, curing disease and building facilities than Utah athletics. I’m okay with that.
I have a question about that. Does the Church pay for the construction and upkeep of meetinghouses or do the individual wards have to foot the bill? I have always assumed that the funding was spread basically equally.
It is spread equally. It didn’t used to always be that way, but changed in the 80s. Before that ward members were asked to donate to ‘budget’ funds to take care of the building and upkeep, utilities etc. Then they changed it and members didn’t need to donate anything extra for that. Basically the donations required of members have decreased from years past. The good of that (from a member perspective) is that whether you live in a poor or wealthy area, you can all have a place to worship.
I just meant that $50M to retain Sitake could build a lot of meetinghouses in impoverished nations.
