Many of you know I am a BYU alum, and I had an awesome experience at the place. I grew so much as a person in the 4+ years I was there. I'm glad I live here now... don't ever want to settle in Utah... but that is beside the point...
Anyway, very much lately, I've been proud to be a Cougar.
Why? It's not necessarily because BYU ranked #3 team in the Southeast Region of the NCAA tournament. It's not even really that BYU has a great basketball team (although it does!). It's more than BYU had the guts to kick a kid off said basketball team for breaking the Honor Code.
Brigham Young University is a private, Church-sponsored school, which I suppose means they can do whatever they want. Every student who attends the school signs The Honor Code, a document that commits them to living a life outlined by standards of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We don't smoke or do drugs. We don't drink alcohol. We don't drink coffee or tea. We wear modest clothing. We don't have premarital sex. We don't even go into the bedrooms at the guys' apartments! (No co-ed dorms for us!) The "curfew" is 12 PM (and 1:30 AM on Fridays, interestingly enough), and if we want to stay up past curfew we hang out outside.
So everyone who attends BYU, whether they are members of the Church or not, must sign this Honor Code. So when it came out a few weeks back that the second-highest scoring player on the BYU basketball team had broken the Honor Code and was suspended for the rest of the semester, well, it made sense to me. If you violate the Honor Code, you get in trouble. I knew that.
I had a roommate my sophomore year that didn't go to BYU but lived in BYU housing, meaning she too had to sign the Honor Code. She had her boyfriend come in from out of town and sleep on our couch. This was a no-no, a definite break of the Honor Code. I was too young to really know what that meant (the consequences), but one of our roommates was a senior and completely flipped out. Her parents lived nearby and she took a bunch of her stuff and left, saying if we got caught she wanted
nothing to do with us. Crazy! We didn't get caught... thank goodness... and our rogue roommate moved out the next semester, but it was a real-life example of what the Honor Code means in Provo, Utah.
Anyway, since this has all fit the fan, there have been some incredible articles in news outlets around the country commenting on BYU and its policies. My favorites were in the
LA Times and
Time Magazine.
The best quote, I think, was this one...
This week, the highly ranked Cougars probably cost themselves riches, glory and a legitimate chance at their first national basketball championship after suspending one of their best players, Brandon Davies, for the rest of the season for violating the school's honor code.
The infraction? Davies had premarital sex.
The rule? A section of the honor code that requires BYU students to "live a chaste and virtuous life."
That might not be your rule. That might be the kind of rule that makes you titter and wince and wonder, how can any school not attached to a seminary demand celibacy of college kids in a world in which seven out of 10 Americans have had sexual intercourse by age 19?
But the point is, it is BYU's rule, and kudos to the school for publicly enforcing it at the worst possible time with one of the most visible of students while risking damage to the school's athletic reputation and national stature.
Amen! The school upholds the commitments the players (and students) make. No one is above the law.
Another article says, "College athletics is a multibillion-dollar enterprise, and the pressure to win at any cost — including turning a blind eye to player misbehavior — can be overwhelming." It then went on to chronicle many examples of less-than-pristine college sports teams, namely:
- At Seton Hall University last season, a basketball player who caused an accident while driving under the influence, causing an injury to the other driver, was suspended for only eight games.
- This year, a top player from Robert Morris University got a four-game penalty after a drunk-driving incident.
- In February, two players from Marshall University were charged with battery over a bar fight; they played in a game the next evening.
- Two seasons ago, a University of Florida football player intentionally gouged an opponent's eyes. He was suspended for a half.
Incredible! Not too long ago the Seattle Times published a series about the law-breaking antics of various Seattle Seahawks, Seattle Mariners, and Washington Huskies. These guys get away with everything. Honestly, it's sad. If collegiate and professional athletes are the people our kids are looking up to as heroes, why don't we demand more of them? Why don't we demand honesty, demand civility, demand they set a good example?
What was also interesting about this situation is that no one "outed" Brandon Davies. Either him, or his Mormon girlfriend, turned them in. They both got in trouble equally, and they both are dealing with the consequences equally. That also really means something. All he had to do was wait a couple weeks, wait until all this March Madness was over, to "repent." But he knew that wasn't right. He had done wrong by the law and wanted to fix it. As hard as it is, I'm really impressed with him (or her, as it were).
I'm not saying it's easy. In fact, I was a TA for a communications class and one year had a star football player in my class. That was crazy exciting! I was reading and grading his essays. One of them was quite touching, a poignant piece on how he, not a member of my Church, felt like he made a huge mistake coming to BYU. He didn't fit in. It was too hard for him to keep up with the commitments he made. I'm not saying he was a bad kid -- I have no way of knowing -- but at least he as honest with himself. There are plenty of bad things that go on at BYU (like any school!), and you gotta be dedicated enough to keep away from them. Because the school demands it. (And the religion demands it, actually.)
I'm not saying I was 100% perfect... I wasn't. But I did try, and in the end I had been pretty good at keeping that Honor Code.
With all of this fallout, BYU potentially gave up a lot. The very next game, the game after Davies was suspended, they lost. They had only lost two games all season -- they're a good team this year, we're talking like 5th in the nation. BYU has never been that great of a team, so this year is their big chance. Luckily, the losing didn't continue... they won the next few games, including a big one against New Mexico (which clinched the Conference title for BYU). Then last night they were ranked 3rd on their way to the Big Dance. Basically, it's a pretty darn exciting time for our little Mormon school.
(I haven't even mentioned Jimmermania. I suppose that's another post entirely. I haven't actually seen him play, but boy am I excited that a young Mormon white boy is turning basketball heads all around the country!)
So, there's lots to think about here. We all need to take our commitments seriously. We all need to revere as heroes those who should be, and hold other public figures to a higher standard. I hope we don't let important things slip when it would be easier to. This whole story just shows me that if BYU can stand for what's right, when it counts the most, so can I.
