BYU Sports and Worthiness: Do Your Part!

Last year the 2006 BYU Football team went 11-2 and won their first Las Vegas Bowl. BYU basketball won the Mountain West and even made an appearance at the Big Dance. Huge year for BYU Sports. This obviously means one thing. BYU sports received power from on high because of the faithful living of the student body. If you look at last years season the only losses that BYU students suffered were in September. BYU students often fall victim to mistakes during the summer months as they are removed from the spiritual powerhouse that is the BYU campus. Without the constant reminders and faculty pressure, BYU students typically fail when they are given excesses of agency. This means that bishop's offices are packed during September as students disgorge their mistakes and transgressions. This does not just effect the student body individually but this disobedience spills into every BYU institution; especially the athletic program (this does not even account for the obvious honor code infringements made by the Football team. Thanks a lot Tonga). Once the students got their sins off their chest and began to live according to the sacred document known as the Honor Code things got a lot better. This became evident as General Conference approaced. The Sunday before conference LDS students are often instructed to focus more on their spirituality in preparation for Conference weekend. Students takes this advice to heart and their worthiness tpically peaks in these weeks. Well what happened? BYU had their biggest win of the season by knocking off the #15 TCU and completely destroying SDSU the following week. One cannot simply chalk this up to coincidence. I could go on and talk about how the high levels of faith experienced during the Christmas season led to the Vegas Bowl victory or how University of Utah's lack of church endorsement and shortage of faithful students resulted in a huge football loss and two losses on the hardwood to their spiritually superior rival, but I think I can rest my case. The point now is to ask yourself "Are my choices helping or hurting the athletic program this summer?" We should be thinking about this every day that we are at the beach checking out babes in bikinis and letting our thoughts drift. We should be thinking about this as midnight approaches and you find yourself watching a movie and cuddling with a "non-Lord's Univeristy" girl or boy and there are no roommates there to remind you of the papers you signed when you first came to this school. As summer is winding down and relationships are soaring we need to remember that our actions do not just effect ourselves, but are directly correlated with the outcome of our many sports programs. And with our teams being such missionary tools your actions right now are either going to help to build the kingdom or impede the progess in these last days. Please make the right choices this summer, our future depends on it.