My Visit with Cecil

[All-American]

So as luck would have it, President Cecil O. Samuelson was on our flight home. I had a chance to visit with him a bit before we boarded the plane. A couple of interesting moments:

-- During the last week of classes, some BYU students had converted the huge statue of the Ute chief on BYU campus into a gigantic snowman. I asked him what he thought of it. Given His and BYU's reputation for being somewhat heavy handed, I was somewhat surprised by how much he liked it. "Hopefully," he joked, "they took the snow from off of the sidewalks."

-- He and other bigwigs are indeed aware that BYU ought to have a better bowl game available to them. His reasons are somewhat different than, say, MY reasons. Among the problems he sees are students who are exhausted after finals and making long drives down to the bowl game, and the general seedy atmosphere of Las Vegas. He briefly mentioned the Mtn. and conference debaucles, noting (off the record, I'm sure) that BYU and Utah had a good draw, but none of the other conference members seem to pull their weight.

-- Notwithstanding the aforementioned problems, he seems to feel that BYU is largely handcuffed by the current state of affairs. Whether by contract or conference, there are not very many aveneues of redress open to the university. He has learned, as he said, to argue over the things he actually has some ability to change.

I'm not sure if this next bit stems as a result of this, or vice versa; it seems a bit of a chicken and egg problem. He and other leaders recognize the importance of athletics at BYU (he was at Vegas, after all), but if we were to start over completely from scratch, he wouldn't have sports at all. It's worth maintaining now that it's here, but it distracts so much from the time and focus in other directions that there will always be a sort of reluctance in regards to athletics. The fact of the matter is that sports at BYU is not very high on the priority list.

With these two factors combined (the inability to change and the reluctance to make an issue of anything related to Athletics), we will likely find that the university leaders will only act in a benificiary manner for the athletics program when given an especially monumental impetus to do so.

[cambo]

Originally Posted by All-American

I'm not sure if this next bit stems as a result of this, or vice versa; it seems a bit of a chicken and egg problem. He and other leaders recognize the importance of athletics at BYU (he was at Vegas, after all), but if we were to start over completely from scratch, he wouldn't have sports at all. It's worth maintaining now that it's here, but it distracts so much from the time and focus in other directions that there will always be a sort of reluctance in regards to athletics. The fact of the matter is that sports at BYU is not very high on the priority list.

You should have told him to pull his head out. The priority list should be as follows:
1. Establish a very good research institution
2. BYU Football - followed by all othe athletics
3. Pac 10 Invitation and access to BCS money

That's the priority list. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Hmmm.... And I thought my opinion of him couldn't get any lower.

What exactly is a priority for Pres. Samuelson? That's what I would like to figure out. Does he feel passionately about anything?

[MikeWaters]

What is BYU's master plan for improvement? What is the vision?

I think the vision is to punch the clock until the Board tells him to go to Peru and oversee a few stakes.

I'm sure Cecil found time to rubber stamp Darron Smith being fired.

[il Padrino Ute]

In summary, if/when BYU athletics can no longer sustain themselves financially, the athletic department is gone.

Sweet words from a man called of God to run the Lord's University.

[realtall]

Originally Posted by il Padrino Ute

In summary, if/when BYU athletics can no longer sustain themselves financially, the athletic department is gone.

Sweet words from a man called of God to run the Lord's University.

I wonder if his feelings would run the same way if he was the president of the yew.

[jay santos]

We need guys like Monson, Perry, and Holland to live a long time. And Eyring and Bednar to be called to a more higher work on the other side of the veil. We also need a non-Crimson club guy running BYU. This is an all time low in terms of support from the brethren for BYU athletics. Run Samuelson out and it will start to improve. Over time BYU fans will dominate the twelve. It's destiny.

[woot]

I also wonder what BYU's priorities are. Is there a mission statement anywhere?

As it is, it seems something like this:

"To provide a college experience as insular as possible. Secondarily, to provide our students as much education as possible without having to pay our professors. Anything that might give us any notoriety other than our religious beliefs, such as athletics or research, is discouraged. Alternatively, to be the Bob Jones of the West."

[BYU71]

Very dissapointing. I am one who sustains the leaders of the church. To me that means, if they decide to do something I agree they have the right to do it, it doesn't mean I agree. If they do away with sports and some nice BYU student calls up and asks if I want to contribute to the BYU general fund, my answer will be "hell no" I'm a Ute.

Maybe BYU has gotten way bigger than any of them imagined. It is probably a lot bigger problem than some of them care to deal with.

The problem with athletics is that it does provide visibility. I still maintain there were influential people who got jealous of the visibility the athletic programs got in the 80's and 90's and they have a hard time figuring out how the two can coincide. This is what Holmoe, Bronco and Rose are up against. It is why some people sit on pins and needles worrying about an honor code scandal or something like Max Hall dropping the F bomb and hurting the "image".

No one gives a crap if someone in the humanities dept. tries to kill their wife or a professor is caught doing some voyeurism (sp). They can handle that because no one cares and it doesn't get any press.

Look, a lot of America considers us a cult. Drop athletics and BYU becomes worse than Bob Jones West. A lot of people won't see that though, remember what motto is on the campus entrance, "the campus is our world".

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by BYU71

Very dissapointing. I am one who sustains the leaders of the church. To me that means, if they decide to do something I agree they have the right to do it, it doesn't mean I agree. If they do away with sports and some nice BYU student calls up and asks if I want to contribute to the BYU general fund, my answer will be "hell no" I'm a Ute.

Maybe BYU has gotten way bigger than any of them imagined. It is probably a lot bigger problem than some of them care to deal with.

The problem with athletics is that it does provide visibility. I still maintain there were influential people who got jealous of the visibility the athletic programs got in the 80's and 90's and they have a hard time figuring out how the two can coincide. This is what Holmoe, Bronco and Rose are up against. It is why some people sit on pins and needles worrying about an honor code scandal or something like Max Hall dropping the F bomb and hurting the "image".

No one gives a crap if someone in the humanities dept. tries to kill their wife or a professor is caught doing some voyeurism (sp). They can handle that because no one cares and it doesn't get any press.

Look, a lot of America considers us a cult. Drop athletics and BYU becomes worse than Bob Jones West. A lot of people won't see that though, remember what motto is on the campus entrance, "the campus is our world".

Overall, spectator and participating sports are healthy, good releases. They provide exposure and mainstreaming. The Church desires mainstreaming so much it can't see straight, yet with the same voice the leaders complain when we become as others.

What is Cecil's vision? I still see him punching a timeclock, waiting anxiously for his assignment to Outer Mongolia where he won't have any more exposure.