Well...my wife is the greatest. That's right, this is Jon-I've come out of my self-imposed retirement from blogging to tell the story of my awesome Christmas present. Well it WAS awesome but it was ALMOST...well...better than awesome. Let me explain:
Three weeks ago was my dad's birthday. I called to wish him a happy birthday and he opened his present while we were talking on face-time. As he opened his present (a flight confirmation receipt with blue and white 'Y's painted all over it) Amelia set down these in front of me-
That's right, my dad and I got tickets to the Holy War--the last time BYU and Utah would play as members of the same conference. Yay!! Anybody who knows me or my dad knows that that was the BEST possible gift either one of us could receive. And to get to go together? Wow.
So we flew into SLC the night before the game and I realized just how accustomed I have become in one short year to Houston "winters". It was 17 degrees in Utah and I was feeling it. Luckily I had come prepared for the game:
Long sleeve undershirt
True Blue Cougar shirt
BYU Sweatshirt
BYU Folkdance Jacket
Winter snow coat
Ear warmers
Beanie
Gloves (with hand warmers inside)
Thermals
Regular Socks
Thick wool socks
Jeans
Shoes
Once properly bundled up we drove over to Rice-Eccles Stadium (or as we affectionately call it- "Ice-Sickles" Stadium) and had ourselves a little tailgate party. We were passed by LOTS of Ute fans, most of which had nothing nice to say...but a few BYU fans gave encouragement :)
It was a long, cold walk to the stadium, but the atmosphere was electric.
Well, cold and electric...
Into the Lion's Den....
So much red....
And still...We were in the BYU Section, but it was a pretty small sliver. We were definitely in the minority-as the Ute fans were quick to point out. The Utah football team came out onto the field and headed right over to our team's sideline to start the trash talk. The officials and coaches were able to keep things from escalating, but I thought it was funny that they didn't know which side was theirs in their own stadium...
Of course as soon as the game kicked off the loud and obnoxious Ute fans lost some of their swagger. BYU had a brilliant first half-Utah couldn't score or even move the ball and didn't score in the first three quarters while we moved the ball fairly well and jumped out to a 13-0 lead.
Plenty for us to smile about :)
But in the fourth quarter the Utes came back-it always seems to happen that way. Thanks to a few unlucky bounces and a few bad calls (that night on SportCenter they showed the video clip "There's his knee on the ground, and there's his hand holding the ball-who knows why they ruled it a fumble") Utah scored a TD to go ahead by one point with four minutes left in the game. No problem-our true freshman quarterback drove the length of the field and we set up for the winning field goal from 40 yards out with 4 seconds left. Oh man, what a game! Unfortunately....
...the field goal was blocked. So our celebrations were cut short. We had a consolation dinner afterwards, which helped some, but it was still pretty rough.
The next morning on the way to the airport the shuttle driver tried to give me a hard time about the game. I said "Listen-if you are really that proud that your 20th ranked Utes had to rely on three fourth quarter turnovers-one of which wasn't actually a fumble and two that you did nothing to force-and a blocked last second field goal to beat a BYU team that had their worst start in 40 years, then by all means rub it in." He got pretty quiet then and started talking about the weather. As for me I couldn't be more proud of my team and the way they bounced back this year and especially the way they played against Utah. It was a great game and I loved every minute of it. Well, except for the last four seconds.
Thanks Amelia!! I love you!!!
