Welcome to Memoirs from the Mount, a weekly adventure through the twisting catacombs of my ever-decaying stream of consciousness. From the solitary peak of Mount Fuji to the cascading slopes of Mount Timpanogos, I'm sending a telegram of my perspective on current events surrounding BYU athletics.
It's like I've woken up from a 25-year coma.
Growing up, I always dreamed of witnessing the Brigham Young Cougars cut down the nets in March Madness. Hoist the National Championship trophy from the confetti-splattered 50-yard line. Such events only ever really happened during my designated Xbox time. I must have been some sort of digital sorcerer alerting the EA servers that the timeline had been ruptured. Matching up the Jake Heaps-led BYU football squad against top-ranked Alabama was bold enough, but the merciless beating I would inflict upon those humanoid ones and zeroes was borderline inhumane. I'd give the news pages a quick run-through to confirm I hadn't been Ender's Game-ing myself.
But when I turned off the system and returned to reality, I eventually came to grips with the fact that a staunchly religious university would likely never rally a team that -- at least on paper -- had championship DNA. Had I been born in 1984 when winning a National Championship was all about waltzing through the once-competent WAC, perhaps I could have been satisfied seeing LaVell Edwards lift the hardware above his head.
Tragically, I'm now 23 years old, and BYU's last championship in either football or basketball was that 1984 season an incomprehensible 41 years ago. I missed the cutoff date by nearly two decades; I wasn't even close.
My childhood was filled with players like the aforementioned Jake Heaps, Riley Nelson, Cody Hoffman, Ross Apo, Adam Hine, Taysom Hill, Jimmer Fredette, Kyle Collinsworth, Skyler Halford, Eric Mika, Brock Zylstra, Noah Hartsock, Charles Abouo, Nate Austin.
No disrespect to any of the names on that list, they all hold more capacity in my mental storage unit than I care to admit, but championship-ready units they were not. I had to admit to myself that I would likely never witness a BYU football or basketball championship. And I was okay with that, I told myself. That was a sobering reality for a kid whose life revolved around ice-cold Otter Pops, spontaneous explosions from macrodosing Wild Cherry Capri-Suns, and believing that Burger King apple fries were anything more than plain apple slices with phenomenal marketing.
I had already accepted the challenging reality before me: being a lifelong BYU fan was no small commitment, though my vows were truly beautiful. With every strong start to a season, it was only a matter of time before the year would crash and burn. A bit pessimistic, yeah, but why set expectations higher than they belong, right?
So why is it I'm suddenly believing in the future of Cougar football? Why am I an online zealot clanging the bell and declaring to the town that BYU basketball is on the fast track to national relevance? For heaven's sake, this squad has an NBA-quality head coach, the best player in the entire recruiting class (who holds zero ties to the school's sponsor religion, by the way), and another player who may just find his way into All-American discussions by the season's end.
I turn my back for one second, and BYU (Brigham Young University, people!) boasts an NBA assembly line. BYU is one step below a College Football Playoff appearance. They stole the commitment of a 5-star quarterback prospect from the University of Oregon. Unrecognizable. Absolutely foreign.
This development borders on an identity crisis. Is this the same university I inherited fandom from at birth? Should I even remain a fan? Am I equipped to handle a reality where my favorite teams begin a season with, dare I utter ... expectations?
Again, it's like I've awoken from a coma and witnessed years of athletic evolution flash across my field of vision. Head rocketing from the pillow, a sweaty silhouette (or silhousweat if you will) of my once motionless body the only evidence of its presence. Almost as if my corpse had been outlined in chalk in some dank back alley.
Is this a problem? Absolutely not. I'm over the moon, over the sun, over whatever cosmic body you choose to recognize. My life as a fan has been so marred with devastation that it's a wonder I return year after year. Season after season. Game after game.
Where do we go from here? Can someone ask a local for directions? I was not prepared to enter the realm of meaningful competition within my lifetime, but this university has slid knee-first directly under the spotlight, shredding the intro to Through the Fire and Flames on recorder, hair weightlessly drifting in a convenient air stream. Glorious, drenched in majesty, Cosmo the Cougar is mainstream, and his squad has an eye for the prize at the mountaintop.
We're along for the ride, seatbelts or not, and we're on a one-way course regardless of the final destination. I don't mean to insist a championship is impending (counting eggs, birds in the hand and all that), but the state of BYU athletics is absolutely unrecognizable, and the feeling is intoxicating. Come what may, none can deny how far we've come.
Calvin Barrett is a writer, editor, and prolific Mario Kart racer located in Tokyo, Japan. Currently writing for SB Nation and FanSided, he has covered the Utah Jazz and BYU athletics since 2024 and graduated from Utah Valley University.