I Am Ready For Some (NFL) Footbaaaall.....

It's that time of year again...there's a nip in the air (well, for most of you...it's still pushing 100 degrees where I live!), school has started, fantasy leagues and tailgate grills are heating up. Yes, folks, it's FOOTBALL season! Forget baseball...THIS is the American pastime (in part because nobody else in the world plays this sport!!)

I enjoy following several sports, at least superficially, but I especially love football. Perhaps it's in my blood; I was raised in the Denver, CO area during John Elway's heyday, and if you weren't glued to your TV watching the Broncos every Sunday, something was wrong with you. Maybe that strong connection to the Broncos, forged in my youth, is why I still enjoy watching NFL games over almost every other sport...

...including college football.

Don't get me wrong; I like college football well enough. It has its share of exciting games, and it can be fun to watch the truly great players in action, as well as cheer on your school. In fact, when I heard the news of my beloved alma mater BYU leaving the Mountain West Conference and becoming a football independent, I was impressed they had the guts to make that decision. On a superficial level, I think BYU's "declaration of independence" is a risky move, but if they play their cards right, it could pay off big-time in the long run. Part of me hopes it does. And another part of me is really bothered by the phrase "pay off," when it's applied to college football (more on that later). I think BYU's decision is symptomatic of many of the greater problems plaguing college football in general. And it's those reasons, among others, that make the college game pale in comparison to the professional one.

So, in no particular order, are a few reasons why I think the National Football League beats the pants off the NCAA variety in just about every way:

1. Higher talent level = better games. This reason should be evident to anyone who pays attention. In college games, you'll see lots of HUGE blowouts, or an inordinate amount of huge plays by a player or team. That's because, in the large Division I football landscape, the talent pool is spread  far & wide. You'll get phenomenal pros-in-embryo competing against old-school "student athletes" (imagine that), or you'll get a fat-cat major conference team beating up on one of its weaker, less scholarship-endowed brethren.

And then, these young men graduate, and the cream of the crop head on up to the NFL. Suddenly, EVERY player is the best of the best. The athletes can run faster, jump higher, tackle harder, etc. And thanks to things like salary caps and revenue sharing (not to mention a reduced team count of "only" 32), a little thing called "parity" rears its head. You may not see quite as many big-time runs or passes in college, but you often see more close games (and sometimes more upsets; the "any given Sunday" phrase is cliche, but it really does apply). This is not to diminish the hard work put in by the college athletes, but it's very exciting for me to see the best of the best go at it in the NFL, where the battles are hard fought and the outcome is often uncertain.

2. No friggin' BCS, a.k.a. Playoffs That Actually Matter. Well-intentioned though it may have been, the Bowl Championship Series is a huge bureaucratic mess that hurts college football far more than helps it. In lieu of a playoff system, the BCS relies on polls (often run by regionally biased journalists) and labyrinthine computer models. Oh, yeah, and it gives preference to certain football conferences to the exclusion of others, records be darned. In practice, the rankings end up being horribly subjective, and as often as not, the lucrative bowl payoffs are only given to conferences that don't need the extra exposure anyway. Quality teams like Utah, Boise State, TCU, and Hawaii will have an undefeated season, steamrolling all their opponents, and never get near the #1 ranking because they were in the wrong conference, or the pollsters didn't watch enough of their games, or the computer algorithm was faulty, or whatever. It's a ridiculous system that adds confusion, dissatisfaction, and asterisks to season after season, and every "BCS Champion" will always endure at least a little skepticism because of it.

The NFL, by contrast, actually has a playoff system. It's pretty simple: Each division winner (of 8 divisions), makes it in, as do 2 wild-card teams from each conference. The teams are then seeded based on their records. Then it's off to the races, with wild-card weekend, followed by conference semi-finals, then conference finals, then the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl champ is officially the CHAMPION of the NFL, end of story. Can you imagine if the NFL had looked at the 2007 New England Patriots at the end of the regular season & said, "Well, they're the only team left with an undefeated record...plus, they scored a ton of points...not to mention our computer says they had a pretty tough schedule...so, okay! Congratulations! You're the champions of the NFL!" Thank goodness that never happened...instead, those Patriots had to prove they were the champions in the only way that should matter in football...they proved it on the field, against a real opponent (they lost, BTW).

 3. College football is hypocritical. This is where my "nerd" will probably show, but oh well. Maybe I'm a little old-fashioned, but I always thought that universities were places where you go to, you know, learn stuff. In other words, they're schools. Populated by students.

So it makes me a little sad when schools are given little or no national recognition for their academic quality, or their ongoing research---yet literally billions of dollars are expended nationwide on feeding, clothing, training, watching and betting money on the least "academic" part of these schools--their football teams. It makes me even more sad when alumni of these universities donate money (sometimes millions and millions of dollars) to their alma maters...and it all goes towards creating a shiny new football stadium. Isn't American education struggling enough, without this kind of a slap in the face? This sets a really backwards set of priorities for universities, their alumni, and, quite often, the players themselves.

I'm not saying all football players are ignorant lunkheads--far from it. However, all football players are immersed in a culture that treats them as both gods and commodities, just when they're at the point in their lives when they should be getting an education. Instead, they're often smothered with praise, gifts, & other perks from their athletic departments (like the home given to the family of USC's Reggie Bush, seen above w/some of the other Trojan ne'er-do-wells), and everyone's encouraged to look the other way when the football player decides to get into a little mischief. Hearing about college athlete hijinks in the news is so common by now, it's old hat.

So anyway, long rant short...it bugs me when college football is elevated to such a high-profile position. It's become a ridiculously lucrative business (yes, business) for universities, and it's a self-perpetuating cycle. I'm not saying that NFL teams & players never act up or get overexposed, but at least they're doing their job...they're paid to play football. College players (who shouldn't be getting paid) are getting just about every perk an NFL player makes, minus (perhaps) the paycheck. It's all about money in college football...including BYU's decision to go independent. Sure, maybe they'll be giving their unique LDS faith wider exposure, but a big reason BYU left the Mountain West Conference was its lousy TV network and its low revenue. BYU is after more money, which they'll get via contracts with ESPN and game agreements with Notre Dame, and has anybody heard about BYU's Law School lately?

Yeah...I thought so.

Okay, those are my (less than coherent) thoughts. Does anybody agree with me?

Rise and Shout, the Cougars are Out...

I discovered something slightly embarrassing about myself last month...I am a BYU nut (a "Zoobie," if you will). When I was a student there (Class of '02, if you're curious), I would often see alumni & their families visiting campus (usually the Wilk), "oohing" and "aahing" and taking pictures of everything and buying up a bunch of souvenirs and pointing out every little thing on campus to their kids...

...and I would scoff at those people. "How sad...clinging to their lost youth," I'd think. "After I graduate, I'm not going to act like such a fangirl over the school I attended! I'm going to show some dignity. After all, it's just a few short years of my life I'm spending here...not much in the grand scheme of things." How cool, calm and collected I thought myself.

Oh, what a difference a few years away makes. I graduate. Nate graduates. We leave Utah. We start our life in AZ. We have kids. We "settle down" and have a happy, if somewhat unexciting life. And when I think back on my time at BYU (living on my own, with so many wonderful opportunities, great friends, wonderful professors, and fun times), I realize that it's okay to wax a little nostalgic about our college years. I was very blessed to attend college; it helped shape me into a better person and a (mostly) capable adult.

So...when it came time to visit the BYU campus with our kids, it only surprised me a little to see myself acting just like all those alumni I used to secretly mock. Growing older is a funny thing...

Now...onward to indoctrinate our kids!!!

One good thing about visiting campus as alumni...we got to park in Visitor Parking, right next to the Museum of Art! Yay...it's nice to get out of your car & walk right onto campus. We took a quick look back at the Bell Tower (I used to live quite close to it, up in the now-demolished Deseret Towers)...

Then it's time to cut through the Museum of Art. The main foyer still has that bizarro sculpture with sandstone on the bottoms and blue plastic "feathers" at the top. Yeah, I know...it's "art"...whatever. I still think it's goofy-looking.

Now here's something that's more relatable...especially given the company!!

After leaving the Museum of Art, we head right into the Harris Fine Arts Building, which was where I had many, many classes (as a journalism major and a music minor, I probably spent 2/3 of my time here). It's a pretty cool building, with a wide-open gallery area (somewhat blocked from view by Celeste's smiling mug...)

Walking south through campus, we run across yet more "art"--this time, it's the famous "Tree of Wisdom," just outside the Kimball Tower. It's been standing on campus (not always at its current location) since before I was born. Unfortunately, it's starting to look its age (just like me!!). The paint on a lot of the columns was peeling pretty badly. I hope someone will give it a facelift soon! Regardless, the girls had lots of fun "hiding" in the Tree of Wisdom's "trunk."

Next stop was close by--the Eyring Science Center. While certainly not a museum, the main entryway of the Science Center does have lots of neat hands-on physics experiments, and some pretty cool items on display...

...such as this giant geode the girls are admiring.

After a little more walking around campus, the girls started getting hungry. Nathan was off visiting one of his old professors, so I took the girls to one of my old haunts for lunch...the Cougareat, of course!

 

In this, however, I had some regret. Since this was an early July visit, we weren't the only people visiting campus. There were also THOUSANDS of youth there for EFY week--ugh! Needless to say, it was VERY crowded & noisy. No way was I ever as obnoxious as these teenagers, right? RIGHT?? Oh, well, we managed to find a table and get a bite to eat...

 

There was even a floor show included with my meal, since Lorelai & Celeste (completely unprompted), got out of their chairs, stood on one leg each, and then favored me with their rendition of "I Am A Child of God." Wow.

Then, of course, it was time for dessert! And what better place to get dessert than the BYU Creamery?

 

As you can see by the picture, someone was a little TOO anxious to get her "licks" in. I had chocolate-peanut-butter swirl, and it was dee-licious. All the flavors were wonderful, though--I should seriously consider mail-ordering a gallon or two of Creamery Ice Cream for my birthday.

Once reunited with Nate, we all headed for the BYU Bookstore, where we exposed ourselves as the starry-eyed alumni we are.

 

We window-shopped for a while, then scoured the souvenir shelves for lots of Cougar-themed mementos to take home.

 

The girls were very happy with their purchases. Celeste got her very own BYU mug...

 

...and Lorelai got a new T-shirt, which she proudly wore as soon as the tag came off...

 

Nate and I thought about buying shirts for ourselves, but refrained...this time! However, we did get some swag for the window of our minivan...

 

Well, now every random passerby will know which school our family supports!

By this time, the girls were getting cranky, so it was time to bid our alma mater farewell...

 

Who knows if our girls will end up in Provo someday? We hope so...but only time will tell. It was great to see campus again...it brought back many happy memories. Of parties on the quad...of friends far & near...of professors who inspired me to be better...of a testimony that really came into its own as I prepared to serve a mission...and more. Thanks BYU for all the great times! Soon after this, we headed back to our life in AZ. Hopefully another trip to Utah will come soon...thanks to all the friends & family we visited there for making our trip such a good one!

Thanksgiving Point: A Few Thoughts

During our trip to Utah, we visited Thanksgiving Point twice...and I was reminded what an interesting beast of a place it is. For those of you not in the know, Thanksgiving Point is a large complex located near the Point of the Mountain in north Utah County. It's a garden/museum/farm/events center/golf course/park amalgam, and consists of a series of loosely affiliated buildings and grounds in a sprawling multicomplex.

Long story short, it's got a little something for everybody, especially if the "everybody" in question is a bunch of kids. My generous sister Jocelyn, who has a membership to Thanksgiving Point, has helped us get in to many of the different exhibits/events on her card. I visited Utah last October, before Aurora was born, and my girls had lots of fun at the Museum of Ancient Life, as seen below...

Lorelai & Celeste rode on a baby dinosaur;

looked at a bunch of wildlife dioramas;

tinkered around with several science experiment stations;

checked out a bunch of dinosaur bones;

and narrowly escaped being eaten by a huge shark, among other things.

Flash-forward now to this summer. We're back in UT, and have some time to kill. The Museum of Ancient Life is a blast, but it's warm outside now, and there are many more activities to do outdoors. As a result, we took not one, but two more trips to Thanksgiving Point, visiting a different location each time.

First, we visited the Children's Discovery Garden, a kid-friendly park adjacent to Thanksgiving Point's sprawling "themed" gardens. There was a lot to do here, too, but due to cranky kids, the experience was something of a mixed bag:

Here's cousin Simon, separated from me by a splash pad (hence the wet sidewalk). Behind him is a small hedge maze, which all the kids loved and solved (maybe a little too easily).

Just beyond the maze area was the Bear Cave--yes that's right, the Bear Cave. It's artificial, of course, but it includes a neat little tunnel that kids can use to get underground to see the bears...

...or, in this case, used by Daddy to get aboveground after visiting the bear statue:

the girls loved to ride on the bear!

There were lots of nice landscapes to explore & climb around on throughout the garden, such as this "rock face." There were also a few climbing sculptures:

Celeste enjoyed this "climbing centipede" a bit too much; she started crying when we pried her out of it, and basically didn't stop crying the whole rest of our stay. SIGH.

There were a few water-based exhibits on display too, including a lily pond (complete with oversized goldfish), and a man-made stream, in which the kids could build their own boats & float them down with the current.

While a nice concept, the stream was very muddy; there was a ton of dirt & sediment in the water, and there were lots of kids all along the stream tracking in more dirt. Jocelyn said that there used to be wood chips piled up alongside the water, to prevent the muddiness...sadly, they were absent that day. Worried that our kids would become a huge muddy mess (and wearied by their crying), we called it a day...but not before cooling off a bit at the large splash pad at the entrance of the garden:

It's a giant metal Noah's Ark surrounded by a shallow pool. Theoretically, the animals & windows are shooting out streams of water. Sadly, the Ark was broken that day too. At least the water was available to splash around in! Oh, well, better luck next time, I hope...

A few days later, we had a few hours free. This time, Jocelyn recommended the Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point, which included a large petting zoo. We were game to try again, so off we went.

Farm Country isn't just a farm--it's a museum too! Just past the admission desk, there's a series of exhibits that help teach kids about where their foods come from...

like this exhibit on milk pasteurization, for instance. Lorelai wanted to watch this mock conveyor belt all day long!

Certain animals were also being offered for sale--mostly fowl, like these baby chicks! We weren't in the market though, so we moved on to the "petting zoo" portion of the farm:

There were cows, donkeys, miniature horses, and sheep in this large barn, all waiting to be petted by happy little kids.

From there, it was on to the pony ride! This type of ride is often made available back home in Sahuarita (pony rides are a common offering at many community events), but hey--this time it's in the shade! Besides, a ride ticket was included in our admission, so it was "off to the races" for our girls.

Here's cousin Simon, winking for the camera--cute!!

The next portion of the farm may have been Celeste's favorite--it was time to feed the animals! Each kid had a handful of corn feed (for a small additional fee--again, thanks, Jocelyn!), and then proceeded to give it to the many hungry farm animals--especially the goats:

It was lots of fun, and boy could those goats eat! The girls also got a special treat, because while we were there, a mama goat actually gave birth to two baby kids. It was neat to see such tiny baby animals, even though they mostly kept close to mama in the safety of their pen:

There were other animals besides goats to see on the farm:

Llamas;

pigs;

ducks; and geese too!

There was also a random set of miniature "frontier" buildings; it looked an awful lot like Tiny Town, in fact. Luckily for the kids, there was a jailhouse among the small village, so they could play in the pokey:

The last stop on our farm tour was another indoor exhibit called "Soil to Market," which details every step of the planting & harvesting process. The whole thing was very detailed, but also VERY interactive and very accessible for kids. I was impressed...and so was Lorelai...

...especially when she got to learn about bugs in this interactive display. She also got to create her own "harvest," by planting food of her choice on the artificial trees and shrubs throughout the room.

Here she is, picking her "pears." All in all, it was a fun day--the farm was both a lot more informative and a lot more fun than the Discovery Garden. However, as a whole, I think Thanksgiving Point is a great place to visit on a trip to Utah; there are lots of visiting options available, and lots to keep your youngsters busy. I'm slightly envious of my sister's membership there, but grateful she was able to share the experience with us. We'll be back!