Before the U football team kicks off its first game tonight, students and fans got a chance to celebrate the start of the season at the LDS Institute of Religion.
The institute sponsored the Utah Football Kickoff Party on Tuesday night.
The event opened with a prayer petitioning, among other things, a blessing on the food.
The U Latter-day Saints Student Association, in a conglomerative effort with the Associated Students of the University of Utah, the Utah Football Fan Club and Utah athletics department, provided hot dogs, cotton candy, hamburgers, tortilla chips and cold cups of water for the evening’s event.
Also on hand and available for entertainment were the U marching band, cheerleaders and U mascot Swoop.
Roughly 1,000 were in attendance.
Medical biology student Robert Stewart made his way up to the lawns of the institute to “see all the fine [women] and hear a word from the man, [U football coach] Urban Meyer.”
Meyer was in attendance and spoke to the crowd, along with former Ute running back Joseph Wirthlin.
Wirthlin, who played under coach Ike Armstrong in the late 1930s, remembered his days fondly, recounting for the crowd, “There’s a pretty good school a little south of here-I beat them.”
The motivation behind the kickoff was to further unite the U community, organizers said.
Discussing the affection people in the U community have for football, LDS Institute President Steve Tingey addressed the reason behind holding the event at the institute rather than another campus location, such as Presidents Circle or even Rice-Eccles Stadium.
“This area was most familiar to us, we knew we had electricity and availability wasn’t a problem,” he said.
Tuesday night’s event at the institute perhaps unconsciously fostered a religious atmosphere.
“This is not an LDS-only event,” said Alicia Taase, chairwoman of the Campus Relations Board of ASUU.
Depending on the success of the event, the LDSSA will make an effort to move the event to campus next year, Tingey promised.
Taase, whose board provided $300 for the hot dogs, agreed with the suggestion that the event was a success.
“There’s a lot of people here,” she noted.
The event wasn’t exactly free of snags, however.
Among the balloons and U flags, business and computer science major Jeremy Fuller waited in line for more than half an hour before finally receiving his complimentary hamburger.
“Where’s the vodka and tonic?’ he asked, saying that a little alcohol may have helped him enjoy waiting a bit more.
As the evening progressed, Anthony White, ASUU vice president and safety for the U football team, was able to raise the crowd to its feet before defensive linemen Sione Pouha roused attendees with what hopes to be a new thrilling cheer, involving both the football team and fans prior to, or possibly during, each game this season.
The ritual has Polynesian roots and has been passed down over the past 25 years. It will be demonstrated again before tonight’s contest against Utah State.