Nick Nelson, Opinion Editor The Daily UniverseBrigham Young University
My wife and I were in D.C. last summer. We were taking an elevator to the top of the Washington Monument when we overheard an older gentleman telling the tour guide that he and his wife were from Utah and that he was a professor at the U.
I thought it pretty uncommon to bump into a fellow Utahn in that setting, so when we got off the elevator I approached him explaining that we lived in Provo and attended BYU.
“I’m sorry,” he answered without humor.
He took his wife by the arm and walked away without another word.
This bizarre behavior goes beyond athletic rivalry. It’s behavior rooted in ignorance, and it happens on both sides of the BYU/Utah rivalry.
I recall leaving the Marriott Center after a Cougar/Ute basketball game and almost tripping over two guys who rolled around on the wet sidewalk trying (unsuccessfully) to punch each other in the face. Naturally, one was decked out in red and the other in blue.
I guess each guy was thinking that if he could beat up the other, his school really IS better. Maybe they understood something I don’t. Or maybe they were both drunk.
At Saturday’s game, you can expect a lot of that zeal from both sides.
But like the seasoned players who shake hands when the game is over, let’s keep the rivalry where it belongs: in the athletic arena.
In the condescending gaze of that professor in D.C., I saw pride born of ignorance and cemented by years of sustained bitterness.
Like the sore loser or ungracious winner who refuses to shake hands with his opponent after a game, the man couldn’t separate the natural, enjoyable rivalry that springs from athletic competition from reality. We were, after all, just fellow Utahns on vacation in our nation’s capital.