Anger to the Max

Unless you've been living on another planet, by now you know that the BYU Cougars and the Utah Runnin' Utes played their annual football game over the weekend.

It was a hard-fought contest, as it always is when these two teams meet. The Utes dominated the first and fourth quarters, while the Cougars dominated the second and third quarters. By the end of regulation, the score was tied at 20-20. In overtime, the Cougars edged the Utes 26-23 on Max Hall's touchdown pass to Andrew George.


If losing to BYU weren't offensive enough to Ute fans, Cougar quarterback Max Hall was interviewed afterward and said: "I don't like Utah. In fact, I hate them. I hate everything about them. I hate their program, I hate their fans, I hate everything. . . . I think the whole university, their fans and their organization, is classless. They threw beer on my family and stuff last year, and they did a whole bunch of nasty things, and I don't respect them, and they deserve to lose."

As a result, I have been spending much of the weekend reading comments on Facebook or otherwise hearing war chants from deeply offended Ute fans, calling Max Hall the spawn of Satan and saying that Max needs to die, preferably by being drawn and quartered at the earliest possible moment.


Let's face it; Max Hall is a good person. He got caught up in the heat of the moment and said some stupid things, for which he issued an apology the next day. But did anyone catch the part in which he said that last year Ute fans at Rice-Eccles Stadium were verbally abusive to his family, poured beer on them, and made vulgar and obscene gestures? Did these people ever apologize to the Hall family? Somehow, that seems to get lost in all of the hoopla.


I do not condone what Max said. But I can understand why he would say it.

In 2006, I sat in the stands of Rice-Eccles Stadium at that year's BYU/Utah football game, rooting for the Cougars. Throughout the game, the Ute fans who surrounded my brother and me - from teenagers and college-age attendees to men in their 50s and 60s - were verbually abusive to us and directed a slew of foul language our way. This handful of rowdy fans was definitely "classless"; I have never been treated so poorly as an opposing fan at any sporting event. (The only saving grace of attending that game, in fact, was John Beck's TD pass to Johnny Harline as time expired, capping a 33-31 Cougar victory. You could have heard a pin drop in the once-rowdy Ute cheering section as we filed out of the stands.)

As a closet Cougar fan, I also once worked in the ticket office at several Ute football games. During that period of time, I heard countless negative and classless comments uttered about the Cougars and the BYU organization as a whole.

Again, I don't justify what Max said. But having had a few personal experiences with rude Ute fans myself, I do understand why he said it. Most anyone whose family had been attacked in that manner would feel the same way.

Further, some Ute fans tend to forget that Utah standouts Alex Smith and Morgan Scalley - otherwise good and upstanding people, like Max Hall - each uttered hateful comments about BYU in years past.


My point, and I do have one, is that in the BYU/Utah rivalry, it's a two-way street. Players and fans on both sidelines have said and done dumb things in the heat of the moment. And I'm not saying that BYU fans are innocent of mistreating Ute fans, either; classless acts have occured on both sidelines.

Fortunately, the vast majority of the people I know and am friends with, both those who bleed blue and those who bleed red, would and will never act in this inappropriate manner.

How does that apply to us, then - the so-called "normal" people who go to these games and root at these events? I think what happened to Max Hall's family is an important reminder of the responsibility we all share to stop verbal (and other types of) abuse if and when we see it take place, either by intervening personally or by contacting ushers to have unruly fans booted. There is a greater need for civility and common decency on both sides.

Anger Management

People all over the place are really angry about a lot of things right now. I read about several of them tonight as I perused the pages of today's Deseret News. (There was an excellent article on the same topic in last week's paper by columnist Doug Robinson: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705262181,00.html)

You see these irate people everywhere. They are on TV or on YouTube. They are even picketing around Temple Square and the state capitol building. And they are definitely not afraid to hide that fact that they are hopping mad about, well, almost everything.

The anger thing isn't going to get any better this week. The annual BYU vs. Utah football game is coming up this Saturday, and we all know what that means: The Mr. Hyde in many Cougar and Ute fans will be coming out for a visit.

Bring up any number of topics, and - want it or not - you will get their opinion on any number of current events, often with clenched fists, beet-red faces, and little volcanoes emerging and erupting from the tops of their scalps. Some of these topics include, but are not limited, to: the release of the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince film being postponed until next summer (okay, not so much of a problem, really), George W. Bush being responsible for everything wrong with this country, having to endure living on the same planet and breathing the same air as Sarah Palin, gas prices, the economy, and - oh yeah - the LDS Church's involvement in California's Proposition 8, which passed in the election held two weeks ago.


If you dare disagree with these Proposition 8 people, in their book, you are therefore labeled (by people who largely don't want to be labeled) "homophobic," "intolerant," "bigoted," "hate filled," "ignorant," and a "hypocrite," plus you will be told that you need to come out of the cave and into the 21st century and/or you must die a horrible, painful death - possibly by being smothered in peanut butter and being dropped onto a pile of killer ants, like those in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - at the earliest possible moment.

They use big words like these, while at the same time their actions show that they are clearly the ones who are full of hate and intolerant.

In Peru, they have a saying: El ruido de tus acciones no me permite oir tus palabras. Loosely translated, it means: "The noise from your actions blocks out the sound of your words." I think it applies here.

The Proposition 8 protests have saddened me a lot. The election is over, but they refuse to accept the results. (Just imagine what would happen if John McCain acted in a similar manner and encouraged his supporters to send hate mail to the president-elect.) Their demonstrations are also being directed at my church, even though the LDS Church was just one of several in a coalition to support Proposition 8.

My Improv colleague Tonia wrote a letter to the editor in defense of Proposition 8 that appeared in Thursday's Deseret News. Saturday night, I performed in a show with Tonia's husband, Curt, and mentioned to him that I had read the letter.

"We've already received hate mail," he replied.

Over the past two weeks, LDS meetinghouses in Utah have been vandalized. At one building, a copy of the Book of Mormon was set on fire. Last week, an envelope containing white powder - at first feared to be anthrax - caused an evacuation of Temple Square.

Yes, whoever is doing it is using terrorism.

So, what can we do about it? What do we have left to "turn" when we have used up your "cheeks"?


I recently read an excellent article by Paul Bishop that sheds important light on the subject. Bro. Bishop writes from personal experience about the protests that have been held outside of the grounds of the Los Angeles temple. If you haven't already done so, I hope you take a look at it:

http://www.meridianmagazine.com/ideas/081110hate.html

Reading this article created all kinds of emotions inside of me. I felt sad, then annoyed, then angry, and then the cycle started all over again. Ultimately, though, Bro. Bishop concludes his article in just the right spirit. He quotes Elder Robert D. Hales on the true spirit of tolerance. He also adds the thought that Pres. Monson, in the face of this kind of persecution, knows what's going on and is leading us in the right direction.


I'm very grateful to have both a prophet and an exemplary man to whom I can look for guidance and counsel.

Fighting anger with anger and hate with hate has never solved anything - at least, not since Old Testament times. As the scripture says:

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance" (Galatians 5:22–23).

I am also reminded of this excerpt from the life of Elijah:

"The Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:

"And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice" (1 Kings 19:11-12).

I know from experience that you can win converts to your cause - so to speak - only by kindness, civility, and rational thinking.

And that speaks louder than words.