BYU Team Culture

I will try to answer all of your questions based on what I have seen. My take is that BYU more than most programs looks at placing/wins more heavily than pure times. This may in part be due to the challenge of comparing altitude to sea level times for HSers, but I think it is mostly part of the overall philosophy.

If you are a 4:12 state champion then you are perceived as much more of a stud than a 4:12 runner who took 6th. They want to recruit winners and I think that tells you as much as anything about what their team culture is like. I know more than a few people are put off by Rory's ego, but the culture and coaching staff if anything sustain it more than trying to bring it down.

This goes into the next point. Is it a meat grinder? No, not deliberately, but there is an atmosphere of interteam competition and just competitiveness in general. The coaches to try to keep everyone healthy and the training isn't designed to run people into the ground. However, I think one of the underlying factors leading to the team historically looking so strong early season and then fading a bit towards the end is that workouts are competitive and everyone is running a bit too hot too early. Not dramatically so, but enough that it can impact results for some individuals.

The coaching staff is very engaged and I think that most people feel like they can get individual attention if they want it, but it is a busy/crowded experience just because there are so many guys.

You didn't ask specifically, but I will say that their culture is unusual relative to most teams I have seen in that it lacks a certain friendly and open vibe that running typically engenders. My perception is that runners tend to share a bit of a shared suffering culture where once the race is done, everyone feels free to mingle, catch up with old friends, and there is a sense of broader community. I ran at a different university and when I was home for winter break I often ran with old teammates and friends who ran for lots of different schools. It wasn't uncommon to go do a cool down with someone from a different school and get to know them. To me it seems like for the most part interschool sports rivalries don't really trickle down to the cross country teams, even if the football and basketball teams hate each other, the runners don't care.

BYU does not embrace this. Their team culture feels as though it embraces rivalry, competitiveness and just a general us vs them mentality. The positive spin on this is that they have a lot of school spirit and are very unified. So that might not necessarily be a turn off, but it is something to know.

This is an excellent post. Well-written!

1. You use the word "their", implying you are not a part of the team. You seem to have a lot of familiarity. Where does this come from?

2. Your last two paragraphs say a lot, and this is not exclusive to XC or sports in general.

Nothing from your post refutes YUB YUB'S post. So.... not off the mark, I guess?

Stephan Shay (Ryan Shay's younger brother) transferred to BYU from Michigan State while in college and I am 99% sure he was not Mormon. Their family is Catholic. It would be interesting to get his viewpoint on his experience there since he was already fairly successful at Michigan State before transferring and post-college also ran in the Olympic Trials marathon. And there was an article about him living in an RV in California, not exactly the "Mormon" lifestyle route.

neanderthal dream wrote:

John Utah wrote:

this is TOTALLY off the mark

look it up, about 98% of BYU students are Mormon. Just think about that for a second. It's OVERWHELMING.

pointing out a few exceptions - the one or two dudes that fall into the 1% - only serves to establish how overwhelmingly homogeneous BYU is in terms of religion and an all-consuming way of life (not just a religious affiliation)

it's not bad, but let's be clear on what it is

non mormons at byu is similar to trump supporters on the staff of the Cal Berkeley gender studies department

Nothing from your post refutes YUB YUB'S post. So.... not off the mark, I guess?

One can be completely misleading yet technically not inaccurate with respect to individual details. Why do you not know this?

John Utah wrote:

neanderthal dream wrote:

Nothing from your post refutes YUB YUB'S post. So.... not off the mark, I guess?

One can be completely misleading yet technically not inaccurate with respect to individual details. Why do you not know this?

Completely misleading yet technically accurate describes your reply pretty well.

neanderthal dream wrote:

John Utah wrote:

One can be completely misleading yet technically not inaccurate with respect to individual details. Why do you not know this?

Completely misleading yet technically accurate describes your reply pretty well.

Explain the misleading part.

Heard they’re Mormons.

John Utah wrote: this is TOTALLY off the mark

I ran with Stephan a fair bit a couple summers ago leading up to the trials (as in nearly every day of the week). He left MSU because Drenth came in his freshman year and wasn't the coach who recruited him. He just didn't enjoy the program as much. Talked to him a lot about BYU. He really enjoyed his time there as a non-mormon. He said the guys were goofballs. They had that funny innocence that mormons have. A lot of them used words like "crud" and "fudge" in place of curse words. Most were really dedicated. He also said they really don't train at all during the mission and most come back out of shape/don't ever run well again. There are a few who weren't running that well and weren't very Mormon to begin with, but suddenly decided to go on a mission and become devout out of nowhere. Most likely they wanted to extend eligibility. Those were few and far between anyways.

The biggest thing you would have to get used to is how serious they take the Sundays. Basically the whole town and campus/team doesn't do much but spend time with their families. A lot of family game nights on the team back then. He actually ran on Sunday and went fly fishing a lot. Ed was totally cool about that.

The guys actually don't run that fast on runs either. Majority keep it maybe a little bit under 7:00 pace, but they cram 80+mpw in 6 days and go hard on workouts. I say go for it man. You will be a better runner for it.

Marie Osmond, either when young and slim, then older and chubby, and now old and thinner again...anal??? 3-holer?

What's the word around the temple?

Lots of old dudes 25 yrs and over so if you need someone to rent a car to drive you to buy some 3% beer you will be golden.

John Utah wrote:

Anyway, most of the non white folks on the BYU football team are from the pacific islands. And they are all Mormon.

Where do come up with this crazy stuff Johnny Utah? You're posts are sometimes kind of weird, strange, "twilight zone"-type stuff. ? Do you even follow the BYU football program? I bet you didn't know their coach Bronco Mendenhall high-tailed it out of there 2 yrs ago for the green grass at Virginia. ? He's a true blue LDS, but something was a foot with the program for him to leave his dream job.

Yes, there are a lot of Pacific Islanders that they recruit regulary (I think even the HC is a Pacific Islander and alum), but they have also have recruited a fair number of African-Americans (mainly at the skill positions) who are not Mormon in any way, shape or form. And there's been documented trouble with honor code violations with this:

That article is trash and should never have been written. First, the writer openly admits that he isn’t privy to the details about all honor code violations. So he shouldn’t be surprised that high-profile football player cases come up more often in the news than average NARP students (who are more likely to be white). His allegations that BYU targets a certain race or religion or sport for honor code punishment is simply libelous.

Second, he complains about students not understanding the honor code. The onus is on the student to read the document they sign. I have no pity for students who are blindsided by the honor code if they didn’t bother to read it when they agreed to it.

John Utah wrote:

neanderthal dream wrote:

Completely misleading yet technically accurate describes your reply pretty well.

Explain the misleading part.

You may not be a big picture kind of guy. That's ok! There are different ways of viewing the world John!

That is a weird article wrote:

That article is trash and should never have been written. First, the writer openly admits that he isn’t privy to the details about all honor code violations. So he shouldn’t be surprised that high-profile football player cases come up more often in the news than average NARP students (who are more likely to be white). His allegations that BYU targets a certain race or religion or sport for honor code punishment are simply libelous.

Second, he complains about students not understanding the honor code. The onus is on the student to read the document they sign. I have no pity for students who are blindsided by the honor code if they didn’t bother to read it when they agreed to it.

Your feathers seemed to have gotten ruffled by the report - are you a student at the "Y?" Maybe you're LDS?

Here's McMahon's take on the honor code (how he ever survived is nothing short of a miracle):

Post note: I don't understand the BYU philosophy on no alcohol or caffeine. Moderate amounts of alcohol, particularly wine, are healthy. And caffeine has a plethora of scientific proven health benefits. The religion always seemed to be kind of weird in that respect. I don't drink but I've got to have my caffeine.

My whiteness didn't save me from the wrath of the Honor Code, lol. Also the guy who did the dismissing was black, so..... maybe I was racially profiled?

I'm Catholic. I went to junior high and HS in Provo. I can only speak to what it's like to be a non-Mormon in Utah valley. Everyone for sure will be welcoming. You may bump into a few people who straight up dislike you for not being Mormon, but they are few and far between. In addition to abiding to strict a no alcohol, drugs, and sex lifestyle and having fairly strange religious beliefs for a group of Christians, Mormon's are a quirky group of people. The poster who described Ryan Shay's experiences summed that up. I'd just say be ready for that. Socializing in Utah Valley isn't just regular life minus sex and alcohol, it's a bit stranger than that but innocuous nonetheless. If you're a go with the flow kind of person, it probably won't bother you much and you can just enjoy the show.

Unless you plan on converting to Mormonism, you're dating life is going to be ROUGH. Someone else mentioned this and I cannot emphasize it enough. Be prepared for that and a dismal relationship life while you are at BYU. You'll still have friends who are girls (assuming you're straight, if not, stop reading this thread and forget you ever heard of BYU) and may even go on lots of casual and/or group dates, but most girls will not date you seriously unless you plan on converting. At least that's true for the nice girls. There may be some girls on the fringes who won't mind you being a non-Mormon. You'll have to search for them.

Also side note, a lot of the guys your age will be on missions and you're peers will be returned missionaries. I have to imagine that's a bit weird.

Running in Utah is great. I think I've heard the team spends a fair bit of time on the bike path and less time in the mountains and trails though.