Pacific Athletic Association

I got in the mail today, my 2011 Utah Football information booklet. In the lower, right hand corner is the PAC 12 logo. Almost cried. I never thought we would see the day. But there it is. It's in print. And on the football field, too.

No more trips to Laramie in November. No more freezing in Ft. Collins while being threatened with death and serious bodily injury by a bunch of drunken students from the, "Cow College". I won't have to sit in an almost empty stadium in San Diego and listen to them play crowd noise over their speakers.

And, if possible, I give even LESS of a shit about what is going on in Provo. I might read an article about that football team if the Utes have a bad year and end up in the Kraft Foods Fight Hunger Bowl and have to play them when they beat six of the Division II schools they will play every year. But in the whole of the college sports world, they have rendered themselves totally irrelevant. I hope they enjoyed this year, because it's the last one where they will get any national attention.

Every year, my college football team will start the year shooting for a BCS Bowl Game. And we don't even have to go undefeated to have a SHOT at one! We just have to win OUR conference and we're going to the Rose Bowl!

Admittedly, the BCS system sucks. And last weeks revelations about what really goes on with these, "big time" bowl games could, and should lead to the downfall of the whole shitty system and a playoff in college football. But while it lasts, we'll be happy to take all the, swell, MONEY! And games on national TV.

Real NATIONAL TV. Not BYUTV.

And aside from the sports aspect, it validates us as one of America's great Universities. Yeah, I know, the league has Arizona State in it, so I'm not going to get too high on that horse. But still, we wouldn't have gotten in if places like Cal and Stanford hadn't accepted us as part of the team. So our Nobel Laureates and famous alumni are now part of a better group of people. Sounds pompous? Yeah, I know. Screw you, I went to a PAC 12 school, bitches! Deal.

All kidding around aside, it does say something about our standards at Utah, vs. THE standard in Utah. I just read a blog by a buddy of mine, named, Kevin who has recently gone back to school to finish an education that he started long ago. And he was complaining, rightly so, about the stuff that we DON'T teach in school in Utah. Even at the college level, he's going back to SLCC, you have to pussyfoot around evolution and human sexuality. WTF?

Despite the fact that evolution is THE basis for everything we know and do in the medical and science fields in this country. That it has been proven again and again to be right. You can't talk about it because some religious nut, who doesn't know the definition of the word, "Theory" and would be offended because it goes against the, "teachings" of his, imaginary friend in the sky, might get their panties in a knot?

This is why BYU didn't get accepted to the PAC 12, and why the Big 12 wouldn't have taken Baylor if Ann Richards hadn't been Governor of Texas.

My friend's observance that not everything was on the table for discussion, even at an institution of HIGHER learning, made me glad that my University was not going to have to be constrained by that. That free discussion of ideas was still alive and kicking in the State of Utah.

Just under 5 months Until football season. Can't wait.