Bye Bye, BYU: A Hopefully Heartfelt Goodbye
As I write this I am trying to think of a compelling lede. I can’t.
Y’all have been here since 2011.
It is now Friday, June 30, 2023, at approximately 10:55 pm Pacific Time, as I write this. That’s 5 minutes, Mountain Time, before BYU officially leaves the WCC for the Big 12.
I don’t know how to say goodbye.
So, instead, I’ll just say what BYU meant to me as a member of the WCC in terms of me getting to where I am today
In the fall of 2008, I signed up for an online English class through BYU. I was a senior in high school.
Not gonna lie, I took that class so I could get out of school early. I took it out of laziness. If I could take a required class online, I could have a free final period every day at school. I would be done with school after 5th period instead of 6th, like everyone else. I could spend less time at school than everyone else.
I didn’t think that I would someday turn at least some of what I learned in that class into writing about BYU, and I especially didn’t think I would someday turn at least some of what I learned in that class into where I am now as a professional, happy 32 year old.
I’ve covered NCAA Tournaments, Final Fours and a National Championship game, among many other great memories, in part because of BYU. Not necessarily because of that high school level English course, and not necessarily because of BYU basketball, but in part because of each and both.
I’m sad BYU is leaving the West Coast Conference, because as a “professional” (lol) I’ve only ever known a West Coast Conference with BYU as a member. And I’ve loved it.
But I am happy for BYU and its fans, and I want to reminisce in a happy way as the Cougars depart for a power conference
I’m sad you’re leaving, but I’m happy you’re finally where you belong, and I’m grateful that you and I got to share the past 12 seasons. I’m also thankful, and the following is why.
My first memory of BYU as a member of the WCC can’t be sourced or referenced. In fact, it comes from before BYU ever played a game as a member of the West Coast Conference.
I have a memory from July or August of 2010, of standing at the northwestern corner of the intersection of Elm and Pacific in Spokane (I can still picture it) with a buddy who knew nothing about sports, let alone the West Coast Conference or BYU, but for some reason my then-mildly-drunk ass was thinking about BYU’s impending move into the WCC.
I ranted to him about my fear of what this may do to Gonzaga (spoiler alert, I was dead wrong). I was afraid.
My first memory of BYU as a member of the WCC was thinking they could ruin everything I knew as a not-born-but-bred GU fan. (Again, I would be wrong about that)
In that moment, my greatest fear? BYU would immediately end Gonzaga’s run of conference championships, which at the time was synonymous with Gonzaga’s stature nationally. The Zags were good, but were they much more than just dominant in the West Coast Conference? What would happen if the Zags’ run of consecutive titles would come to an end?
Surely, the Cougars would end the Zags’ run. (Spoiler alert, nope)
BYU joined the WCC for the 2011–12 season, with its fans high on Jimmermania, and the buzz was they’d compete with the Zags. The buzz in Provo, or at least online in Provo, was that the Cougars would even upend the status quo and beat the Zags.
The Zags did not win the league that year, for the first time in forever.
Saint Mary’s, behind a junior named Matthew Dellavedova, won the league (and the tournament).
BYU came up short, and we all should have seen it coming. Why?
12/29/2011: BYU 82, Saint Mary’s 98. BYU’s first conference game as a member of the West Coast Conference.
The Cougars got absolutely blitzed by Saint Mary’s (I watched the game on my parents’ couch while home on winter break). It was an unfriendly welcome and the start of what is, as far as I am concerned, one of the absolute best rivalries in the sport.
The Cougars lost their first game in the WCC, and they’d go on to lose plenty more. Especially to Saint Mary’s.
I started writing about the West Coast Conference days after that game (though that game was not the catalyst).
At the time I was living in Chicago, using a fake ID to watch Gonzaga games at a bar near the Loyola Chicago campus which will go unnamed out of respect. Back then, WCC games were understandably second-fiddle for ESPN. Gonzaga played late, and especially so in the Central Time Zone where I was living. I’m talking about 10 p.m. tips. Late.
2/2/2012: Gonzaga at BYU for the first game of their conference series. Gonzaga’s first trip to Provo and their first meeting as WCC rivals. Gonzaga 73, BYU 83.
I was pissed. And I walked home — too angry to wait for the Red Line to take me three stops — I walked home in a true Chicago blizzard. I had thoughts. I wrote up a “Fan Shot” or whatever SB Nation called the longer form comments they allowed on their blogs at the time, on the Gonzaga fan blog Slipper Still Fits. I don’t remember if I posted it or not (hope I didn’t).
That was the final catalyst that led me to cover the WCC.
I would go on to open up a Google Document and recap each night of WCC play until a couple of weeks later I decided to stop writing where nobody could read it and launched the similarly unread willswccblog.blogspot.com.
BYU’s first season in the WCC came to an end — though not before mustering the largest comeback in NCAA Tournament history — and as a broke 20 year old in Chicago I grabbed my first summer in the Windy City with both hands…
…I sat on my giant apartment building’s patio and used its free WiFi to dig into BYU’s upcoming non-conference schedule.
This article I wrote for the aforementioned utterly unread Will’s WCC Blog somehow found its way to Greg Wrubell, the voice of the Cougars.
I spent probably 8–10 hours putting this together, which was not uncommon for me at the time (I did not have a life). What was uncommon, was that people read it. That’s all on Greg.
He found it, he tweeted it, and almost immediately it became by far my most read work to that point. It was one of the very first moments that led me to think maybe I could make something of this. Maybe I should keep writing about the WCC.
I did continue to write about the WCC, and BYU — Cougar fans are today the second-largest contingent among my followers, behind only Gonzaga/Spokane people.
In retrospect, Cougar fans and I shared something back in those days.
I was embarking on something completely new to me, something unknown. I was writing, for the first time, for people who were not my English teacher. Cougar fans were navigating independence in football and wondering just what that meant for the rest of their sports, at the time perhaps treading water in the West Coast Conference, or potentially thriving as a big fish in a small pond.
I’d like to look back on that time as something of a launching pad for us both.
You’re now in the Big 12 (and deservedly).
I’m now able to pay some of my bills through writing (perhaps deservedly).
Would BYU have moved to the Big 12 without the WCC? Who knows.
Would I have managed to land in a situation in which I can help support myself through writing without BYU in the WCC? Who knows.
All I know is our timing lined up, and we’re both better off than we were a dozen years ago.
BYU, and especially its fans, helped me to where I am now. I didn’t help BYU to the Big 12 in any way, but I do hope I helped BYU fans feel something while the Cougars were in the WCC.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll talk shit and I’ll tell it like it is when it comes to BYU’s time in the WCC. But I’ll always respect y’all, and I’ll always remember y’all with reverence. I wouldn’t be where I am without you.
I started covering the WCC in 2011. Sure, I was raised on a WCC without the Cougars. But, as an adult, as someone who covers this league, I’ve never known it without BYU. That’s going to take some time to get used to.
