Much of this post comes from direct quotes from the Desert News, 11/21/17 by Dough Robinson and contributions from ■■■■ Harmon and Jeff Call in their article: “The Rise and Fall” My comments
are obviously not from their said article.
In 1980, Jim Mac Mahon threw a Hail Mary
touchdown pass to complete a 20 point comeback
in the final 3 minutes of the Holiday Bowl, later to be know as the Miracle Bowl.
We produced All American and future NFL quarterbacks like: Jim Mac Mahon, Steve Young, Robbie Bosco, Ty Detmer, Steve Sarkisian and a host of others, like they came off the assembly line.
We stayed out of politics. We didn’t tell everyone that we were better than everyone else, religiously, politically and socially. We were not hated and despised. We did not judge others. We left all judging to God. 1978 brought positive changes in the Church and in it’s members attitudes. We had no political, racial, sexual, or social targets. We treated all the way we would have them treat us.
We cracked the top 20 rankings nine times from 1977 till 1996. We won 23 conference championships, the 1997 Cotton Bowl, and the and in 1984, we won the National Championship. In 1990 we won a Heisman Trophy. We had it all.
During our Glory Years, on the Gridiron, 1972-1991, our Church Membership grew each year both Church growth compared to World Wide Growth. We outpaced our growth to the world growth each year.
Church Growth World Growth
1972 4.14 1.94
1973 2.73 1.88
1974 3.12 1.79
1975 4.76 1.72
1976 4.77 1.71
1977 6.05 1.68
1978 4.98 1.71
1979 5.69 1.70
1980 5.35 1.70
1981 6.05 1.75
1982 4.92 1.76
1983 3.66 1.70
1984 5.41 1.69
1985 4.94 1.71
1986 4.18 1.74
1987 3.69 1.72
1988 5.11 1.69
1989 8.74 1.68
1990 6.19 1.57
1991 4.23 1.55
Than something happened, first slowly, and than faster, deeper, and more arrogant happened.
We became much more political, much more critical of those not of our fold, much more selective, much more arrogant and making excuses for our own failures instead of correcting bad situations and starting with 2014, look what has been happening.
2014 1.92 1.08
2015 1.70 1.08
2016 1.59 1.06
While the Church has often tried to connect the Mormon Church and the Catholic Church as having had a joint effort to defeat the Prop 8 campaign in the out of state, California election and defeat the LGBT community from being able to Marry, (Later overturned by the Supreme Court and found unconstitutional), the amount of suicides among that LGBT inside the Mormon Church hit epidemic proportions, (LGBT lives do matter), The Catholic Church Pope stated,
I paraphrase, as I do not remember the exact words:
(“ My intent is not to change doctrine, but to put it in different proper perspective”
“There are far too many more important issues to be addressed, like caring for the poor and achieving world peace and getting along in society, than wasting all the time on issues like the right to life vs free choice or on the LGBT issues.”)
It seems like the Catholic’s do not want a part of the connection that the Mormons want to connect themselves to.
It seems like, (and we refuse to acknowledge it or accept it), that the Catholic Church owned University, Notre Dame, no longer wants to have anything to do with the Mormon owned University, BYU as it cancelled it’s football commitments with us, at the
risk of losing millions of dollars in cancellation fees.
Yes I do realize that also at this time was ND’s connection to football with another conference which did have something to do, perhaps with the cancellations, maybe.—— !
Some other interesting figures:
In 1935, the year of my birth, we had 746,384 members.
In 1947 when I became active, void of politics, and a strong desire to get along with all, the membership was 1,016,170. I was 12 years old.
When I first attended BYU in school year 1953-54 in the quarter system, the membership was 1,246,362.
I was 18-19 years old.
By 1972 When Lavel Edwards came to BYU and started our Glory years with great innovation, never before experienced, our membership was at 3,218,908. I was 32.
By 1984 when we got our National Championship, our membership was 5,641,054. I was 49.
In 1990 when we got our Heisman Trophy, the membership was 7,761,179. I was 55.
Not much has happened since that time, except that our membership grew from the 1990 figure of
7,761,179 to 2012, when the membership grew by approximately double to the number of 14,782,473.
Since 2007, our growth in the Church, percentage wise, has been in a steady decline.
Growth:
2007 2.53%
2008 2.38%
2009 2.34%
2010 2.22%
2011 2.19%
2012 ———
2013 2.03%
2014 1.92%
2015 1.70%
2016 1.59%
2017 1.48%
WHAT WILL 2018 BRING?
During our time of declining growth, percentage wise, we have made it impossible for those like Jim Mahon, like Steve Sarkisian, like Lenny Gomez ( now Gregory), Like so many others, to get inside BYU.
That which was than thought of as minor violations with punishment which we than felt fit the violation to what has become thought of now as major violations that now call for expulsions or rejections or taken off the team and perhaps out of the University, i s now the rule and not the acceptation. (Unga/Davies/others).
How long would Jim Mahon lasted on our team today, if indeed, he ever slipped in by mistake today?
Overtime, when we see an opportunity to achieve, there is someone or something to shoot it down and often the target is our own foot.
“ BYU itself has chose a course that makes matters more difficult for it’s own athletic teams.”
A lot of the players from the 70’s and 80’s glory years that included the great 1984 team, under Lavel Edwards, could not qualify to get into BYU today.
Too bad. We are all God’s children, even those of us that from time to time, miss-behave.
We keep making it more and more impossible for our cougars to achieve, and than set back and say Why?
What’s Happening? It must be our higher standards,
(Sorry Stanford). It must be our no Sunday Play rule,
(Sorry Notre Dame, Boston College, Baylor, TCS, SMU, and other Faith Based Schools).
It must be Prejudice !!! Awe yes, it’s the other guys fault. We are good people. We never do anything wrong~! We are easy to get along with. Sorry (LGBT)
community.
Is there a correlation between how, good or bad, our football team does? Nobody knows, however, it
is likely to be a contributor and not the main event and not left out as a contributor either. (My opinion).
What I believe to be the real issues is that once we started believing that we were so superior over all non members, and over all Universities, not LDS owned, and over everyone else’s code of ethics vs our honor code, than it has come to pass that we became just too hard to get along with.
Changes need to be made sooner than later if we are to remain as a Christian Institution respected by the other Christian Institutions, as a Christian Institution…
Having the name alone, “The Church of Jesus Christ” just doesn’t cut it. We must learn to do onto others, as we would have the do onto us. We must leave all judging to God, lest we be judged.
R. Uharriet.
