I want to apologize for interrupting my four part series on my co-workers and Halloween but I have had an issue come up tonight that I really need to get off my chest. This problem has been festering for a few years and it just keeps getting worse. I am so put off by this problem that tonight I can't even think straight since I am so upset. So once again I apologize for throwing this out when I am in the middle of something else but I feel that this may be important for my own sanity as well as Becky's.
This story starts five years ago in 2003 when Becky and I moved to Boise to go to Boise State. They had started winning and we were excited to be part of this great school that had an up and coming football team since we were coming from CSI in Twin Falls which didn't have a football team at all. We made it to a lot of games that year since we were students and it was a cheap date since we were not married at the time. I had grown up a BYU Cougar fan with my parents having season tickets and all of us driving down to all the games. Naturally I was looking forward to Oct. 30th 2003 when BSU would be playing BYU in Provo, Ut. I talked to Becky before the game and told her that BYU was having a rough time and that BSU would probably win but that I was just going to enjoy the game since I loved both teams and I thought it could be a good game. We watched this game at Becky's Aunt Bev's house where she was living. The game looked bad on TV because it was snowing so bad but there was another reason for why I was feeling so bad...BYU was losing. The game ended with a 50-12 score and I was upset that BYU hadn't played better but I was more upset at the fact that BSU had run up the score and left their first string QB in the entire game. BYU was horrible that year only winning 4 games, they went 4 and 8 that year which is one of the worst years in BYU history.
I continued to go to BSU games and root for them since I knew that BYU wasn't great and I genuinely liked BSU. I remember not being able to watch BSU games and listening to them on the radio, which doesn't seem like much to some but it takes a lot to listen to games when you can't watch them.
Becky and I were married that year and we moved back to Twin Falls in August of 2004. I would constantly find myself defending BSU to my dad who seemed to not like them because of that loss in 2003. I still thought that they were a great team and I was excited to root for a team where I had gone to school. I continued to root for BYU as well and never missed a game. Then Sep. 24th came around and BYU was playing in Boise. They had only won a game out of three but I was thinking that they were a better team then the year before. We all tuned into this game and watched it on the edge of our seats as it was a really close game. It came down to a final field goal by BYU to win the game. The BYU field goal kicker had made 28 consecutive field goals but this night,in the closing seconds of the game, missed that field goal wide left. It was devastating and I remember being so hurt that BYU couldn't pull it out. The thing that hurt the most is that BSU fans acted like they had beat BYU by 21 points. It was hard to take but BYU had another losing season going 5 and 6.
It was after this game that things started to change for me. It seemed like we would go to family functions and everyone would be wearing BSU stuff that they had never worn before. Family members who I thought were die hard fans for other teams were all of a sudden BSU fans. BSU even played these other teams and these family members would still root for BSU over their real teams. Now I have a problem with because I don't think that you ever "switch" teams. You can root for other teams but you never just dump the team that you grew up with, that is just wrong. My parents and siblings have loved BYU for a long time and even during the rough years have rooted for them, but we have never abandoned the team that we loved. These other family members did however. Other family members came out of the wood work as "die hard" BSU fans when everyone knew that they hadn't watched a football game (let alone a BSU game) in years. It was hard to take crap from these so called BSU fans. It was like talking to someone who had just woken up from a coma and they didn't remember the past and only knew what had happened the last couple of years they had been awake. These fans only knew BSU football when it was good not when it was bad. In my mind it is the true test of a fan that when your team is losing you still stick around and they had not been there for the team when they were bad and now was on the bandwagon since they were having success. I began to hate bandwagon fans at this time, not BSU mind you, only the fans that continued unrelentlessly to give fans of other teams garbage. It was hard and there was nothing that a BYU fan could do since they were in the worst years of BYU football history. The next year we made our annual trip to the mountains over Memorial Day with some family. My dad and I drove around the mountains trying to get the BYU game on the radio. We finally got it and listened to our cougs lose to Boston College in Provo. When we came back to camp we had to hear how BYU was one of the worst teams and that BSU was going to dominate Georgia. finally some reprieve, BSU lost big to Georgia 48-13 and I was happy for the first time around my extended family that I had been in years because in my mind we were even. Unfortunately that was not the case for them because they continued to talk about the two BYU losses to BSU. It continued and has continued since that time. It seems like now whenever all of us are going to be together that one or both groups have to wear team colors and clothes. These fans continue to hound us with things that BSU has done even though BYU has done much of it since they were in the WAC as well.
It seems that this year has been exceptionally hard since both teams were looking to be that BCS buster. Recently we were at a family function and uninformed comments were made from the group of BSU fans attending. It was hard not to get really mad and just blow up (I did not do a good job and did make a scene but it wasn't to or about BSU) at these ignorant fans. A couple of weeks ago I posted here about the BYU vs TCU game and how it was a horrible loss and that BYU probably couldn't recover from that. It was hard to watch, but what was even harder was receiving gloating phone calls from these fans during the game. It is hard for me who feels that I shouldn't say anything for fear that it will bite me in the end. I don't retaliate, I don't say anything. I just sit back and take it. Tonight I received an email from one of these uninformed fans thinking that it is funny to continue to rub in the loss. I want you all to know that I don't find it funny. I find childish, classless, and tacky. I don't ever...EVER...hear from these fans any other time. I don't get nice calls about how things are going, or if we want to come over for dinner. Instead I get harassing email that they think are funny and then find it odd that I hate there team so bad. I guess the reason that I have such a problem with this that I didn't say anything in 2005 when BSU lost to Georgia, Oregon State, Fresno, and then Boston College in the bowl game. I didn't say a word to them in 2006 when I thought that they would lose to Oklahoma, and when they won I told a lot of them congrats on a great win. 2007 I didn't talk bad about the team when they lost to a mediocre Hawaii team that wanted that game more and still have kept my mouth shut about the bowl game with ECU that they lost with a made field goal by Ben Hartman in the final seconds. I am not an average fan who just loves football, but one that is informed about what is going on. I wish that these fans knew that BYU went a total of 20-24 between 2002 and 2005, that is only one winning season. The last two years BYU has gone 11-2 and finished the season ranked in the top 20. They started the season this year 16th in the country and was 8th in the country when they lost to TCU. BYU has played big games as well and has beat big teams, they have a National Championship (1984), they have been in BSU's position before. Why can't these fans (the ones I have talked about here) see the history and also the similarities between the two instead of being complete jerks about it?
Most of you will know that this nickname follows me wherever I go. I have been called this since I started sports at a young age. The first time I remember being called this was in babe ruth baseball. Everyone called me VIP and it has stuck. Every job that I go to someone starts calling me that and soon everyone is calling me that. I thought that by moving to Boise it would stop since no one would know about this nickname. It didn't take long for Landon to start calling me Vip and now everyone, including managers, call by this nickname. There are a couple variations, Uncle Gail calls me J.V. and my boss calls me J.Vip. It has always been a source of pride for me since my Uncle Sid is known as Vip and even family members call him that. I am hoping that some day I can take over that position in our family and carry the torch. So this is the third installment of my office introductions. Next comes the Halloween party and what we have been doing today. I am super stoked to show some pictures because today has been a blast.
Landon is a crazy kid. We started here together and so we went through training together. I really hated Landon to begin with because he would skip our training and I would have to go and explain why he wasn't there. One time we were in a role play meeting that was going on 3 hours. It was just the two of us and the trainer. The trainer was being really tough and this was Landon's first sales job so he wasn't doing that great. Finally the trainer took Landon over the edge and He freaked out and yelled "I don't know, Let Vip do it I'm done." and sat back in his chair with his arms folded all ticked off. It was really funny and I kind of started to feel bad for him. I now think that he is one of the funniest kids ever and actually reminds me of a mutual friend that we both have, Pat Crawford. Once I knew he was friends with Pat I knew how to deal with him and things have gone better for the past two years. I have a lot of stories about Landon but there are a couple that I really like. A bunch of us were eating at a Thai food restaurant (which Landon hates Thai food) and we were almost done with our lunch when a manager of ours walked in with some other co-workers. Landon saw this manager and yelled out "RICK, RICK" with his hands high in the air trying to get his attention. We all looked back at this manager and then back at Landon who was desperately trying to get his attention. I then told Landon that the manager's name was Chuck. Landon looked confused and said "oh Rick was the guy before Chuck." and Matt (who I will talk about tomorrow) said "No, that was Michelle". Landon is always doing stuff like that. He is one of the funniest kids I know and I am glad that I got over that first couple of weeks with him so that we could move on to being friends.
