JC 1010E

On my way home from "The Holy War" down in Provo, I heard Max Hall's comments live on the radio. I was pretty upset with what Max Hall had to say. I am a huge Ute fan and graduated from the University. I have lots of respect for BYU. I grew up in a home that was dominated by BYU fans. I have no hard feelings to the University. However, I must say that his comments were out of line and I wanted to sum a few points about the comments.

"I don't like Utah. In fact, I hate them — I hate everything about them.

"I hate their program. I hate their fans. I hate everything. So, it feels good to send those guys home. They didn't deserve it. It was our time, and it was our time to win. We deserved it. We played as hard as we could tonight, and it felt really good to send them home and to get them out of here, so it is a game I'll always remember."

"Do you really want me to go into it? I think the whole university and their fans and organization is classless. They threw beer on my family and stuff last year and did a whole bunch of nasty things. I don't respect them, and they deserve to lose."

1) I don't have a problem that Hall hates Utah. I think that many players on both sides have this same feeling. There really isn't anything here that fuels the fire for me any more than it was already fueled. I do believe the LDS beliefs and religion discourage this kind of hate; however, that doesn't offend me as a person.

2) This is fine if Hall feels they deserved it. Both sides also probably felt the same way. It was a close game to the end, it could have gone either way and BYU pulled it out. Congratulations there. I have no hard feelings about the game being given away or lost. Someone was going to win and someone lose. I wish the other side had won, but it was still a great game.

3) I completely disagree with that the entire Utah program and fan base is classless. First off, I know there are stupid and retarded fans. And yes, I disagree with drinking morally, but (gasp) people do that. Now, there is no reason anyone should throw their beer or any drink on fans from another schools. This is idiotic, classless, and shows complete lack of self-restraint. I understand why Hall has no respect for these types of people. I myself also have no respect for them. These fans truly are classless.

4) Hall should realize however that all Utah fans are not that way. And why the program is also "classless" sure beats me. If I were to use this same logic with BYU, then I could say that the BYU fan base and BYU program is a bunch of unforgiving cocky haters. However, I realize this isn't true. There are some people from BYU that are like this (Hall would be here based on his comments), but that doesn't mean every single person at BYU is this type of a person and that the entire program is this way. It just means that there are people like this. In my opinion, these comments don't reflect the belief of the BYU program or LDS religion, rather they reflect on the character of Max Hall. He has had a year to think about this, and the fact that he thinks that all Ute fans are classless clearly shows that he has some other problem whether emotional or logical. That is not for me to determine but I think that Hall needs to step back.

In conclusion, I think Hall has lost his head with these comments. However, in no way do I think these comments diminish BYU as a program or their win yesterday. Rather they diminish Hall himself as a player and as person. BYU still has a great program and a lot of great fans. They also have their classless crowd as well. Utah has their classless crowd but they also have their good outstanding fans and players like every University. I hope that Hall can realize that what he said is pretty classless itself, apologize, and that we can all move on. Both sides have great teams and classy fans. I hope my rant isn't too "classless" for Mr. Hall though.

P.S. It was a great game yesterday and I had a really fun time in the BYU student section. Too bad the Utes couldn't pull it out.