BYU Campus Education Week: BYU student-athletes excel
E-mail story
It's easy. Send a link to the story you were just reading to a friend. Just fill out the form on this page and we'll send it along.
Your name and e-mail address are transmitted to the recipient. Otherwise, it is considered private information; see Privacy policy.
PROVO, UTAH
As BYU athletic director, Tom Holmoe fully understands the role athletics and student-athletes have to represent the university and the Church.
"That's an awesome responsibility," he said, "and our young men and women do a great job of upholding that."
During his education week presentation Aug. 19, Brother Holmoe highlighted the top 20 achievements by BYU athletics during the past year.
Many focused on unprecedented exposure, a primary goal for the future. Brother Holmoe noted the men's basketball team's NCAA tournament win over Florida was the most-watched online live sporting event in history, with 1,115,097 views.
"We want to put ourselves in a position to be the best we can in exposure across the country to help our fans see what's going on and let our kids shine as a bright light," he said.
Some entries addressed off-the-field achievements by student-athletes. Academically speaking, Brother Holmoe stressed the importance of keeping that title in the proper order.
"Certainly, our athletes are here first and foremost to be students," he said. "They don't call them 'athlete-students.' ... There's a reason 'student' comes first."
In the last academic year, 223 BYU student-athletes were named to Academic All-Conference teams, 95 were named Mountain West Conference scholar-athletes, 11 earned Academic All-District awards and six were named Academic All-Americans, three of which, Matt Bauman (football), Jacoby Jacobsen (men's swimming) and Sandra Mazan (women's track), were awarded $7,500 post-graduate scholarships from the NCAA.
BYU student-athletes participated in 250 service projects that impacted more than 77,000 people.
"There is nothing our kids won't do to support the community," he said.
Addressing spiritual moments from the past year, Brother Holmoe highlighted tight bonds formed by the men's basketball team as head coach Dave Rose overcame pancreatic cancer. He also noted three student-athletes who were baptized into the Church: Cassidy Mears and Ricardo Campos (men's tennis) and Derek McAllister (men's track).
Missionary work also abounds off-campus. Brother Holmoe said 114 student-athletes are currently serving missions, 10 are awaiting mission calls and 157 returned missionaries will play in the coming season.
"We're different from any other school in the country," he said. "It's hard to really fit in everywhere, but we do fit in one place – that's Provo, Utah."
He reaffirmed BYU's commitment to avoid playing on the Sabbath.
"We're different, and we try to maintain that position," he said. "We certainly don't want to sacrifice or let our standards down. We don't play on Sunday, and we'll never change that."
