The Cook'n Elves have been working their magic lately and I am excited to tell you about some of the new stuff that they've done. But, something epic happened the other night and I would be remiss if I didn't tell you about it!

As you may know, my nephew Kalani Sitake is the head coach of the BYU football team. When Kalani married my niece, Timberly, twenty years or so ago, the two of them moved into my basement and lived with us for the first year of their marriage.

Kalani and I played basketball together with some friends at the church at 5:30 am every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We were part of the search party looking for Elizabeth Smart in the mountains when she was kidnapped. We did a lot of things together and grew very close. He's my brother from another mother!

Now that Kalani is the head coach of the BYU football team, I love to go to his games to cheer him on. My son, Carson, and I returned from a motorcycle trip and went straight from camping to the game with the travel trailer. We did a little tailgating, ate some yummy food, and then we jumped on the dirt bikes and rode through the traffic right to the front gate which, in and of itself, was quite a fun adventure!

Our seats in the 4th row were amazing!

Pre-season, BYU was picked to finish dead last in the Big 12 Conference. And, unranked BYU was definitely expected to lose to #13 ranked Kansas State. But, as you can see in this video that I shot before the game started, the air was electric! The excitement was palpable!



With less than a minute and a half left in the first half, BYU was losing 6 to 3. That's when everything changed! In the last 90 seconds of the first half, miracles started happening and BYU ended up taking a 17 to 6 halftime lead.

The momentum continued at the start of the second half and BYU ended up winning the game 38 to 9. If you would like to see some miracles in action, here is a super fun summary of the entire evening...




Needless to say, the game was thrilling! It was so loud in the Lavell Edwards Stadium (LES), that my ears were ringing when I got home!

As epic as this game was, in my opinion, the most remarkable part of the whole story was what happenend OFF the field. You can read about it in the Deseret News article entitled "Latter-day Saint leader sends BYU students a note about their treatment of Kansas State’s football team."

In a nutshell, back in 1986, church leader, Jeffrey R. Holland, "expressed disappointment during a campus devotional because fans of the school’s football team booed their National Championship-winning quarterback during a game a couple of months earlier."

But, this year he had a different message for BYU fans. Apparently, the BYU fans rolled out the red carpet for the Kansas State players and fans in a way that I've never heard of before.

Not only did the BYU band actually play the Kansas State fight song, they gave ice cream to K-State fans. And, BYU fans donated more than $63,000 to help Kansas State's starting quarterback Avery Johnson's high school principal who has been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.

“That was probably one of the weirdest environments I’ve been a part of,” Johnson said. “It was like their fans were encouraging, almost. Most of the time the fans try to heckle you or say bad things about you before the game. But all their fans were encouraging. It was just a different environment to be in.”

Johnson said BYU fans were so nice to the Wildcats that they stayed late and complimented them on their way off the field and into the locker room.

“After the game people were saying, ‘Good job’ or ‘Keep your heads up.’ It was just weird, because fans don’t say that after the game, especially after they beat you like that. Definitely something I have never been a part of and never experienced. I probably won’t experience something like that again.”

Tim Fitzgerald, publisher of GoPowercat, a Kansas State fan publication, said a K-State player’s parents reported walking half a mile to their hotel from the stadium and receiving only positive comments about their team and school.

“The human race likes to divide itself, whether it’s skin color, tribe, nationality or religion, and sometimes religion is a point of friction,” Fitzgerald said. “Let’s be honest, we all have our differences, but when you come first with love and you come first with understanding and compassion, that’s all that really matters to someone else, and they do that. I think it’s a beautiful lesson for all of us.”

I thought the game was epic. But, I think this Christ-like behavior of the BYU fans is even more remarkable. I'm also grateful for my nephew, head coach Kalani Sitake for creating such an amazing culture here at BYU and for setting such a great example. As I told my son Carson "I taught him everything he knows!" 😁

Go COUGS!!