BYU, Utah football: Happy to be alive after rivalry game

Thirty years ago — on Nov. 18, 1978, to be precise — I sat in the end zone bleachers of Rice Stadium with my dad and Uncle Ben for my first-ever BYU-Utah football game.

Back then, Jimmy Carter was President; Eccles wasn't yet part of the stadium name; and current Ute coach Kyle Whittingham was a freshman linebacker for the Cougars.

Even though I really had no comprehension of what BYU vs. Utah meant — I was just a kid — I was excited to watch the showdown between the two rivals.

And yet, at the time, I didn't realize how fortunate I was to be able to watch it at all.

Just a couple of days before the game, my mom had given birth to her first daughter after five sons (though not all on the same day). That should have tipped me off that it was going to be a week of the unexpected. The Utes had not beaten the Cougars since 1971 and LaVell Edwards had never lost to Utah as a head coach. Of course, I had no clue about things like that.

My dad and I picked up my uncle and we headed to the game. On the way, we stopped by an old warehouse where my dad owned a printing business, a new investment he had on the side.

Dad opened the door of the warehouse and the three of us were greeted by a portly, bald man sporting tattoos and an earring. A few other scraggly men, who ran the day-to-day operations of the business, emerged from some of the outer rooms to greet us. They looked like thugs to me, like nefarious characters off an episode of "Hawaii Five-O."

They seemed surprised by our visit, but they were very friendly.

"Hey, can you give my son a tour and show him what you do here?" My dad asked one of them. I was a little nervous, but I figured my dad would never allow me to go with a stranger if it wasn't OK.

The bald guy smiled and obliged. He led me to a dark room that had a table with pans of water on top and there were damp papers hanging on a clothesline. The man amiably showed me the printing process, which was interesting and all, and if I had known at the time that I would someday be a journalist, maybe I would have paid closer attention.

But I was preoccupied about The Game.

After a while, we arrived at Rice Stadium and found our seats. I remember it was a dramatic game. I remember hearing a lot of anti-BYU and anti-Utah sentiments for the first time in my life (these days, it seems most fans reserve their name-calling for the Deseret News comment board). I remember I lost a lot of my innocence that day.