PROVO — Every morning, the blond-haired boy arose in the predawn darkness to make the half-mile trip out to the barn near his parents' Alpine home. His father always had plenty of strenuous, unglamorous work for him to do.

Among the chores included cleaning manure out of the stalls, feeding the cows and horses and hauling hay. They were big jobs for a small boy who was still in elementary school.

But Paul Mendenhall always had the utmost confidence in his son, Bronco, who accomplished every task with efficiency and meticulousness. "He's been an unusual young man since he was seven or eight years old," Paul says. "He has always been a very hard worker. I'd ask him to do things a grown man would do. He was extremely dependable. He always did it right. In the dead of winter, in two feet of snow, or in the heat of summer. It didn't matter. He never complained."

By the time he was in the fifth grade, Bronco was driving a pickup truck around the farm to perform various responsibilities — even though he wasn't tall enough to see over the top of the steering wheel.

"He'd say, 'Dad, I can't see,'" Paul recalls. "I'd say, 'C'mon, Bronco! Get going! And he'd take off. I didn't dare tell his mom. I could tell him to do anything, and he'd do it. He'd give shots to the horses. If you do it in the wrong spot, it could kill the horse. After I showed him how to do it, I never worried about it with him. Bronco would have to clean the stall and remove the horse manure. Sometimes he'd get down on his hands and knees and pick up pieces one by one. He wanted it to be perfect. It's a silly, little thing, but that carried on to big things. He's never satisfied with anything less than excellence in everything he does."

Every day after school, Bronco would go home and return to the barn. Once inside, his eyes would gaze up at a white board filled with a list of chores his dad had scrawled on it. He was charged with major responsibilities related to the family business - caring for and training up to 20 horses that were worth a total of $400,000.

"My dad simply just expected it to be done, and there was never the thought of, 'I can't do this, I'm too little, I'm not yet old enough.' It was, just go do it," Bronco says. "He would leave sometimes for a week to 10 days at a time when I was in junior high school and I was responsible for running his share of the operation and going to school. I was just a little kid. But I never viewed myself like that because my parents didn't. My intention was always that whenever my parents came back, they would be very impressed. That it might look better than when they left. That was instilled early."

Is it any wonder, then, that Bronco Mendenhall, whom Brigham Young University promoted in December to be its 14th head football coach, oversees practices in the bitter cold wearing shorts? Is it any wonder that he never makes excuses? Is it any wonder he demands excellence, even perfection, from his players? Is it any wonder he preaches teamwork, discipline and effort? Is it any wonder that nobody has higher expectations for BYU's football program than he does?