This passion for the U. raised a few eyebrows, coming as it does from a BYU graduate and a descendant of Brigham Young's brother. Young, who has three children, is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (He has served as a stake president and an early-morning seminary teacher.) Signing on with the U. seemed tantamount to Lincoln joining the Confederacy. On the other hand, BYU President Cecil Samuelson is a U. graduate.

"With my last name, (religion affiliation) is usually the third question I'm asked," he said. "Two things I remind people. We refer to BYU as the University of Utah-Provo. Brigham Young got its start as the Timpanogos branch of the University of Deseret (which later became the U.). I tell Cecil, all is forgiven; they can come back into the fold any time they want. We try to beat each other's brains out in football, but we have about 40 collaborative projects with BYU professors. It improves the quality of both schools."

For a man working long hours — cheerfully — Young acts like a man who is having way too much fun.

"I have yet to get any negative comment about him, which is unbelievable," said regent Jim Jardine. "I'm sure some don't like decisions he's made, but if he were getting a report card today, he'd have a 4-point."

Said Snow College President Mike Benson, "He has all the bona fides to be taken very seriously in any setting — world and political affairs, academia, business, law, etc. — yet I've never met anyone more self-deprecating and less full of himself than Mike."

Young looks at the large portraits of Utah's past 13 presidents hanging in the hallway outside his office and says, "It's hard to imagine my portrait up there with those guys. It will be like that 'Sesame Street' game — which one's not like the other one?"

Young likes to tell this story: His great-great-great-grandfather was Lorenzo Dow Young, younger brother of Brigham Young and a member of the first pioneer wagon train to reach the Salt Lake Valley. (Lorenzo is pictured in bas-relief on the west side of the This Is the Place Monument, the man closest to the woman — his wife.)

"He wasn't as smart as Brigham, but he was very loyal and hard working," Young said. "That's the gene pool I come from."

Then again, the U. president did graduate from Harvard Law School and held several positions in the George H.W. Bush administration and taught at Yale and Columbia and helped craft the German unification process and studied and worked in Japan for years.

Educating the president

Young's passion for education is easy to trace.

His mother, Ethelyn Sowards Young, flew bombers during World War II. His father, Vance Young, owned a small grocery store. They lived in Chester, Calif., a small, isolated lumber and cattle town.