Cougar fan has a case of the 'blues'

Tony Brown has an itch. He's tried hard to get to it and make it go away.

You see, Brown, a Timpview High graduate and Cougar fan with roots in Provo, went away to Georgia and Texas for a while. There he learned just how devoted football fans are to their respective schools, especially at showing up at games and wearing the colors.

In Texas, he got an overdose on a sea of Texas burnt orange and the wave of A&M maroon. It stirred something in Brown. How could fans sell out in such numbers, wearing the same colored gear? So, Brown talked to some old-timers in Texas and Georgia and learned it took a grassroots effort — and it took time.

Brown returned to Provo obsessed. It dug at him. Why did BYU fans show up to games in all kinds of colors including one past Cougar Club president he saw decked in red?

Why not a blue out? What would it take?

Now, campaigns to turn LaVell Edwards Stadium blue are not new. BYU marketing folks have been turning the screws for years on plans to deck out the place in a solid color. But blue, and BYU's change from royal blue to navy blue didn't help. And blue is a passive color. It doesn't scream "notice me" like duds worn at Texas, Tennessee, Utah or Boise State.

Plus, BYU fans have been slow to buy into the idea.

This sent Brown reeling. Independently, he's been working outside the university lines for a blue out in 2007. It started a year ago. As he got going, he obtained advice from a professional ad agency executive in Los Angeles, his brother-in-law. He got on the Internet and pressured Cougarboard.com owner Steve Meyers to help him get some support.

Unlike other "fans" who go a little haywire and start all sorts of campaigns the bring legal and NCAA violations to BYU, he actually met with school marketing officials, including the campus bookstore. He's met with distributors of BYU's official clothing.

He and Meyers started a fund-raising effort outside BYU's officially sanctioned development program and collected hundreds of dollars in donations towards a billboard that is currently on the southbound I-15 freeway near Lindon. He got an artist, Greg Welch from Iowa, to design a poster featuring the frowning face of LaVell Edwards.

And he got Edwards to sign on the use of his mug.

A lot of people on Cougarboard have complained for years that BYU fans don't wear blue to the games. Tony, however, decided to make something happen.

Last fall, he started putting together a campaign to have a "blue out" this year.