Mission factor a real one

Gene Wojciechowski is a talented and respected veteran college football writer. He's currently on assignment for ESPN the Magazine in Canada seeking the story behind Ben Olson, an LDS Church missionary, who at one time was considered the top high school recruit.

Wojciechowski is in Sparwood, British Columbia, this week. It is the assigned area of Elder Olson and his companion from Orem. Wojciechowski is there with special permission from the LDS Church Missionary Committee and the local mission president. To aid the writer, BYU sent football sports information director Jeff Reynolds.

What he will find is something Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly should have discovered several years ago — LDS missions are not football camps. There is no ready access to Gold's Gym. Early to rise and early to sleep interrupts what is generally a hard-working day filled with a lot of study, walking and preaching as muscles atrophy and skills wane. It's part of the sacrifice, along with parting with the car and girlfriend to prioritize and serve a greater cause.

Wojciechowski likely found the 10-degree temperature in Sparwood biting. And Olson wasn't lounging around in a hot tub or spa after lifting weights.

As for the rumor that Elder Olson will not return to BYU upon completion of his mission? "It's just a rumor. I've never said anything like that," Olson told the magazine writer.

The mission story is old, but it's becoming bigger around BYU these days. The ratio of athletes serving missions while mixing in football has never been higher. The Cougars have become a team in transition — and sometimes it involves as long as seven years.

No other college football team faces such transition, or would if it could. It's an anti-football situation in terms of continuity, skill development and team chemistry.

No other college team has 38 married players as BYU does. I assign no interpretation to that.

Name another Division I coach in America who accepted a job with the edict to give out scholarships to more than a dozen athletes sight unseen — like at BYU.

I cannot find any football program that's listed 16 of 85 scholarship players at the receiver position — 19 percent of the team's roster the past 24 months. This is what BYU ended up with in the baton exchange between LaVell Edwards and Gary Crowton.

Try to find a Division I program that handed out only nine of the allowed 25 scholarships in February as did the Cougars due to promises of previous coaches to returning missionaries.

Recruiting is the lifeblood of college sports. Some say 80 percent of the college game is recruiting. Heaven knows, a cadre of coaches have cheated to get it done over the years.

Recruiting at BYU is kind of unique. It's a shell game.