Friends post big ad for 'old' bachelor

LINDON — It's not often that a person driving down the road unexpectedly comes face to face with a Mount Rushmore-esque mirror-image of himself on an I-15 billboard.

But that is exactly what happened recently to former Brigham Young University basketball player Lance Archibald, the male-model handsome holder of a Harvard MBA and returned LDS missionary with a burgeoning career in marketing.

So, what is behind the billboard ad campaign? Apparently, Archibald has come down with a case of Steve Young Syndrome: He's 31, very eligible, bumping around Utah Valley, but — gasp — he's UNMARRIED!

His friends and co-workers at LogoWorks secured the billboard ad space as part of a campaign replete with a Web site — www.datelance.com — in an effort to rehabilitate this wayward son and get him on the right side of the altar. The strategy: Get the word out to the female population at large that Lance is the rare confluence of Brad Pitt looks, Mr. Rogers wholesomeness and Ben Stein smarts.

Translation: His friends and co-workers want him to get off the dime, hook up, and get hitched.

"It kind of came out of discussions we had, that Lance is such a good guy but not married," LogoWorks CEO Morgan Lynch said. "Someone threw out the idea of getting a billboard, then we had some more conversations about it.

"We wanted it to be funny; it wasn't going to be a practical joke. And Lance has been a good sport about it. There are no negative connotations. We exposed only a few details of his life, and they're all positive ones."

Archibald, who's been at Lindon-based LogoWorks for six months, had no knowledge of his co-workers' scheme until Friday when his compatriots came up with the perfect plan for bringing him face to face with the billboard. With Lynch at the wheel for a supposed lunch-run, Archibald riding shotgun, and a van full of LogoWorks employees watching in eager anticipation, Lynch motored over to the Lindon billboard.

"His eyes got bigger, and he leaned forward and said, 'What in the world?' " co-worker Noelle Bates said. "I think he was shocked that we actually pulled it off."

The billboard and accompanying Web site are phenomena that very likely could only have seen the light of day in a place like Utah Valley. Just ask Young — a former 49ers quarterback and recent football Hall of Fame inductee who also took his time getting to the altar — where else would a good-looking, successful man in his 30s merit even a second glance for simply being single?