Athletic director Tom Holmoe praises BYU student-athletes' work on and off field

PROVO — Instead of focusing on speculation about the future, BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe chose to speak about the extraordinary efforts made by BYU student-athletes and supporters.

Holmoe, who spoke at BYU's Education Week, began with a focus on the role athletics play in representing the university, the state of Utah and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"That's an awesome responsibility," he said. "And our young men and women do a great job of upholding that."

Holmoe spent the bulk of his presentation counting down the top 20 achievements by BYU athletics during the 2009-2010 academic year. He highlighted several athletic successes, including a victory the Deseret First Duel rivalry series over the University of Utah; BYU football's wins over Oklahoma and Utah; the nine Mountain West Conference championships the school earned; and the NCAA basketball tournament win over Florida, the first by BYU since 1993.

"It represents an incredible effort, an incredible tradition," he said of the on-field achievements. "We can't do it ourselves. It's not about me, it's not about (men's basketball coach) Dave Rose, it's not about (former quarterback) Max Hall or any other student-athlete. It's about all of us together."

Many achievements focused on unprecedented exposure the university received.

Holmoe noted that BYU basketball's NCAA tournament win over Florida was the most-watched online live sporting event in history with 1,115,097 views.

Men's basketball commercials featuring players Lamont Morgan Jr. and Charles Abouo as "Ronnie Ron and Roscoe" were named the top online promotion for college athletics in the country by the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators.

"We want to try to put ourselves in a position to be the best we can in exposure across the country to help our fans see what's going on and lets our kids shine as a bright light," Holmoe said.

The last category of top 20 entries addressed off-the-field achievements by student-athletes, academically, charitably and spiritually. Holmoe emphasized the importance of young men and women keeping that title in the proper order.

"Certainly, our athletes are here first and foremost to be students," he said. "They don't call them 'athlete-students,' they call them 'student-athletes.' There's a reason 'student' comes first."