Skousen was ready to retire a decade ago, but Bateman then and current BYU president Cecil O. Samuelson, asked him to grip the BYU sports two-by-four a little longer. Now it's been 38 years. He's looking forward to spending time with his 24 grandchildren, five sons, a daughter and his wife, Julie, an older sister of former Cougar quarterback, Gifford Nielsen.

It's ironic that a guy who teaches bean counters how to line up figures on a ledger sheet would end up impacting BYU football and basketball and other sports so heavily. Dr. Fred Skousen's introductory and intermediate accounting books have been distributed to millions of college students throughout the world. One is in its ninth edition, the other is in its 13th.

"A lot of students have had a lot of pain trying to go through those books," he said.

Current athletic director Tom Holmoe, whom Skousen helped hire to replace himself in 2004-05 as acting athletic director, says the professor knows his stuff.

"His wealth of experience on our campus in his level positions provided me tremendous insight when making important decisions," said Holmoe.

Of late, Skousen's worries have been over the MWC television contract and exposure BYU and other schools have not obtained — as promised. As he leaves his post, it still haunts him.

BYU is committed to the MWC as a founding member, but that hasn't come without frustration. "We've made some aggressive moves with the conference and let our TV partners know the situation, that it is not acceptable and we need to have some changes made.

"Getting DirecTV on board so more exposure is given to the league is an important step, but it's the first step. Unless we're able to get additional progress in getting our sports on BYU television and our Olympic sports more broadly broadcast, we haven't done a total job."

Skousen said BYU is still working on TV issues that frustrate MWC fans, specifically BYU fans who demand more exposure. "I'm optimistic and hopeful we can do that within the MWC framework. If we're not able to accomplish all of our objectives, we may have to pursue other options."

And what would that be?

Skousen isn't saying specifically. Fans routinely rally around a conference change to the Pac-10 or Big 12. "But you have to be invited," said Skousen. No invitation is on the table.

Of the exposure issues and "other options," Skousen said, "We are working on it and feel good about where things are going but we are not done yet. We've got to make sure our fans have total access to all our BYU sports."

BYU TV could be part of the answer. While The mtn. network has between 1 and 2 million viewers, BYU boasts 45 million.