BYU basketball: Student letter about Fredette gets to national media attention

PROVO — A BYU coed, unhappy with all the attention paid to Jimmer Fredette, wrote a letter to the editor in the school newspaper, The Daily Universe, scolding BYU students for the way they "worship" the Cougars' superstar guard.

That letter, and the reaction to it, went viral on the Internet.

The coed wrote:

I can't walk across campus without hearing Jimmer Fredette's name a dozen times. His name comes up everywhere: in class, at work, during lunch ... really, people? Cut it out with the Jimmer worship. Last time I checked, idol worship was very much frowned upon in the scriptures. Don't you have a life to live? Then quit wasting it in front of the TV or in lines at the Marriott Center. At the very least, stop trying to convert those of us who don't follow BYU sports and don't care that baseball and badminton are two different things. Pushing basketball on us isn't going to make us like it any better. I'm not blaming Jimmer for all this; was it Nephi's fault in the Book of Mormon when his brothers worshiped him? As far as I'm concerned, Jimmer is perfectly free to live his dreams. If he reaches his goals and lives his dreams, more power to him. I would like the same courtesy from his fans: let me live my own dreams in peace, even if they don't include ever sitting in the Marriott Center screaming my brains out.

In response to the letter, hundreds of tongue-in-cheek comments about idolizing Fredette were posted to the woman's Facebook page.

"Have you heard about this guy named Jimmer Fredette?" reads one of the hundreds of comments on the Facebook thread. "He is the one and true basketball player at BYU. If you are interested, I could send a couple of our representatives to tell you more about The Jimmer."

The national media picked up on the story by Tuesday afternoon.

Wrote ESPN.com's Eammon Brennan: "All in all, it adds up to some good-natured, harmless, uproarious fun. That thread might be the best thing I've read this season. And the message is simple: Do not besmirch the name of thy Jimmer in Provo, at least if your Facebook wall is accessible to everyone with an account. Because that Facebook wall will get Jimmered. Hard."

e-mail: jeffc@desnews.com