Holmoe gives Cougar 'junkies' what they need

PROVO, Utah — Aside from Tuesday's devotional, Tom Holmoe hadn't

attended many Campus Education Week activities before giving his own

presentation on Thursday, Aug. 20.

His football coach made up for it, though.

"I don't think I've caught any other Education Week talks except for a

few by Bronco Mendenhall in team meetings," said Holmoe, BYU's director

of athletics. "They were really good."As a fifth-year presenter, Holmoe knows that a BYU sports update is an

Education Week tradition for many attendees, so he made sure not to

neglect the Cougar "junkies."He gave a brief overview of an athletic

program that won nine conference championships, had 31 all-Americans

and made 11 NCAA postseason appearances in 2008-09.He talked about

lofty goals and how mad he gets when BYU doesn't get the top LDS

recruits in the country. And he ended his presentation with a photo

slide show that read "Beat Utah" while "Rise and Shout" played in the

background.

But Holmoe's stated goal was "education," and the former NFL defensive

back spent most of his time talking about Bill Walsh, Mount Everest,

lighting fires and his 602 little brothers and sisters.

Relationships and goal-setting, Holmoe said, are the keys to athletic

success. He emphasized the importance of building solid and significant

relationships, and said teams, coaches and players who operate on

surface relationships don't succeed.

"How often do they win championships?" Holmoe said. "Never. They can't

do it. ... That's one of the goals, to build relationships of trust,

relationships where you have confidence and they will look out for your