This is a great article by Gregg Doyle from CBSSports.com. The piece is about BYU's ability to produce high caliber athletic programs in spite of (or is it because of??) it's honor code. I loved it.
"This one's on me, because I had no idea. Brigham Young University has been around for more than 100 years, and it has been competing at the highest levels of college athletics for decades, and I simply had no idea that BYU was competing and even winning with an honor code straight out of the 16th century. And I don't mean that as a slap at BYU. Really, I do not. The BYU honor code is based on the Mormon faith, obviously, but it strikes me as Puritan, complete with expulsion on the grounds of the scarlet letter. Which would be "A". For adultery. That's the term for sex outside marriage, including sex before marriage, and it's forbidden for BYU students. You heard me right. BYU students can't have sex. Nor can they smoke a cigarette. Sex and then a cigarette? Forget it. It's against the BYU honor code.
I know this now, today, because of Harvey Unga. He's the all-time leading rusher in BYU football history, and he has one more season to play at BYU after deciding not to enter this week's NFL Draft, but he won't be back. He's gone. He voluntarily removed himself from the team, and from school, late last week after failing to live up to the BYU honor code.
That was the news that broke late Friday night, and it left me confused, scrambling for more information. Honor code? BYU has an honor code? I had no idea, and I pay attention to college sports for a living. More precisely, I was with the BYU men's basketball team last month in Oklahoma City, where the Cougars beat Florida in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. And I had no idea I was watching a team with an honor code beating a team without one. Florida is one of the biggest party schools in the country, you know. Tanned teenagers and young adults drinking and smoking and, I bet, sexing. That's the rumor. Plus, I went to Florida. I never did any of those things, mind you, but I heard about it. Most kids are dying to go to a school like Florida, because that sort of fun stuff happens. It's even allowed.
Not at BYU. It's not allowed. None of that is allowed. Not drinking, not smoking, and not sexing. What, specifically, did Harvey Unga do to remove himself from school? Nobody's saying, but on the same day that he removed himself from BYU, so did a starting forward on the BYU women's basketball team. Her name is Keilani Moeaki. She has been dating Unga for three years. They were engaged for a while last year. What did they do, in tandem, to warrant removing themselves from school? Nobody knows, but those are the dots, and you are left to connect them.
Me, I'll ask a question:
How does BYU do it? How does BYU attract enough recruits to field a competitive football team, one good enough to go 43-9 over the last four years?..."
To read the entire article click
here.
