\nOr perhaps I should say the clash of cultures<\/i> that surround the rivalry, which is known in these parts as “The Holy War.”<\/p>\n
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Allow me to explain for the out-of-towners: you see, this is no mere sports rivalry. There’s a lot of cultural baggage attached to this particular match-up, and it’s all informed by the constant tension in this state between the Mormons and the so-called “gentiles,” i.e., the non-Mormons.<\/p>\n
BYU is owned by the Church and the vast majority of its students are Mormons; if that wasn’t enough of a damper on the fun times, the students are required to adhere to a strict code of conduct<\/a> that forbids pretty much all the things college-age people like to do (namely, drinking and “fraternizing” — nudge nudge, wink wink — with the opposite sex). As a result, BYU has a reputation for sanctimonious goody-two-shoeness.<\/p>\n The U of U, on the other hand, is a state institution open to all comers, and it’s widely perceived around here as a liberal hotbed and a den of iniquity. (In the interest of full disclosure, the U is my alma mater.)<\/p>\n These are gross generalizations, of course, and not entirely fair, but they’re not entirely untrue either. You’re not likely to ever see a chapter of Delta Tau Chi<\/a> at the Y, and you’ve got reasonably good chances of scoring with a loose hippie chick if you attend the U. It’s kind of like these two schools are alternate-universe, fun-house-mirror images of each other, the Federation vs. the evil Spock-with-a-beard Empire.<\/p>\n Anyway, all of blather is a rather lengthy prologue to the point of this entry, which is to mention the opening of the latest front in The Holy War: the Great T-Shirt Battle of 2008.<\/p>\n It apparently began when BYU football coach Bronco Mendenhall — doesn’t that sound like a total movie-character name? — came up with a pithy new slogan for the program this year: “Fully Invested.” Naturally, this quickly became the must-have item of apparel (available here<\/a>) for every Cougar fan in the state:<\/p>\n And just as naturally, somebody from north of Point of the Mountain (the dividing line between the Salt Lake Valley — U of U territory — and Utah Valley, where the Y resides) came up with a smart-alecky, mirror-universe response to Brigham Young shirts:<\/p>\n![\"Fully](\"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/images\/fully_invested.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Fully](\"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/images\/fully_intoxicated_2.jpg\")
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