The “holy war” between Brigham Young University and University of Utah saw an impressive battle Saturday. BYU fans in Lavell Edwards Stadium cheered the cougars to a 14 point lead over the Utes– a lead they gave away in the fourth quarter. With a touchdown conquering the Ute’s field goal in overtime, BYU claimed the unofficial title for 2009: 26: 23.
Following the game, a triumphant Max Hall, quarterback for BYU, stated that he “hate[d]. . . everything about [the University of] Utah.” Saying that Ute fans are “classless,” Hall referenced an incident from last year’s rivalry game when Utah fans verbally assaulted, spit on, and dumped beer on his family.
According to Hall, the fans in question were escorted to their vehicle by the local police. Ending an embarrassing game for Hall and an unpleasant experience for his family, this experience embittered Hall.
Hall has since apologized to the university, fans, and team from Utah and to his own team and coaching staff.In an interview this morning, BYU head coach, Bronco Mendenhall, says he ‘absolutely’ respects Hall for the way he handled the situation, calling him a ‘great leader’ and a ‘great kid’ who ‘has [Mendenhall's] support.’
According to Mendenhall, “The apology [Max] issued (came) from him and no one else. . . . If anyone thinks they’ve influenced his apology, that’s a mistake; he woke up, did all of that on his own. . . . I haven’t talked to Max yet, nor has anyone else from our coaching staff. Max has done this completely on his own.”
Out of all the games to miss when I’ve been to all the others so far. Last Thursday Brigham Young University hosted the Mountain West Conference semifinals for soccer where Junior Elizabeth Lambert from the New Mexico team was captured on video being extremely violent on the field.
Videos show her pulling a BYU player to the ground by her ponytail, clearly tripping players with the ball, kicking violently and dangerously close to the heads of BYU girls who had been knocked down, kicking into them, even punching one girl in the back!
Lambert has been suspended from the team and rumors have spread that the coaches from New Mexico as well as one of the referees from that game may lose their jobs for not taking the girl off the field sooner. (Though, like I said that is only what I have heard word of mouth) Though I wouldn’t doubt it if it was true. Lambert was given a yellow card in the 77th minute after colliding with a BYU player who was going for the goal but from what I have heard she was never given a red card, which it seems she very much deserved. These were not casual gestures of a normal competitive soccer game when things start to get too rough, these were truly irrational displays of violence.
Aggression came from both sides of the field however. Lambert’s punch to the back, for example was brought on by an elbow to her ribs by one of the BYU soccer players during a dead ball. From what you see in the video however, and maybe this is just personal bias, it didn’t look as though anything BYU did should have brought on half of what Lambert did. Her take down of Kassidy Shumway by grabbing onto her ponytail was totally uncalled for and was completely un-sportsman of her.
The game was won by BYU 1-0 after a header goal by Carlee Payne in the 31st minute and Lambert has since made a formal apology for her actions towards the BYU players as well as to her fellow players from New Mexico and to her coaches for her behavior.
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