organ music that for so many years added to the rich sports heritage at BYU. He quickly accepted and I made a point to greet him when he entered the workers entrance of the arena and we chatted away as I walked with him to the upper section of the Fieldhouse and his “long lost friend”.
Now, everything was just about set.
The final piece and most important person in the arena was that of Head Janitor, Stuart Randolph. A Janitor? Excuse me but did we have a spill of baby food on aisle eight?
Just what was his role in the mind of my madness?
Just wait.
You are going to love this …
***
You can’t believe the rush of energy that motivated sports fans bring with them. Once the doors of Smith Fieldhouse cracked opened, there were dozens, then hundreds of people running - running – to get their prime seat. Hey, in sports and as in life, when you snooze you lose. Fans that came in late were scrambling to the upper sections. Then the in-house organ fired up and it sounded so sweet. Just like being at a MLB baseball game but inside a sports arena. Both Pepperdine and BYU continued their warms up – now with about 15 minutes before the match was to start. Talk about tension – it was thicker than marmalade on a cold winter’s morning. The fans were buzzing. Pepperdine was and of this writing, today coached by the marvelous Marv Dunphy and seeing both him and Carl McGown on the same court was just great. Of course I wore my best dark suit, white shirt and tie and stood on center court chatting with McGown.
I love the game of Volleyball.
With the warm-ups over, both teams cleared the floor with the sweepers moving up and down to clear the surface.
And I was the public address announcer.
Why not? It was my event and I told Carl beforehand that I was going to do it and that was that.
So, I pressed the talk button and let it rip.
First up was the traditional welcome, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Smith Fieldhouse for the first NCAA Men’s Volleyball match between the visiting Pepperdine Waves and YOUR BYU Cougars”.
I might have mentioned before about the noise level in this building.
Just by my saying that, the crowd roared.
First up in the pre-game festivities was a barbershop quartet. I found these four guys singing in the hallways of the BYU Music Department one week earlier and they were really great. I put this no-name group in the requisite black tie and cummerbund and they came to center court to sing the National Anthem. The Star Spangled Banner never sounded so sweet with live organ music playing, 5,000 people stood and sang along.
Remember that this is a church school and as tradition at every single BYU athletic match, no matter the sport, every home game begins with an opening prayer and that’s where I pulled another rabbit out of my bag of tricks.
Brigham Young University is owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is based in Salt Lake City, some 40 miles to the north of the campus.
One of the unspoken rules at BYU is that no student – perhaps I should have underlined the word NO – is ever allowed to contact one of the Church’s General Authorities which runs the day-to-day ecclesiastical operations of the worldwide faithful. Purposely so, because the University leaders do not want the men who run the Church to be inundated with every student so and so who has this or that issue they wanted to discuss with “The Brethren”. If you opened the floodgates for BYU students to call on the General Authorities for a personal or public issue, there would be gridlock in the Salt Lake Valley. But we’re not talking about reaching out to the Pope in the Vatican here. The men who run the 10+ million member LDS Church are in and of themselves some of the most successful businessmen in the world and preside over a multi-billion dollar Church operation. With faithful members of the Church freely self-tithing themselves of 10% of their gross earnings, the LDS Church over the decades has wisely invested their funds and is one of the wealthiest organized religions on the face of the planet. Besides having a Latter-day prophet at the head of the Church, the LDS Church members believe that Planet Earth is itself is overseen by a body of 12 men; a latter-day version of the original Church when Christ himself walked the Jordan Valley, amply called the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
About one week before opening night, I was speaking with Carl McGown on who should give the opening prayer - which is a very big deal at any BYU athletic event - and he mentioned that one of the General Authorities, Elder L. Tom Perry was himself pretty much a Volleyball fanatic.
I asked McGown if he had any issues about me contacting Elder Perry’s office in Salt Lake City and inviting him to drive down to Provo and pray for his (McGown’s) team. Silently knowing that BYU was probably going to be crushed by Marv Dunphy’s Pepperdine squad, I figured the Cougars would stand in need of some divine intervention anyway. Okay, so even though BYU students were prevented from calling the Pope, I mean the General Authorities of the Church, that didn’t prevent me from doing so. I was an alumnus of BYU and not a student, so I was not beholden to these rules. I just stood to fracture my contract with the University but I thought, what the heck.
So I telephoned LDS Church Headquarters in Salt Lake City and finally reached Elder Perry’s secretary whom I sweet talked with for a few minutes before I spoke with the man himself. Now, for me to understand how to run a world-wide Church is a bit outside of my pay grade. I just wanted to make a major statement about the start of NCAA Men’s Volleyball at BYU.
I spoke with Elder Perry for a few minutes and he most graciously said that he would come down to the campus with his wife and offer the opening prayer.
Again let’s go back to the “Mormon” thing for a second. At BYU, when a General Authority shows up at a sporting event, it is about as big as it gets, unless the Prophet himself shows up. And when the Prophet of the Mormon Church does show up on the BYU Campus, like the President of the United States who walks in to the tune of “Hail to the Chief”, the entire student body, upon first seeing him, will immediately stop whatever they are doing, stand ramrod straight and sing – sing mind you – “We Thank Thee O God For A Prophet”, the text of which was written in the mid 1960’s by William Fowler, a convert to Mormonism. Perry is a few steps below the President of the LDS Church but the Mormon faithful still regard him as a “Prophet Seer and Revelator” in his own right. So about five minutes before the match was to begin, Elder Perry and his wife entered the Fieldhouse, sans the student body singing, and sat right behind me in pre-reserved front-row seats. Once the National Anthem was over, with the deepest baritone I could pull from my chest, said the following, “And now, offering tonight’s opening prayer, is Elder L. Tom Perry, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ... Brother Perry.”
I think it was then that 5,000 people probably collectively peed - right on the spot.
Instantly the riotous crowd went “Church Silent” and took a collective gasp as the 6’3” Perry stood and then stepped around my left side. I handed him the microphone; he looked down at me and winked, then closed his eyes. “O Heavenly Father” … Elder Perry started in on his prayer and the arena froze in time. It was no different than this giant of a man praying at the twice yearly General Conference of the LDS Church in Salt Lake City. For Mormons, the significance of Elder L. Tom Perry giving the opening prayer was nothing less than pure Heavenly energy coursing through the building. I have no doubt that with enough faith that night; Elder Perry could have easily opened up the ceiling and mystically/magically have created a skylight to
