"I think the whole university and their fans and the organization is classless," Hall said. "They threw beer on my family and stuff last year and did a whole bunch of nasty things. I don't respect them and they deserved to lose."
Do I blame Max for saying these things? No, I do not. Let me explain by going back last year to the football game. Max Hall family came to the Utah's stadium to support him, the BYU football team and to have fun. But unfortunately they were robbed of the pleasure of having fun. They were threatened verbally and much more. They had Beer thrown on them, they were spit on, physically assaulted, vile comments about his wife and his mom, his religion. Some Utah fans had a blow up doll of his mom and they peed on it and did other things. In the end they had to escorted out of the Rice-Eccles Stadium by the police.
Let me say it again I don't blame Max for saying those things. If anyone did that to my family I would say the same thing and most likely add in a few other words or actions. Utes fans if you can honestly tell me that you would have acted better than that. You are a better person that I am. I also don't think that he meant to say that he hates every Utah fan, and that he thinks every Ute classless. He is guilty like we are of generalizing. How many times do we catch ourselves saying "I hate BYU" or "I hate Utah" or even "I hate the Lakers"? I am sure all of us have said it at one time or other. We are all guilty of generalizing. Do we really hate them? No, we are just generaliazing.
Which brings me to the next question. Do I think he should have said those words? I would have to say "yes and no". No, because he should of been the better person. Yes, because I do feel like something needs to change. No one desires to treated the way Max Hall's family was treated last year.
Do I believe BYU is innocent? No, not at all. We are just as guilty. My mom said that when she was walking back to the car after the game. Some young BYU fans most likely students where heckling an elderly couple in red. They were yelling at them to go back to Salt Lake and much more. This is just inapprociate. I feel like as fans we are on this downward spiral. We are competiting to see who can be worse. That is why I feel like we should rise the bar of sportmanship.
I believe that rivalries are a good thing. It pushes us to be better than what we were. It gives us to goals to work on. To beat the other team. Life is full of competition. It is a good thing if we treat as such. I am going to create a challenge for all the fans. Lets be better, start a new competition of who can be the most respectful. Lets show the other team the respect they desire. Because lets face it we need each other. Who knows what type of team BYU or Utah would be without each other. Lets be respectful by not throwing beer at them, or spiting on them, or throwing their cell phones to the field, or saying mean things or making them feel so threaten that you they have to be escorted out by the police. But instead lets have sportmanship. Which I now believe forgotten by so many people. If you find out you are sitting next to the other team's QB's family be polite and wish them luck. If you see elderly couple supporting the other team limping to their car give them your hand and tell them that it was a good game as always. We can do better. We can be more respectful. There is no need for inapprociate behavior from the fans. Let bring back the innocent fun to the games.
Next year is Utah's turn to house BYU. I challenge the Utah fans to be respectful that way when it is BYU's turn we will try to be more respectful. Let change the downward spiral to a upward spiral. Let's Change for the better.
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