On the Road with Cruiser: Bronco and the Prospective Warrior

When Bronco Mendenhall sits down in his office with a new recruit, he knows exactly what he is going to say and how he is going to say it. Other coaches may do a song and dance; others may boast, others may make wonderful promises, but it is fair to say that none will say what Coach Mendenhall says.

After welcoming the recruit, he shares the mission statement of the school and the team, often by quoting from President Hinckley. After this, he bears witness that President Gordon B. Hinckley is a prophet of God and that he intends to sustain the prophet’s wishes to the best of his ability. Then he opens a Book of Mormon and reads from it, usually from Helaman’s story of the 2,000 stripling warriors, those young men who were exact in obedience and never beaten in battle.

He tells the young man that he feels a duty to prepare his athletes to become modern stripling warriors, both on and off the field. When he is through, recruits have been known to bear their own testimonies, or shed tears, or even say they want to join the program so they can become warriors like those guys in the book. His words are simple, eloquent, and powerful. Many recruits are ready to commit right then, but Coach Mendenhall wants to make sure they are right for the program.

He tells them there are four basic things they will have to do if they join this program. If they aren’t willing to do so, then they aren’t ready to play football at BYU:

1. Athletes are expected to be role models for both Brigham Young University and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This means they are expected to obey the basic commandments of the Church whether they are members or not and to know and live the school’s Honor Code.

2. They are expected to maintain a 3.0 grade point average. The NCAA requires all athletes to maintain a cumulative 2.0, but this isn’t high enough for Coach Mendenhall. According to the football office, BYU is now ranked #1 in the nation for team GPA, at 2.98. Rather than please Coach Mendenhall, this news irks him, because the team has fallen short of their goal. A few players have dragged the others down—something he intends to remedy soon. Walk-on players are told that if they fall below a cumulative 3.0, or have a single semester below 2.0, they will be released. All 22 of BYU’s seniors from last season will have graduated by next January. New recruits are expected to graduate by the time their eligibility is up.

3. They are expected to give numerous hours of community service, both during the season and off-season. In a program called the "Ultimate Warrior," goals for service are tracked by the coaches. Each player is held accountable and there is no evading their responsibilities to organize new service projects and complete them. Last year BYU players rendered over 1,000 hours of community service, visiting children in hospitals, helping the homeless, serving the elderly, etc. The coaches expect this number to increase this year.

4. The players are expected to play and practice with an absolute commitment to win. Last year was a good start, as the team went 11 - 2 and won the Las Vegas Bowl, but Coach Mendenhall wants his players to build upon not only last year’s team, but upon all the great teams of the past to create a self-sustaining culture of winning. If the sons of Helaman hadn’t won their battles, nobody would be talking about them today. Victory is important. It is crucial. It is how teams are judged, and, to a large extent, it is how the players will judge their own collegiate careers when they are done playing.

Coach Mendenhall tells them he is firm in these demands. There are no exceptions, no matter how good they are. You play for the team or you find another team. You succeed or drop over trying. In return, he promises them the very best he can give them, the best coaches, the best facilities, the best school for students with their values. He promises the LDS recruits not only the freedom to serve missions for the Lord, but the expectation that they will do so. He promises them all the opportunity to become the very best young men they can become, and to do so along with 100 other like-minded young men.

When he is through, most recruits are electrified. They are charged with commitment and desire to serve this man, to please him, to show him that they are equal to his demands. They can see that he is a man of his word, a man who will not back down, who doesn’t care what others say. He stares at them, letting his words hang in the air, and then, if he sees the correct response in them, that light in their eyes, he will open his drawer and pass an envelope to them, making them the offer of a lifetime. And as often as not, their commitment comes right then.

And from that moment on, their lives are changed as they become a part of the BYU football phenomenon, part of a latter-day army of stripling warriors, one of the newest sons of Bronco Mendenhall.