For years after becoming a basketball coach in 1968, Lynn Archibald always made excuses - albeit legitimate excuses - for not accepting callings in the Church.
Saturday night road games with red-eye airplane flights and recruiting trips to one end of the country and back again made it tough for him just to attend meetings."It was easy to say no," said Archibald, now head basketball coach at the University of Utah. The 43-year-old coach is being touted for Western Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honors. This year he led the Utes to a 19-9 record (as of March 9) and a tie for second place in the conference.
Two years ago, while returning home from the temple - he still regularly attends the 5:45 a.m. session - the basketball coach felt strongly that he needed to serve more in the Church.
"I'll just have to make the time," he told his wife, Anne, when he got home.
The next week he was called to be instructor of Course 16 in the Bountiful, Utah, 46th Ward Sunday School. Studying his lessons while on airplanes, buses and in hotel rooms, Archibald became a popular teacher. He learned, he said refering to the old adage, more than his students.
Then a short time later - in fact, two days before a crucial game against BYU last year - Pres. Craig L. Smith of the Bountiful Utah Mueller Park Stake called Archibald to become Bishop Lynn R. Kuehne's second counselor.
"I thought of all the old excuses," Archibald said. "But Pres. Smith had been so good to me, and Bishop Kuehne knew what my schedule was like - I really didn't have an out. There was a great spirit in the interview, too."
Archibald accepted and now is first counselor to Bishop Kuehne.
"When we told the family," Sister Archibald said, "one of the boys said, 'I knew if we kept reading the scriptures something like this would happen."
The Archibalds assured their children, Damon, 15; Lee Ann, 13; and Beau, 11, that the family would receive blessings for their father's service.
"Soon after that, a neighbor, on his way to the trash dump, stopped by our house when we were cleaning the yard and offered to put our junk on his truck," Sister Archibald recalled. "The youngest child said, 'Is this our first blessing?'"
Archibald's eyes swelled with tears when he talked about his family. He tries to spend individual time with them. He took Lee Ann on a special trip to Las Vegas, Nev. Damon accompanied him on a recruiting trip to Phoenix, Ariz., recently. And Beau traveled with his fater to Logan, Utah, where the Utes played Utah State University.
Both Damon and Beau play basketball, but Archibald says he hasn't pushed them. However, a basketball standard has been a permanent fixture at each Archibald home. And he replaced the driveway of their front yard in Bountiful to make it safer for the youths to play.
As a youth in Torrance, Calif., Archibald was an outstanding high school basketball player. He finished his college basketball career at Fresno State University, where he met Anne, then a non-member. They were introduced through Anne's roommate, who said, "The only thing wrong with him is he's a Mormon." After their first date, she called her brother and said she had met the man she would marry.
When Archibald reached the same conclusion, he wanted to ask Anne's parents for her hand in marriage. However, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Four times he headed for her parents' house with that intent. Each time he came a little closer until on the fourth try, he was on her front doorstep and opening the screen door before retreating and returning home. Finally, on the fifth try, he asked them. They gave their blessing, and the pair was married in December 1968. Anne took the discussions and was baptized in 1969.
Archibald was an assistant high school coach that year when he met Jerry Tarkanian, then coach of Long Beach State University.
"Jerry used to go to a lot of coaching clinics in California, and I went to every clinic," Archibald recalled. After seeing the young prep coach several times, Tarkanian waved to Archibald and motioned for him to come out in the hall during one of the sessions. Archibald thought he was waving at somebody else and didn't leave. Later, Tarkanian sought out Archibald and the pair developed a close friendship that continues today.
The next year (1970), Tarkanian hired Archibald as his assistant at Long Beach State. Archibald also assisted Tarkanian at the University of Nevada Las Vegas from 1974-1976. During this time, Archibald was a final candidate for several head coaching jobs but never was hired. The Archibalds now believe they needed to get another part of their lives in order before he became a head coach. A timely visit by a bishop and the elders quorum president led to their going through the temple July 3, 1976.
"Life changed quickly after that," he said. "In less than a year, I was the head coach at Idaho State University. I've felt that if you take care of eternal goals, then other things will work out for you."
After five years at Idaho State, he resigned in 1982. Then several coincidental events led him and his family to Bountiful, Utah, and an assistant coaching position at University of Utah.
"Things had just fallen into place," he said. "Several times, we asked ourselves 'Why are we here?'"
Seven months later he became head basketball coach at the University of Utah.
"It's difficult to recruit here to Utah," Archibald said. "The non-Mormons think the school is all Mormon, and the Mormons think this is a non-Mormon school. One recruit asked me to show him what a Mormon looked like. I think he was expecting Mormons to have beards and wear long black coats. I said, 'You're looking at one.'"
