Forty years ago, in 1984, Brigham Young University’s football team was second to none. Against all odds, the Cougars finished the season undefeated and were named national champions after a series of big wins and nail-biting victories.
This legacy of excellence continues continues decades later as BYU is having another winning season. Church News reporter Mary Richards interviews Deseret News sports columnist Dick Harmon and slice-of-life columnist Lee Benson on BYU football’s incredible 1984 season and how the football program advances the mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Listen to this episode of the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, bookshelf PLUS, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript:
Lee Benson: What I know now, as I’ve gotten older through the years, is football doesn’t really matter, who wins the games. Heavenly Father isn’t weighing in on who’s supposed to win those football games. There is so much great potential for what BYU does with its athletic programs to be a force for good in the world. So I think it’s always an ebb and a flow, and sports can get out of proportion. So, I wouldn’t have had that attitude 40 years ago, Mary, but now I have a little more perspective, and I think, well, it doesn’t matter that much who wins and loses. It matters how you play the game and how you carry yourself. So I think there’s a great potential, as there was then, now for BYU to show the world what it is.
1:03
Jon Ryan Jensen: This is Jon Ryan Jensen, editor of the Church News. Welcome to the Church News podcast. Today, we are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
1:19
Mary Richards: I’m Mary Richards, a reporter with the Church News and guest hosting today’s Church News podcast. Forty years ago, in 1984, Brigham Young University’s football team was second to none. In a series of big wins and nail-biting victories, the Cougars ended the season undefeated and were named national champions.
Two Deseret News sports writers who witnessed it all are here today to talk about that incredible season, the BYU football program and how it advances the mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Dick Harmon and Lee Benson are here.
Dick Harmon is a sports columnist for the Deseret News in his fourth decade reporting on college athletics. He is the author of four nonfiction books, a Heisman Trophy voter and holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from Brigham Young University. He enjoys travel, fishing, movies and is passionate about golf.
Lee Benson has written slice-of-life columns for the Deseret News since 1998. Prior to that, he was a sports columnist. His subjects have ranged from the Olympic Games to the arrival of the Jazz to the origin of fry sauce. A native Utahn, he grew up in Sandy and lives in the mountains with his family.
Dick Harmon and Lee Benson, welcome to the Church News podcast.
Lee Benson: Thank you. Thanks for being here. This is Lee.
Dick Harmon: Glad to be here. Appreciate it.
2:36
Mary Richards: I’m so happy to talk to both of you. That was quite the season, and it’s been so fascinating for me to look back and learn more about what I didn’t know about the 1984 national championship season. So, I want to tell you that I had a seminary teacher in St. Louis who told me that 40 meant something very biblical, right, in the Bible; it meant a very long time — 40 years in the wilderness, 40 days and nights of the flood. It’s been 40 years since then, but I imagine to both of you that time has passed so quickly. Tell me about what you remember from 1984. Should we start with you, Lee?
3:10
Lee Benson: Sure. I remember it like it was yesterday. But the thing that’s kind of been surprising to me is we’ve done a lot of looking back, and we’ve produced this commemorative magazine and some other things. And just to realize that 40 years really is a long time. And you look at these players who were on that team, and they’re all, I think, 60 or above. And so, I was just, in my mind the other day, I was thinking, “OK, 40 years back from 1984, that was 1944. That was before I was born. That was when World War II was still going on.”
So it has been kind of a wake-up call for me to realize a lot of things happen in 40 years. But it’s also been kind of fun, because you do revive some of these memories you have that have been a little bit lost or obscured over time, because it was a magical time, and that’s the fun of it, looking back to realize just how improbable the whole thing was.
4:11
Mary Richards: Yeah. Same for you, Dick, that magical time you remember?
Dick Harmon: I reflect how it is right now. I mean, BYU right now is 6-0 heading into this weekend against Oklahoma State. There’s a lot of excitement, big buzz around town.
4:25
Mary Richards: — 6-0 at the time of this recording.
Dick Harmon: Yeah, you know, I think people had a feeling that this is an exciting time, and they want to be engaged in it. A sold-out stadium. That’s how it was back then in 1984 when BYU was 6-0, and it’s only happened six times in the history of the football program. So, reflecting back, you look at how it was back then, that’s what people are feeling right now. And it was kind of multiplied because BYU was climbing up in the rankings. They were being talked about, about this time of the season, about possibly winning the national championship. And just engaging with all these players after all that time and reflecting on the memories is incredible.
5:09
Mary Richards: Yeah. Lee mentioned this magazine that the Deseret News has produced. It’s called “1984: The 40th Anniversary Special Collector’s Issue.” You both are featured in it in a sports writers roundtable, and you talk a little bit about that view from the press box you had, really, and each win, that excitement building, and there were some nail-biting victories too, weren’t there? There were some big wins; you’re thinking, “Of course the Cougars are going to win this game.” But then there were some where you thought, “There’s no way.”
5:35
Lee Benson: Well, yeah. And to put it in perspective, honestly, Dick just mentioned the Cougars being 6-0, right now, and people looking at the rest of this schedule, and now we have the 12-team playoff, and the odds of BYU winning the national championship this year are no different than they were in 1984. It was that difficult of a road, and you had to negotiate all of the barriers that were put up. So I think that’s really an interesting parallel. I think that we think that it was different back then, but it really wasn’t. And the difficulty of what they pulled off, and when you look back on it and all those nail-biting wins, it all kind of had to come together for that thing to happen.
6:23
Mary Richards: Yeah. That coming together, really. Dick, were there people that kind of called it a miracle in some ways?
Dick Harmon: Yeah, and I think that Lee does a great job in this magazine of going back and setting the scene of what it was like in 1984 and some of the criticisms that people had, Barry Switzer, other people on TV saying they don’t deserve it, their schedule doesn’t deserve it. But the fact remains is a lot of people had the opportunity to play BYU in the bowl game, and they chose not to. They, for whatever reason, maybe a contract or a contact with a bowl at their conference, they decided not to play BYU. So everybody that had a chance to say something about that didn’t take the opportunity, BYU ended up playing a 6-6 Michigan team and defeated them on the field of play.
So, you know, even today, you look at ESPN, there’s a writer, Bill Connelly, and he’s done an in-depth story about 1984 and BYU. It’s news today. A national writer comes into town, and he’s writing about it right now.
7:27
Mary Richards: Do you see a lot of attention in many ways this season, like that season, on BYU, on its chances, on its program, on its mission, on its uniqueness, those kinds of things discussed a lot?
Dick Harmon: Yes. Right now, you’ve got a quarterback who is a practicing Jew, Jake Retzlaff. He’s been featured nationally in magazine stories, on the internet, on the television. He’s gaining attention because of the unique atmosphere of what’s going on in Israel and across the world. And that’s a building block, like it was back then, on a lot of the stories going around BYU’s program.
8:03
Mary Richards: Yeah. And I’m glad you brought him up, because as a BYU fan, I’ve been loving watching him. This has been such an exciting season, and I think about the excitement I feel when I watch football, and how I’m proud of the team for what it stands for, and that he has said how the atmosphere of the university has made it such a great place for him to be. I guess, Lee, in your years of watching and covering BYU sports, how do you see that change or the same over the years?
8:30
Lee Benson: I think it’s changed, and it’s the same. You can look at the quarterback now, Retzlaff, and back in 1984, Robbie Bosco wasn’t that much different than Retzlaff this year, in that kind of a very much an unproven commodity. And then the fact that people will write about BYU being peculiar, and in this case, there’s a Jewish quarterback. Back in 1984, it was how many returned missionaries they had on their offensive line, or on the whole team, for that matter. They’re just a different program. And when they do get into these national rankings, and they get the attention, for people writing about them or commentating about them, there’s a lot of material, because it’s not the same cookie-cutter program.
9:19
Mary Richards: Yeah. You’re right: It is a unique program. And you mentioned the returned missionaries in the program in 1984 on the team. About now, well, it would have been the beginning of October in that season, head coach LaVell Edwards spoke in general conference in 1984. He addressed the priesthood session, and his address, his message, was titled “Prepare for a Mission.” He spoke of the impact of missionary service, the impact it had on players he had coached, because he’d been a coach for a while before then, and he was after that. He talked about the traits that led to greatness on the field and in life.
And I thought I’d quote, as I was rereading this, he said, “If I could draw one general conclusion, it would be that if an athlete could play well before he went on a mission, he will definitely play well when he returns; and, if an athlete could not play well before his mission, he probably won’t play well when he returns. However, his chances of playing well are perhaps better if he goes because he will return with a greater understanding of himself, greater leadership capabilities, better work habits, and a better knowledge of what it takes to be successful.”
Let’s talk about this amazing man, coach LaVell Edwards, that you saw coach that ‘84 season, and before then and since then. He’s greatly missed, isn’t he?
10:32
Lee Benson: He was a very unique person, and I just have a short story, so if you’ll indulge me. This was after the national championship, everything that he had been successful doing, then Sheri Dew at Deseret Book came to me and said, “We would like to do a memoir of LaVell Edwards. Would you be interested?” And so LaVell and I got together to do this book about him. And so we had a session every Wednesday at his office in the BYU fieldhouse for about three months. And so I got to know him really well then.
Well, when I finished the manuscript several months later, I sent it to him, and then I didn’t hear from him for about a week. So I called him, and I said, “LaVell, what about the manuscript? Did you get it?” And he said, “Yeah.” And then he said, “It looks great.” And I said, “Well, what about corrections and changes?” And he said, “No, it’s fine.” He didn’t make one correction on a first-person story about his life.
And so, some people don’t measure up really with the myth. But what I found was, you know, he had this reputation; he would delegate authority to assistant coaches and let them do their job, and that was one of his things that set him apart. Well, it was absolutely true. I’ve never met a person more genuine than LaVell Edwards. So yeah, we do miss him.
12:03
Mary Richards: Oh, for sure. I love that story. As a writer, that probably felt really good.
Lee Benson: Well, and one other, just, footnote of this: When we first sat in his office and decided we were going to do this, I said, “What about the royalties?” And he said, “Well, what do you think?” And I said, “Well, I think they should be 2/3,1/3,” thinking he would get the 66% because it’s his book. And he said, “OK, as long as you get the 66%”
Mary Richards: Oh, wow.
Lee Benson: Yeah, he was the man. He was quite — Dick, you have the same memories, I’m sure.
12:36
Dick Harmon: Yeah, I’ve got some. I think I spoke to it on the roundtable, Lee, about my son. But back in 1979, BYU was preparing for a game with Utah State, and it was that week of the Utah State game — that was a pretty big game; it was also conference weekend, as I recall — but I had a tragedy. My little 2-year-old boy, Jeff, was run over by a Utah Power & Light truck in front of my mother-in-law’s home. I got a call, and I remember the police calling to say, “Hey, could you come down to the hospital? Meet your wife. Your son’s been in an accident. But anyway, he passed away that week. And, as you can imagine, our world as a couple was just turned upside down. My oldest son, Brandon, witnessed this. We were just torn apart. It was hard.
I remember at the viewing that week, just a few days before that game, here and behold, LaVell and Patti Edwards both came. Now, this is a point in my career where I was nobody. I’m just starting out. Patti had worked at the Daily Herald and written a column for us. But there, coach Edwards has come and made the time in a very busy week for him to pay respects to somebody he barely knew. And I will never forget that and how it made me feel as not just as a father, but as a person, as a professional, as a guy that wanted to make a mark in this business, that he would do that. And his wife, I’m sure, was a big part of that, Patti.
But I’ll never forget that. It’s had an impact on me ever since, to remember what kind of a man he was and where his priorities were. And I saw that throughout his career, how he treated other people, how he treated his players, how he handled losses that were, you know, very painful for him, and how he would appear before the press and the media. He had things in perspective in a remarkable way.
14:22
Mary Richards: Did you see that, then, in his testimony? Excuse me, I’m a little touched by your story. I am sorry for your loss. I did not know that story. I think about how a man like that would definitely be coming in with a strong testimony of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and His gospel.
14:39
Lee Benson: Well, I think that that’s been the most fun for me about this 1984 looking back, is to remember stories about some of the real, real great personalities that were involved, and LaVell being right there at the top of the list. And when I was doing the book with him, the memoir that Dessert Book published, he was a bishop at BYU in a student ward, and he said, “I had no idea why they would call me to be a bishop.” And then he said, “But I’ve found this to be true in that there’s always just someone you’re supposed to touch in this life that you can touch.” And he felt like there was a couple of people there, when he was a bishop, that it really made a difference in their lives. So, he exhibited a great testimony of the Savior and of the importance of doing those kinds of things.
15:36
Mary Richards: Yeah. How interesting that he was thinking of individuals and that ministry one by one. And maybe he was there for a few individuals, but I imagine both of you have seen how he and the BYU football program have touched masses of individuals through its mission. Of course, we have, for example, road games, where we go and we play, but the football team will hold firesides, and they’ll be out speaking about the gospel and the Church and their testimonies. Many of them are returned missionaries, like we’ve talked about.
What have you seen — maybe, Dick, if you want to start — in terms of this outreach to the world from the football program about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
16:17
Dick Harmon: I think there’s a lot of things that have happened. Just this last week, you had a national writer named Matt Brown, he came into town. He does a newsletter that’s published across the country, and he travels to different places. He came to Provo, and he did a, I think it was about a 3,000-word story, on how he met with the beer-drinking BYU fans in the parking lot, and he talked to them, and he interviewed them. And they all said that, you know, even though some of them had left the Church or had never joined the Church or never been a part of the Church, that BYU football had held their interest, and their love for the BYU football program, its coaches and players had touched their lives in such a big way that they wanted to be a part of it. They didn’t want to miss that. So it was kind of an inspiring story about people that were on the outside that were included in the same tent and felt welcome, and it meant something to them to be present and to be there and to watch BYU football.
The other thing I would say is, you know, LaVell has a coaching troop that’s pretty remarkable. It includes Andy Reid, Super Bowl champion, the Kansas City Chiefs; Kyle Whittingham, University of Utah; Steve Sarkisian, the No. 1 Texas head coach; and then Kalani Sitake. Now, Kalani Sitake has geared his whole professional coaching career after LaVell Edwards, in that he wants to reach out and be personable with people, be friendly with them, to include them — members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and those that are not. And he has done a remarkable job of building this family trust and love and learning program. And right now, one of the things that’s fueling this team that’s undefeated, 6-0 going into this weekend with Oklahoma State, is this feeling of brotherhood and togetherness, and that’s all on Kalani, who was a disciple, if you will, of LaVell Edwards.
18:06
Mary Richards: Yeah, he’s a great coach to watch, isn’t he, Lee?
Lee Benson: He is. And he does follow, as a lot of things at BYU, he follows that example from the past. So, there is a connection, even though it’s been 40 years, but there’s a connection.
18:20
Mary Richards: Right. These parallels we’ve talked about, even though I joked about it being a very long time, it still feels very near, these parallels. You know, and I was speaking to my husband — who, I must point out, is a University of Utah man. I met him after I graduated from BYU. And so I was talking to him about this podcast as I was preparing and said, you know, “What would you like to hear, and what do you think would be poignant for many different listeners to know about and to ask these great writers?” And he was talking about those very things, about how we see this influence around the world, and stuff like that.
But he thought it might be fun to talk a little bit about the Big 12. And, you know, we hear in this season and those controversies that people talked about in 1984 about whether the ‘84 deserved to be named national champions. Would it have helped if we’d been in something like a Big 12 back then? Does it help now with conversations as of this taping, like we’ve mentioned, being undefeated?
19:17
Lee Benson: Well, I’ll address that, because first of all, what BYU did in 1984 helped all of the system in college football change. Because when they realized, “Oh, a little school like BYU could slip in through this loophole and win the national championship,” it created, over the years, these different systems. Till now, there’s a system in place where, if BYU wins it, it won’t be a fluke, so that loophole has been covered. But I do think that being in the Big 12 and being able to send the program to more and more places is a significant thing for BYU, if it helps them to attract the players that they’ve been not being able to attract, especially LDS Church members over the past couple of decades, that’ll be a significant improvement.
20:09
Mary Richards: Good point. Dick, what do you think?
Dick Harmon: Well, I think if they would have been in a conference like the Big 10 or the Southeastern Conference or the PAC 12 back in those days, I think their pathway would have been a little bit more difficult. They would have been playing better teams on a weekly basis. That’s not to discount from what this team accomplished, but they did face some teams that were a little bit weaker, and that enabled them a good pathway to make it and be an undefeated team.
Now, if you look at the team at 6-0, they’ve played Kansas State, who is nationally ranked, and they beat them. They played SMU, a member of the ACC, and beat them. They played Baylor. They’ve knocked off every team that they played in a league that’s considered pretty darn tough, maybe the second- or third-best league in the country. So, what’s happening now and transpiring, I think, is noteworthy because of who they’re playing on a weekly basis, which is far more difficult than what they did before.
21:05
Mary Richards: Yeah. I feel like, too, I’m seeing the Big 12 raise visibility for the Church. I’ve seen positive things said on broadcasts and national sports shows. And as we’ve been talking about the parallels between 1984 — that championship season — and the parallels to this season and the BYU football program since, I want to make sure people know where to find this special collectors issue, the 40th anniversary of 1984.
You can go to deseret.com/1984 and see all about this magazine, relive BYU’s most epic season. And of course, we have high hopes that it is not their last most epic season. We always, all sports fans know that the next season will be better, will be the best one, right?
As we finish, as we close, I want to ask and end as we do all episodes of the Church News podcast by asking: What do you know now? And we’ll start with you, Dick, and then go to Lee. After covering the 1984 season and BYU sports for several decades, what do you know now about the purpose of BYU football and the way BYU has helped advance the mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
22:12
Dick Harmon: I think one thing that stands out to me is the athletes. I mean, I’ve met some people that are just tremendous people who really have come to BYU not being members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but when they left, either during or after, they have joined the Church. And it’s the mission of BYU, is to bring people to Christ; they’ve done a great job of it.
You look at the top leadership of BYU’s athletic department, Tom Holmoe is one of those. Robbie Bosco, that was a member of this 1984 championship team, also joined the Church. The Heisman Trophy winner, Ty Detmer, came here and was converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Athletes like Brian McKenzie, our running back. Garett Tujague, who was an offensive lineman with Ty Detmer, I think he’s an offensive line coach at Syracuse University right now. Corby Eason, who is a principal in Utah, in Layton. Brian McDonald, another running back. Jake Eichorn just joined the Church; he’s an offensive lineman on the team. Keith Clearwater and Mike Reed, both All-America golfers, both joined the Church while at BYU.
You could go on and on about the lives that have been changed by being in the presence of other priesthood holders on their team, returned missionaries and coaches that were devoted to the Church, that loved them and were kind to them and opened the door to the gospel, the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. And I think it’s transformed not only their lives, but now they’ve gone out and touched so many other lives.
23:43
Lee Benson: And I’d add to that. Dick is way more eloquent than me, and so I’ll second that. What I know now, as I’ve gotten older through the years, is football doesn’t really matter, who wins the games. Heavenly Father isn’t weighing in on who’s supposed to win those football games. I think that it’s a little bit like the internet — there is so much great potential for what BYU does with its athletic programs to be a force for good in the world. There is also the potential that it can be a force that isn’t that positive. So I think it’s always an ebb and a flow, and sports can get out of proportion. So I just think it’s always important to keep that in mind. I wouldn’t have had that attitude 40 years ago, Mary, but now I have a little more perspective, and I think, well, it doesn’t matter that much who wins and loses. It matters how you play the game and how you carry yourself. So I think there’s a great potential, as there was then, now for BYU to show the world what it is.
25:00
Jon Ryan Jensen: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m your host, Church News editor Jon Ryan Jensen. I hope you learned something today about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had your faith in the Savior increase by looking through the Church News window as a living record of the Restoration. Please subscribe, rate and review this podcast so it can be accessible to more people. And if you enjoyed the messages we shared today, please share the podcast with others. Thanks to our guests; to my producer, KellieAnn Halvorsen; and to others who make this podcast possible. Join us every week for a new episode. Find us on your favorite podcasting channels or with other news and updates about the Church on TheChurchNews.com or on the Church News app.
