SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
This past Saturday, Brigham Young University's storied football season came to a disappointing close. The Cougars had only lost one game all year. They had a chance to make it to the college football playoff for the first time in school history, but they fell short, losing to Texas Tech 34 to 7.
BYU has pumped millions into athletics over the years, most recently re-signing its head football coach to a lucrative deal that makes him one of the highest-paid head coaches in the Big 12 Conference. But for decades, officials and boosters of BYU have taken pride in the fact that in their community, morality and principles like frugality have always been front and center. BYU is the flagship school of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the broader point of its athletic program has always been to spread the word of God. Winning was always secondary. But how does that play out in an era of big conferences, big TV revenue and big payouts to student athletes? I posed that question to Kevin Reynolds when we spoke earlier today. He covers BYU football for the Salt Lake Tribune.
KEVIN REYNOLDS: BYU, I think, is a little bit unique. Unlike other schools that are religiously affiliated - like Notre Dame, you could look at Boston College or Georgetown or whoever - those schools don't directly answer to any religious institution even though they are religiously affiliated. But BYU is different because BYU is owned and operated directly by the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, their sponsoring institution. It plays in Provo, which is 40 minutes away from the church's power structure. The president of the university, the athletic director, they all answer to the church leadership in Salt Lake.
And the people who run the church at BYU have said repeatedly that BYU Athletics does not exist to win. That's not the main reason why BYU pours all this money. It is to promote the faith. And it becomes this tension where - can you pour millions of dollars into football, can you pour millions of dollars into coaches and still, at the same time, adhere to the frugality that they have professed as a core tenet of what BYU Athletics should do? And also, can they still keep the mission? And Clark Gilbert, who is the commissioner of education for the church and oversees BYU directly, has come out and directly said last year that they will never pay for play, and if they do, it will unravel the religious mission of the university. Yet reality has looked very different from that.
DETROW: What were you hearing in the days since Kalani Sitake has gotten this enormous contract? - the head coach, who we should say was being lured away to Penn State. And the school made a press to keep him, and this big deal was the result of that.
REYNOLDS: I think Kalani Sitake is kind of the prototypical case study in this because he himself grew up a BYU fan. He's a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He really believes in all the mission of BYU. And it became time when Penn State came in and said that they would pay hundreds of - you know, almost $100 million to get Kalani Sitake - that BYU had to pay. But it does create this tension even for this person, who for so long believed in what BYU was, is now watching it become maybe something different. And for Kalani, I think personally, he has - I think he's embraced this new era of BYU, and he's pushed for more resources to win more games. But at the same time, him getting that contract does also show that BYU is operating completely differently than what they were 10 years ago, 20 years ago and definitely 40 years ago, where his predecessor kind of built BYU up in the '80s but did it on a very discount deal.
DETROW: And the football team ends the season just outside the playoff picture. The basketball team is spending a ton of money as well and trying to make a deep run in the tournament this year. Seems like this conversation is going to continue because the school continues to be focused on making a national impact in sporting in the coming years.
REYNOLDS: Absolutely. And from BYU's athletic department, they continuously say that winning expands the mission and there's nothing wrong with pouring all this money into athletics because, hey, more winning equals higher stages, which is theoretically bringing more attention to the LDS church, to BYU, and that's exactly what their mission is.
DETROW: That is Kevin Reynolds, who covers BYU for the Salt Lake Tribune. Thank you so much.
REYNOLDS: Thank you.
DETROW: And in a statement responding to Kevin's reporting, BYU's athletics department said its spiritual mission is, quote, "greatly enhanced when our influence is expanded through winning teams and high-profile players." The school emphasized it needs to, quote, "be competitive when it comes to name, image and likeness player compensation" to do that. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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