Sports Brainwashing

BYUTV regularly re-broadcasts old BYU football games; games like 1990 Miami, 1994 Copper Bowl, 1985 Washington. As pathetic as it probably is, I try to keep track of when good ones are playing and then watch them if I can on Saturday mornings. (BYUTV.org has an "on demand" feature that allows you to watch anything they have broadcast previously.) Ali loves to come and sit with me while I am watching them, and recently asked "Who do we like?" I recognized it as a great opportunity to continue her sports indoctrination and we had the following exchange:

"We like the blue team. The blue team is BYU."
"Oh. Yeah, we like BYU. Who do we not like?"
"We don't like the yellow team." (They were playing the 1989 Oregon game.)
"Yeah. But we like blue. The blue team is BYU."
"That's right. We like BYU."
"But we don't like the yellow team. Just blue."
"Uh-huh. Just blue. And who is blue?"
"BYU. Let's go cougars!" (She already had that one down from last season.)

Fast forward a couple of weeks. We were at some friends' house and noticed a world map posted on their wall. It has different colored pins for places where each member of the family has been. Sarah was asking who each of the colors were. When she asked, "Who is blue?" Ali got an excited look on her face and yelled "Blue? That's BYU!"

Later that same day, we were in the park and there was a soccer league game going on across the field. One of the teams had royal blue on and when she saw them, Ali yelled out, "Daddy, it's BYU playing soccer! We like BYU!".

The following Sunday, in church, Ali leaned over to Sarah while waiting for the meeting to start and said, "Momma, we like blue, but we don't like the Utes!" (I guess the guy sitting behind them had on a red tie.)

Ah, the moments that make a father proud...