College boy meets college girl. College boy and college girl like each other. College boy and college girl are old fashioned and they wait and wait and wait and … finally, you know, they have sex. So far, we’re not thinking this is a exactly a big news story.
But it is, when the boy is Brandon Davies, starting center for Brigham Young University’s nationally ranked basketball team, because BYU was founded and is owned by the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known to most people as the Mormon Church. BYU has a very strict honor code. No coffee. No tea. No pre-marital sex. Students are expected—nay, not expected, required—to lead a “chaste and virtuous life.”
So Brandon is suspended from the team for the rest of the season and his future at the school has yet to be determined. And perhaps because we’re heading into the annual frenzy known in the U.S. as “March Madness,” the media is freaking out.
We’re definitely feeling bad for Brandon. Lord knows, we’ve got no problems with premarital sex. We wouldn’t have suspended him from our team. But we’re not Mormons. We don’t want to live by their rules. We get annoyed, maybe, when Mormons knock on our door and want to tell us all about what they do and how great it is. (And they aren’t the only people of faith who do that kind of thing, of course.)
But we don’t want to tell them what to do, either.
We look over at the web page for the BYU Honor Code Office and the first thing we notice is: No big press release about Brandon Davies. The second thing we notice is that there is apparently a “process for obtaining a beard exception.” Strict stuff! But not our business, really. Not our problem.
I may watch a little basketball this month. It’ll be almost hard to avoid. But when I do, part of me will be thinking of Brandon Davies, and hoping that someday he’ll look back on his “first time” and be able to laugh a little.
You know?
But it is, when the boy is Brandon Davies, starting center for Brigham Young University’s nationally ranked basketball team, because BYU was founded and is owned by the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known to most people as the Mormon Church. BYU has a very strict honor code. No coffee. No tea. No pre-marital sex. Students are expected—nay, not expected, required—to lead a “chaste and virtuous life.”
So Brandon is suspended from the team for the rest of the season and his future at the school has yet to be determined. And perhaps because we’re heading into the annual frenzy known in the U.S. as “March Madness,” the media is freaking out.
We’re definitely feeling bad for Brandon. Lord knows, we’ve got no problems with premarital sex. We wouldn’t have suspended him from our team. But we’re not Mormons. We don’t want to live by their rules. We get annoyed, maybe, when Mormons knock on our door and want to tell us all about what they do and how great it is. (And they aren’t the only people of faith who do that kind of thing, of course.)
But we don’t want to tell them what to do, either.
We look over at the web page for the BYU Honor Code Office and the first thing we notice is: No big press release about Brandon Davies. The second thing we notice is that there is apparently a “process for obtaining a beard exception.” Strict stuff! But not our business, really. Not our problem.
I may watch a little basketball this month. It’ll be almost hard to avoid. But when I do, part of me will be thinking of Brandon Davies, and hoping that someday he’ll look back on his “first time” and be able to laugh a little.
You know?
After having been engaged to someone in the LDS church for over a year (now ex, thank you) this whole affair has made me once again very upset with the church. If Brandon considers himself Mormon then by all means, his choices. But if he chose to go to BYU simply for its amazing athletics program, it pains me that these beliefs are being forced upon him. Yeah, it was his choice to attend and agree to the code, but at the same time he was trying to do the best he could for himself and his career. It still sucks.
I feel bad for Brandon, but [unlike being gay] playing basketball at BYU really was a choice on his part. From what I understand, he grew up practically across the street from the university and the rules against premarital sex were clearly spelled out to him when he enrolled. Add to that the fact that there are probably 30-odd big time basketball programs who'd welcome him as a transfer and I have a feeling he'll be just fine. If BYU weren't a top-10 team with another player sports writers can't stop talking about, this would be a non-story. How many other students have run afoul of the BYU honor code and not gotten the same scrutiny?