Miner rivalry

I understand from reading the papers that fans were pretty pumped in El Paso for the basketball game between BYU and UTEP, last weekend. That makes sense; it was always a big game when those teams played.

Of course, no college game is as big as it used to be. Only 8,687 fans showed up for the non-conference game at the Haskins Center. That’s almost 4,000 fewer than capacity.

Still, it isn’t surprising the contest would be played up in the El Paso media as a big game, for a couple of reasons. First, UTEP was one of the old WAC schools that was abandoned in favor of the Mountain West Conference. Second, BYU has usually been considered a big game for almost any school in the West. Media and fans always got in a frenzy when BYU played at Hawaii, too.

Lastly, there’s the history. There were some wild games. I remember sitting in El Paso one night in the ’80s, when BYU’s Scott Sinek and UTEP’s Kevin Lockhart ended up crashing along the press table during a brawl near the end of a tight game. BYU ended up winning the game, but needed a police escort to the airport.

Come to think of it, I kind of miss those wild and wooly games on the border.