BYU and hating Rick Reilly
There has been a lot of discussion this week regarding columnist Rick Reilly’s espn.com column on BYU star Jimmer Fredette. Some have gone so far as to call it anti-Mormon. I hate to use an outdated phrase, but I couldn’t think of one that’s more appropriate: Don’t go there.
You might accuse Reilly of being unfair, though I thought his column fell into the category of allowable commentary. You can complain that he only saw BYU once, though that’s why he was there — to write a column based on his observations. Would his familiarity with the Cougars been questioned had he written a glowing column about Fredette?
The one thing I’m convinced of was that it wasn’t religious bigotry.
On the web site firerickreilly.com, someone wrote, “I really don’t get it. Reilly just decided to attack the poor kid, for really no apparent reason. Because a BYU (fan) said he’s a little Maravich? Because he’s Mormon? Because Reilly bet on him? Who knows why, but it’s an odd hatchet job by an over the hill hack on a guy who just turned in a fantastic college season. And if he pans out (or doesn’t) in the NBA, let’s leave that for later.”
Numerous other blogs and message board postings have expressed similar sentiment., claiming religious bigotry. But it’s as unfair to accuse Reilly of hating Mormons, based on a negative Fredette column, as it is to accuse Mormons of being bigoted.
The religious bigotry card should only be used where it’s undeniable. Denver Post columnist Woody Paige’s 2002 piece on the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake was a case in point. Calling the Games a “massive Mormon marketing scheme,” and adding that Utah is where people “marry three of your mother’s cousins, [and] consider you inferior if you’re not white, a man, or heterosexual” was neither clever, accurate nor fair. Neither was the reference to salamander worshiping. The Post must have agreed, since it deleted the column from its online archives and Paige issued a public apology.
At the same time, Reilly saying he’s “seen dead people play better defense” and even that “Fredette and the largely Mormon BYU Nation should’ve never been made to come to New Orleans. You can sin just by osmosis here” is merely a lighthearted and observation.
San Diego State fans chanting “You’re still Mormon!” after losing to BYU is an easy call: out of bounds.
But I’d be careful when playing the religion card. If someone besides LaVell Edwards had said “Mormons go to Las Vegas with a $100 bill and a copy of the 10 commandments and don’t break either of them,” would he have been accused of being an anti-LDS?
BYU fans and/or LDS members should save the indignation for things that are provably discriminatory. That would be hard to do based on a column about Fredette’s defense and his NBA prospects.
Disliking a player’s game, or even disliking BYU, isn’t necessarily the same thing as hating Mormons.