McBride's "missionary" zeal

The stories keep rolling in about Ron McBride, the retiring Weber State football coach. Naturally, a lot of them relate to his time as coach at Utah.

This one dates to the 1980s, when the Utes were recruiting Lakei Heimuli. The big running back from Kahuku High in Hawaii had decided he wanted to play for McBride at Utah. But several LDS Church friends and leaders in Heimuli’s stake and ward were encouraging him to go to BYU.

Knowing BYU was making a strong push, McBride went to the Heimuli home to talk to Lakei’s father, Benny. When the possibility of Lakei changing his mind and attending BYU arose, McBride good-naturedly said, “Benny, Benny, when you turn on conference, it’s not from Provo! It’s from Salt Lake!”

The coach then proceeded to open a missionary-like 3-ring binder/flip chart that had pictures of all the LDS sites in Salt Lake City — Temple Square, This is the Place, Brigham Young’s statue, etc.

That’s what you call recruiting.

Yet McBride never disparaged BYU, he just sold Utah.

When McBride learned on signing day that Heimuli had chosen BYU, he went to Kahuku to wish him well, nonetheless. The two embraced and McBride told Heimuli he loved and respected him. A number of students saw that display of concern and affection. Call it coincidence, but ever since then the Utes have done extremely well recruiting the Islands.

Genuine concern can go a long way.

Or maybe it was the flip chart.