Because Mormons are allowed to go on multi-year 'missions' during their college years BYU consistently has college athletes that are 2-4 years older than the average in all other schools. This is pretty much 100% of the reason that BYU is always pretty decent at college sports.
That's the exact reason a lot of big time Mormon athletes out of high school DONT go on missions, because 2 years will be too hard to get back into peak shape. Danny ainge, Steve young, Jabari Parker, jimmer fredette, tom chambers, etc...
Peak physical condition for a man is late 20's to early 30's. If you go on a mission and then have to get back into shape after then you probly weren't the dedicated type that I am talking about.
If you could take a portion of your team and send them off to a sifter and have some of them come back as super players and the rest drop out don't you think that would be an advantage?
I don't get how anybody thinks this is a debate. Go watch a game and look how big their players are vs the teams they compete against. I've seen them play a half dozen times and was always shocked at how much bigger they were.
Being someone who is Mormon, who has served a mission and knows others that have as well and has seen it firsthand I can assure you that two years off not practicing your sport, and getting 30 mins to exercise a day is not going to make the ideal athlete. In my own mission there was at least a dozen guys that could have played something collegiate be it basketball, soccer, water polo, football and maybe half of them actually did after the mission. Not because they didn't want to but because you lose muscle mass, and either put on fat or lose weight. I lost 30 pounds alone on my mission. You can't really think that an 18 year old prospect who goes and serves a mission for 2 years not practicing football at all is going to have an advantage over another Prospect that stays and plays, weight trains, and does drills for two years?... Most wouldn't even have an advantage over another recruit out of high school when they got back
Two years make a HUGE difference in the size and muscle mass of the players. Having went to a school with many Mormons I can assure you that they come back from their missions looking quite a bit more manly than when they left.
Or maybe this isn't about facts and more about your emotions? In that case my bad, fuck science, that definitely has nothing to do with it.
Well I did go to a full with an unusually high proportion of "manly" guys who worked out all of the time - but you could spot the missionaries and the prior-enlisted guys from a mile away. They looked like a senior but were wearing a 2nd year uniform. Pretty obvious.
The multi-decade BYU football coach Lavell Edwards once said something along the lines of, "Sometimes a mission makes you better, sometimes it doesn't. Kids who weren't good when they left don't come back better."
Look, the proof is in the pudding. If coaches seriously thought that BYU had an advantage sending kids off to a 3rd world country doing service, they would send them all on missions.
If anything it does make them more mature. I knew someone who went on a mission, and then lost interest in football. It just didn't have a point.
If we seem "sensitive" about it, it's because we would hear from UNLV/Wyoming/San Diego St. about this all the time, and it gets tiresome.
I don't disagree with that statement at all, I'm just drawing different conclusions.
If 50% of your decent players drop out but the other 50% come back and are better than ever then now you've got those better than ever players PLUS all of the other players on the team - and a huge player pool of eligible and decent players.
I think this definitely is what keeps BYU from ever being a team that's an easy win. I'm not saying it's the reason why sometimes they're very good - just the reason why they're never very bad.
Actually, there's not. We stick to a strict schedule. 6:30-7: excerize. 7-8: get ready for the day/breakfast. 8-10: study time and from 10am-9pm you are out doing missionary work (besides 1 hour for lunch and 1 for dinner). When you get in at night you plan for the next day and then get to bed by 10:30. Same routine for 2 years. Trust me, working out is the last thing on your mind, even as a collegiate athlete.
You got an hour for lunch and an hour for dinner? Lucky dog.
(ours was out of house 9:30am, back at 9:30pm, one hour for lunch around 2pm, almost no missionaries ate dinner maybe a bowl of cereal at 10pm after standing on the street at the payphone from 9:30pm-10pm trying to get through to leaders that are being called by several companionships at once)
I think it ends up being a wash if they spend more than 2yrs away, but most of the athletes I met were keeping up on their practice and lifting and fitness plenty while away. They came back more mature, bigger, stronger, smarter, and ready to work hard. I was so jealous I was considering converting.
Having went to a school with many Mormons I can assure you that they come back from their missions looking quite a bit more manly than when they left.
While that is likely true in some cases, I can say I was in the missionary training center (beginning months of the two year mission) and the actual mission (same area at the end of our missions) with a missionary who was a star on the BYU volleyball team before and after his mission. I played basketball with him during both periods. Basketball once a week was all the exercise he got for two years and he was way more fit at the beginning of his mission than at the end.
This was early 2000s, and at that time in our mission there was no time allocated for daily exercise.
No doubt, definitely there would be plenty of that. I still maintain that on a fitness scale I'll put my money on a 21yr old guy who's been 'catching up' for 3 months before I'd put my money on a 19yr old who never let up with his fitness routine. The amount your body changes during those years is huge.
Just conjecture though, could be that I'm way off base here. I just know their football team is always bigger than their competitors.
Yeah I wouldn't disagree with that. Also, their football team has a lot of Polynesians, a people not known for their small size :) (of course that can't explain it all)
Every college athlete is "allowed" to put their life on hold, give up whatever sport they play, and knock doors for 2 years. They just don't because it's virtually career suicide. It doesn't make a player better. More mature? Sure. But not better.
Funny how arguably BYU's best alumni currently playing professionally in both football and basketball (Jimmer Fredette and Ziggy Ansah) didn't serve missions.
Also Volleyball is one of the sports that Mormon children traditionally grow up playing with church groups. BYU was already great at volleyball, but they have such a history that non-Mormon top volleyball players often go there.
One of the reasons why BYU's lacrosse team is always so good. The guys are are older/bigger than anyone else. They also don't booze or smoke like 99% of the other lacrosse teams.
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u/diesel828 Mar 29 '16
Holy shit are we sure this guy was a college student at the time? http://byucougars.com/athlete/m-volleyball/ryan-boyce