My Top 5 Most Popular Utah Sports Stories Of 2024
From Zach Wilson finding a new team to BYU players rallying around Jay Hill. And, Cam Rising rumors to what name the new NHL team will be and Kyle Filipowski disowning his folks, 2024 was wild.
I'm still dealing with a disease that is messing with every fiber of my body and am on medications they usually give to the elderly.
One year in, predictive text still isn’t helpful and I feel like I’m stuck in this time wrap warp. [Gah!]
This Just In» Christmas has become very interesting in a very short time frame in our household, as it has now expanded from two to four people in a span of a week and my father has reversed course and allowed a tree to enter the picture for the first time since my mom passed away in 2022.
That’s due to his little girl entering the picture, by the way.
[Also, that is not the tree depicted in this article; it’s a Seahawks tree in my room. Isn’t it great? It lights up, too.]
To that end, the good folks at Ancestry.com have in that same week reunited me with, uh, how do I put this? The daughter I thought I had, but was told I did not have 6.5 years ago. That I most assuredly have?! Believe me, I was as confused as you.
When my dad raced downstairs to my room, breathless on a Tuesday afternoon and said he had great news, I thought he was going to tell me he won the lotto. [He did, as a grandfather, for now he has another grandchild to spoil.]
» For her first Xmas with us, her seventh on this earth, I picked out an owl from [company named after a region in South America] that plays several different games—important as she likes Barbie and has a bit of, shall we say, a temper? That does run in the family, I’m afraid. [It also tells her bedtime stories.]
She’s even inherited the family scowl when things don’t go her way and has already been suspended from school for fighting. I didn’t know if I should be angry or proud; the good news is that she loves sports [who in this family doesn’t?] and is heavily involved in activities that will, in time, teach her to be a team player. [And, in time, forgive me and her mother.]
“I’m sorry your mom isn’t here to see this,” said my dad, who even gave up the master bedroom he’d stayed in for 45 years to my younger sister and her daughter a week earlier, and moved into his man cave filled with Dallas Cowboys memorabilia next door.
But, life is like that; we know what we don’t know and so we course-correct as best we can—when we can—when stuff happens. When this little girl’s mother and I were still going through our divorce seven years ago, and my mom was still alive and healthy but the [word for, well, you know] had hit the fan, she’d sneak over to our xeriscaped blue house without my knowledge, play toys with my little girl and take my oldest daughter out to shop at the mall afterward. She didn’t take our divorce personally nor carve out a time to be angry.
Truth be told, shopping was always my mom’s stress reliever; my dad would often go out of town on business trips as a junior exec during my childhood and so my beauty pageant winner mother would take me to the mall after she shed tears dropping my dad off at the airport. None of her family was here in Utah so as the eldest child, I was her sounding board, as we lunched on Orange Julius and underwent retail therapy and I listened to randoms catcall my mom.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that when we had nobody near, we always had each other. When I or my sister could no longer live in our humble abodes three years or three days ago, we knew we had a home to come home to.
As long as I’m here, I’ll do the same for this little girl.
May you and yours, regardless of your lot in life, have a place to go home to during the holidays. «
My Top 5 Most Popular Utah Sports Stories Of 2024
» On a whim, I started a show midyear and unbeknownst to me it took off like a rocket ship. Dealing with ongoing medical issues, however, I had to make the difficult decision by summer’s end to stop writing my usual longform stories and focus mainly on shorter, punchier Humpday pieces and those Sunday shows.
5. For Zach Wilson, it was a busy off-season. The BYU QB went from THE guy who started playing significant minutes for the New York Jets months after he was selected with the No. 2 overall draft pick, to a 3rd-string backup on the Denver Broncos.
In sum, Zach got the opportunity to study under one of the game’s top QB coaches in Sean Payton in Denver and will, in due time, have his own opportunity to be a NFL starter. In one of my final longform pieces for my newsletter, I outlined who those five NFL suitors might be.
4. In Provo, the BYU football team was dealt a serious blow just hours before they were to play SIU in their season opener when defensive coordinator Jay Hill suffered a heart attack.
It was the manner in which the Cougars handled it and the rest of the season, however, that will be talked about for all of time.
3. Nobody honestly wanted to address the elephant in the room—but I did on my show in a recent all-timer that went viral:
To this very moment, Rising still hasn’t said where or even IF he’s playing his college football somewhere next season. His little brother plays at Arizona State—keep an eye on that potential destination. And, the upcoming NFL Draft.
2. In a move that will have an impact not only now but generations to come, owner Ryan Smith has a huge decision to make: Appease soccer moms that want a Disney name like Yeti—or cater to adults like me who want a more original one.
There honestly isn’t anything left to say but wait…and hope.
1. When the Utah Jazz selected Kyle Filipowski with the No. 32 overall pick this past summer, they had no idea what Pandora’s Box was about to be opened when the Duke rookie center said he disowned his family and had converted to Mormonism.
In a story that ruffled feathers from here to New York and back, I argued that this has in fact been done before when Jazz CEO Danny Ainge said something similar to his Christian parents in Oregon before enrolling at BYU and that Ainge may have had more of a role in this move by Filipowski than most know.
Other articles [and shows] deserve an honorable mention:
https://www.brianvsutah.com/p/schmuckatology
https://www.brianvsutah.com/p/how-is-byu-not-in-the-ap-top-10
https://www.brianvsutah.com/p/12-utah-things-we-want-xmas-college
I enjoyed bringing these and many more to all of you; here’s to 2025. «
Thanks for reading this yearend special edition. Be safe and be well, and I’ll see ya next time.