Proud to be a BYU alum

I went to BYU. Loved the school, loved the experience. I never thought of applying anywhere else. I applied only there and luckily, I got in. This season, I have LOVED the success BYU has had on the basketball court. They're looking good and it's been great to have conversations at work with people about the church, because they first asked about the BYU basketball team. I feel bad for Brandon Davies and all the negative attention he is currently receiving for violating the schools honor code. BYU bumped up in the rankings to be #3 in the country and so it was big news when Davies was kicked off the basketball team the very next day for violating the honor code. It's sad that this year had to end that way for him and a very inopportune time for the team, right before the conference tournament and NCAA tournament. BYU did lose the next day to New Mexico, never getting themselves going or finding a rotation that worked. I feel bad and have been impressed with the BYU athletes who said they would stick by him, no matter how the team does in their future games. His misdeeds are out there in the public, not because the school said specifically what he did, but other news outlets did. But I've now spent the last couple days defending the Honor Code to a lot of people at work and member friends of mine who didn't go to BYU and just have a problem with the church outlining rules for the students. I don't remember thinking specifically that I wanted to go to BYU because of the Honor Code. Looking back now, that's what it was. I wanted to be at a school where I was surrounded by members. My pre college school days weren't filled with LDS members all around me. I went to school with a lot of people who didn't believe the same as I did or do the same things I did or said no to the same things I did. I wanted to be somewhere that had a lot of people with the same values as me. BYU was it. And I found that. The Honor Code was not hard to live if you were living the principles of the gospel and following the For Strength of Youth Pamphlet. It was a great thing for me to be with girls that had the same standards, have good clean fun with so many friends that I made there and have my testimony strengthened by living a clean life surrounded by clean, honest and good people. No one is perfect, mistakes are made and can be repented over. But for the most part, people did the best they could to live the rules and they lived them gladly.

So, the rules were never restricting to one who wanted to live that way. And you only went there if you wanted to live that way. Thank you BYU for staying true to the honor code and not treating an athlete any differently. Thank you to BYU for teaching us, that even when there are mistakes, kindness and love are shown to help uplift the one who fell, that they can be lifted back up.