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PROVO — Bronco Mendenhall, in his true form, was on display in the immediacy after BYU won its last game, making like Jim Valvano, looking for someone to share in his joy.
Watching Valvano run around the court looking for someone to hug after his North Carolina State team won the national championship in 1983 has become a historic moment in college basketball. On a much smaller scale, so has Mendenhall showing rarely seen public emotion after the Cougars held on to beat Cal last week.
Once Cal failed to get a game-tying score, the BYU coach looked down the sideline and jumped into the arms of an unsuspecting staff member. BYU later released a video of the players tossing Mendenhall into the air in the locker room as he repeatedly thrust his arms up.
All this for beating a 5-7 team that finished 1-6 and did not beat a Division 1 team with a winning record all season.
And it’s about time.
“It was good to see him like that,” says former defensive back Brian Logan, who works as an analyst for BYU-TV.
Mendenhall has been knocked for his stoic demeanor that often appeared cold and distant. Given the coach’s robotic nature, it was fun — albeit surprising — to see him cut loose even if it came against mediocre Pac-12 competition.
For the rare time, it looked like the outcome of a football game mattered more than the television exposure that BYU officials love to point out over and over. Mendenhall’s emotion also showed winning was darned near on par with faith-promoting firesides and churning out future community and religious leaders.
Many BYU diehards, the ones who desperately want the football program to focus more on football, loved it. By exhibiting such passion after a game BYU was supposed to win, Mendenhall connected with this portion of the starved fan base.
Going forward, we need to see more. Football isn’t played in a white shirt and tie.
While BYU will never be mistaken as a football factory, which emphasizes winning above most else, it could stand to have more accountability. BYU isn’t Nebraska, which fired coach Bo Pelini even though he won at least nine games each of his seven seasons, but repeatedly losing to rival Utah shouldn’t merit a contract extension.
As much as Mendenhall can sound like a preacher rather than coach, he wants BYU football to compete successfully at the highest level and is aware of the public pressure when the program falls short like it did this season. His spontaneous emotion after the Cal game was a nice release.
The different side of Mendenhall didn’t surprise many of his players. Logan saw it often during his two years as a Cougar in 2009-10.
“It’s funny because when I first got into the program I always thought he was a completely different person in front of the media and then obviously in front of us in the locker room,” Logan said. “I think he really had his guard up in the past when it came to his personality and some of the inside things that he shared with the community.”
In reality, Logan describes Mendenhall as “goofy, funny and energetic.”
“He’s always making jokes,” Logan said. “He’s always called me ‘Squirt’ from 'Finding Nemo' because I was so small. It’s good to finally see that everybody is able to see that side of him.”
