Thursday's Hero!

Yesterday, we got to go down to a spring football practice at BYU.  They gave us a tour of the facilities and we got to watch about 30 minutes of their actual practice (I know it's early in spring but they look good and have some talented athletes) and I'm predicting a great year for the Cougars.

Dylan was getting a little tired because he hadn't had a nap for the day but he was so excited to be there, he Loves BYU football.  At the end of practice, the whole team huddles and midfield and they brought the kids out (there were two brothers from Maryland with us as well) to meet the team.  The whole team was cheering and yelling for the boys (it was awesome) and they gave each of the boys a gift bag with hats, t-shirts, wristbands and a flag that was signed by all the players.  They then had each of the boys sign the big white flag that flies at every practice and is the one the players carry out in front of them at every game.  Then each of the players gave the boys hi five's or handshakes and then coach Mendenhall came over and spoke to Dylan for a minute one on one and talked to him about being strong and how he has a boy Dylan's age and then he took off his hat and said 'I usually only do this on game day but I'm going to give you this hat, it's only been worn once if you promise to wear it every Saturday'  Dylan of course did and then, in return, gave coach one of his 'doin if for Dylan' bracelets and coach said he would wear that bracelet as long as Dylan wore his hat.  It was awesome of coach Mendenhall to take that extra time to spend with Dylan it is something that we will all remember!  This is probably the coolest and kindest program in sports (that I've heard of anyway).  To make those boys feel like they were a part of the team for even just an hour was something that they'll be talking about for years to come.  So, from all of us to the BYU football team:  Thank you for such a memorable afternoon with your program, we will forever be BYU football fans!

RYAN, the Dad