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twitterRON KANTOWSKI:
Free spirit stuck in BYU doghouse
Thursday, Oct. 23, 2008 | 2 a.m.
Beyond the Sun
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Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts.
Fruit Loops and chocolate syrup.
A plaid shirt with a striped tie.
Jim McMahon and Brigham Young University.
Some things are just not meant to go together.
It has been 27 years since the punky QB known as McMahon threw the last forward pass of his senior year for BYU, after which, depending on whom you talk to, he either was immediately kicked out of school or left just as soon as he could.
“Happiness was Provo in the rearview mirror,” McMahon said in his autobiography.
That was in 1986. That was a long time ago. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge. Some of it may even may have wound up in a certain beverage that McMahon likes to drink when he’s playing golf.
So many years have passed, so many beverages consumed on the golf course, that a person very close to Jim McMahon said it’s time the quarterback and his alma mater patch their differences, extend an olive branch, share a beverage on the golf course — even if it’s a 7-Up.
That person lives on the No. 3 hole at the Oasis golf course in Mesquite. His name is James F. McMahon — Jim McMahon Sr.
The punky QB’s old man.
Jim McMahon Sr. forwarded to the Sun a copy of a letter he wrote to Tom Holmoe, the BYU athletic director, asking the school to induct his son into its Hall of Fame and to retire his jersey. Because he is generally considered the greatest among all the great quarterbacks who have played at BYU — sorry, Ty Detmer — that seems only fitting.
Fitting, regardless of how many beers Jimmy — which is what his dad still calls him — might have consumed on the golf course, how many times he put a pinch of smokeless tobacco between his cheek and gum, and the one time he looked at Provo in the rearview mirror with glee.
Regardless of how many credits he lacks to graduate.
That last one seems to be the biggest obstacle. Jim McMahon never graduated from BYU. Wasn’t allowed to. Or didn’t want to. One of the criteria for Hall of Fame consideration at BYU is that athlete-students graduate. That’s right, athlete-students. To refer to them in the other order would be as hypocritical as looking the other way while your star QB commits Honor Code violations because damn — er, darn — he sure can throw the football on Saturday afternoon.
Not that he wants in, but those nine credits — three classes — are what is keeping Jim McMahon out. That, and the beers he drank on the golf course when people made excuses for him — I mean, weren’t looking.
“Like I said in the letter, I’ve been biting my tongue for 27 years,” Jim McMahon Sr. said in a telephone conversation on Monday, five days before UNLV will visit BYU in a game that probably won’t be anywhere near as interesting as this one-man campaign he’s mounting on behalf of his son.
He says Jim doesn’t want him to lose any sleep over it, that he should just let it go. But he can’t let it go. He’s stubborn, just like his son was in the 1980 Holiday Bowl. BYU trailed SMU’s Pony Express 38-19 midway through the fourth quarter when LaVell Edwards, the venerable BYU coach, gave up. He wanted to punt the ball back to Eric Dickerson and Craig James. But his son wouldn’t allow it. He literally refused to leave the field.
If you get ESPN Classic, you know the rest of the story. How BYU trailed 45-25 with 4:09 to go, before Jim McMahon engineered arguably the greatest comeback in bowl game history, completing a 46-yard Hail Mary pass on the last play of the game to provide the Cougars with a thrilling 46-45 victory that still resonates today.
Jim McMahon Sr. is 72. He’s in good health, but he’s not getting any younger. There’s 4:19 to go, and he’s down by three touchdowns. That’s why he’s writing letters to Holmoe and sports writers. It’s getting late, but there’s still time.
Holmoe, believe it or not, is sympathetic. Maybe it’s because he can read the record book, too. More likely, it’s because he played alongside McMahon at BYU. He knows how great he truly was.
“He played a big part in what BYU is doing today,” Holmoe told the Deseret News of Salt Lake City. “Rules are rules, and I didn’t make them, but it’s a hard thing not to see him in there. I love the guy. He’s a great friend.”
When this story hit the Salt Lake City papers, it attracted hundreds of e-mail responses, the majority of which seemed to side with McMahon. He should take a couple of correspondence courses, finish his degree online, like a lot of people do, wrote fans and foes alike.
Or, considering all of his charitable work over the years — Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, Hands Across America, Special Olympics, POW-MIA, Children’s Hospitals, Cystic Fibrosis, Children’s Miracle Network (national sports chairman), Society to Prevent Blindness ... the list, like a BYU rout of Wyoming, goes on and on — others believe the school would be justified in awarding McMahon an honorary degree.
Don King, the boxing promoter, has an honorary degree from multiple universities — and he once was convicted of second-degree murder.
Jim McMahon Sr. doesn’t believe the graduation stipulation — the McMahon Rule, some have called it — is what is keeping his son from being honored by the school he helped put on the map.
“When he was recruited, the coaching staff assured me and my family that even though he was not a Mormon, he would be treated fairly,” he wrote in the letter. “Obviously, that was a lie.”
Although Jim McMahon’s mom, Roberta, is Mormon and his wife, Nancy, is Mormon (they met at BYU), Jim was raised Catholic.
His old man said Jimmy was nothing more than a typical college student who could throw the heck out of a football, and he’s probably right about one thing.
“If he would have gone to Notre Dame, he would have won the Heisman Trophy two years in a row.”
Discussion: 12 comments so far…
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Jim McMahon was treated differently because one: he couldn't keep the honor code (which everyone has to abide by) and two: he didn't graduate. That's the rules.
It sounds like you don't know any Mormons at all Lenny, so maybe you should keep your ignorant and bigoted opinions to yourself.
Cannon - If he couldn't keep the Honor Code, he should have been kicked out of school. If it's that cut and dry, he should have been exiled before he chalked up the W's in your record book.
MakeitRain - I know you're not talking to me when you say "your record book". It's not my record book, I'm a die hard rebel fan. And I do agree that he should have been kicked off the team once he was caught breaking the code, however, it doesn't excuse Lenny from his outlandish comments about Mormons.
Now we know where Jim McMahon inherited his childish sense of entitlement.
Ooohhhh, I see, its everyone ELSES fault he won't go graduate, right? Whats stopping him?
Why could all the other hall of fame inductees go get their degree, but Jim couldn't? Are his fingers broken where he can't sit at a computer for a few hours a day? Or perhaps he never became a man at all -still slandering and giving the bird to the school who worked with him and worked with him to give him a free first rate education and bent over backwards to help him in life.
BYU is a classy, stand-out institution.
His father should be thanking BYU for picking up his slack and disciplining his son like a 2-year-old all those years - a job James obviously didn't do himself to begin with.
Boston, I bleed Rebel red and think that BYU is the enemy at kickoff or tipoff....but I'm glad someone else knows about Jim's past at BYU as well and can bring some sense to the table. Thanks.
Go Cougars and soundly beat The Rebels Saturday
I am a post-McMahon era BYU fan, and I would LOVE to see him in the hall of fame and get the respect he deserves. I don't know a whole lot about the uneasy relationship that existed back in the day, and I think many of the reports that we hear now about administrators "just looking the other way" or even about McMahon ditching BYU as fast as he could are quite speculative in nature. The situation now is simple: if McMahon wants in the Hall of Fame (whether for his own reasons, to make fans like me content, or just to end this controversy) he can just complete the required coursework through Independent Study or some other deal which I'm sure BYU would allow him to do. If not, his dad just needs to forget about the whole thing and let people remember his son as a great football player on the field just the same.
whether Jim should have been kicked out of BYU before he was done playing is irrelevant in this discussion. It seems like everyone, including McMahon Sr., conveniently forgets that Jim McMahon is not the only consensus All-American left out of BYU's hall of fame because he hasn't completed his degree. Anyone remember Jason Buck or Mo Elowonibi? Both of these guys were consensus All-Americans, MO won the outland trophy while he played for BYU. Both are considered some of the best players to ever play their positions at BYU and BOTH are NOT in the BYU hall of fame because they didn't complete degrees at BYU. Jim McMahon (Jr. and Sr.) have no one to blame but the rule itself. There is no conspiracy against Jim McMahon. He needs to finish his degree and he will be admitted into the hall. rules are rules
Excuse me. Both Jason Buck and Mo Elowonibi won the outland trophy
This article assumes that McMahon is "generally considered the greatest among all the great quarterbacks who have played at BYU"???? Sorry, but Ty Detmer was statistically much better than McMahon and won the heisman. Bosco was more efficient and won the national title. On overall talent, however, all three look up to a guy named Steve Young. The miracle bowl was great, but McMahon was not the greatest of BYU quarterbacks. By a long shot.
reno sucks.