By Jonathan Boldt
Assistant Sports Editor
UVU has defied the natural laws of color blending, making green ooze out of a red and blue collision of team identities. Typically red and blue make purple, but sports fans at Utah Valley University have forgotten where they are and turn green with envy and jealousy.
There is a strong contingent of UVU students that fall into the stereotypical ideologies of what others think of other institutions. For example, BYU fans are arrogant and believe they are above the laws that other schools have to abide by.
Utah fans just hate BYU fans because they are jealous and wish they were BYU.
When thought out logically, independent observers can see very easily through each argument. Biased fans can come up with any little thing to explain why their team is better and the opposition is inadequate.
Unfortunately, this bias for those two teams has spilled over into UVU. For as young as the university is, the Wolverines are competing and sometimes dominating the playing field. What the athletics department is experiencing has nothing to do with the play of the teams however; the strong feelings for BYU and Utah have created indifference for their own school in a large portion of the average Wolverine on campus.
There is also a stigma that UVU is a collection of students that can’t get into BYU and others that don’t want to commute to Salt Lake City.
By hating on other teams and not supporting their own institution, UVU students only give the stigma credence and in some cases they can even enhance it.
What once was Central Utah Vocational School in 1941 became Utah Trade Technical Institute in 1963 and transformed into many other incarnations before being established as a fully accredited university in 2009.
With a student body of over 32,000 in 2011 UVU became the largest public institution in the state and is the single largest employer in the city of Orem.
It’s about time that the record setting university for growth take some steps towards growing their emotional maturity and transform the MAWL into the state of Utah’s version of the Cameron Crazies at Duke, the white Izzone at Michigan State, the Orange Krush at Illinois, or Ketucky’s eRUPPtion Zone at Rupp Arena.
It’s now time to turn hatred and bias for other schools into passion for our own.
Jonathan Boldt can be reached at jonboldt@gmail.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @jboldt24
