I’ve started a new project that requires me to read the diaries of longtime BYU President Ernest L. Wilkinson. I thought these four excerpts were interesting and funny. Wilkinson worried a lot about keeping up with the University of Utah–keep that in mind.

February 11, 1955

“In the evening attended the basketball game between the U. of U. and the B.Y.U. The paper had all predicted the U. of U. would have a comparatively easy time of it. Stan Watts, however, had devised some special strategy for the game. When the first half ended, the B.Y.U. was 10 points ahead. Near the middle of the second quarter the B.Y.U. was 15 points ahead, and then one of those unusual changes occurred, with the result that, with just four second left to go, the U. of U. made a field goal which tied the score. In the five minutes’ overtime, however, the B.Y.U. scored four points, and the U. of U. two, ending the game with a score of 76 for B.Y.U. and 74 for U. of U. It was a great upset. All admit that the B.Y.U. outplayed the U. We almost lost this game, however, through very poor foul pitching. The B.Y.U. made 56 points of field goals as compared with 44 for the U. of U.”

President [Ray A.] Olpin [the President of the University of Utah] cordially congratulated me after the game, but it was reported from many that he was vigorously complaining about the poor officiating of the officials. Ray does this so often that very few pay attention to him. His own guest at the game whispered to me that “B.Y.U. won fairly notwithstanding what Ray has to say.”

May 4, 1955

“Attended a football game in the early evening between the Whites and the Blues. Learned while I was there that in the afternoon a group of Jordan High athletes had come to the campus. They were indignant that the U. of U. had run their pictures in the newspaper last Thursday as being signed up for the U. of U. They said they were all coming to the U. This is typical, however, of the social pressures put on athletes throughout the State by the U. of U.”

November 22, 1955

[In process of finding a football coach to replace “Chick” Atkinson]

“This athletic situation has given me no end of worry. I know that intercollegiate athletics are not a necessary part of college life, especially football. I know that in many schools they are very demoralizing. My Board of Trustees as a whole, on the other hand, are in favor of our having a great football team at the B.Y.U. The Athletic Council of the school has also recommended that we pay athletes room and board. This, of course, has been approved by the N.C.A.A. and by many of the conferences of the country. To me it represents commercialization, and yet I know it is less of an evil than to give athletes jobs on which they do little work for which they receive pay. College football in most of the universities of the country is no longer an amateur sport. All of the newspapers of the State will spend columns urging a greater football team, but very few of them ever become really interested in educational issues.”

January 19, 1956

[Spends afternoon with the Executive Committee and Board of Trustees of BYU]

“I reported also to the Board that we could not very well cooperate with the University of Utah in arranging basketball games with well known schools over the weekend whereby they play at the B.Y.U. one night and at the U.of U. another night, because the other schools did not want to play with any team coached by [University of Utah Coach] Jack Gardner. Brother [Lowell] Bennion immediately bristled. It is very obvious that his primary allegiance to the University of Utah, where he taught for many years and of which he is a member of the Board of Regents, does not quite permit him to look at these matters objectively. I am more and more convinced that it is wrong to have a member of our Board of Trustees with a dual allegiance.”