By ETHAN THOMAS
Two years ago, BYU's high profile sports had lost their luster.
The football team finished 5-6, which capped its third losing season in a row. The basketball team was on its way to a dismal 9-21 season and changes seemed necessary.
The athletic department scoured through potential replacements for their head coaching positions and wound up hiring two assistants, Bronco Mendenhall and Dave Rose.
After two seasons in their programs at BYU, Mendenhall and Rose have brought their sports out of depths and into the national spotlight, by uniting their teams and winning conference championships.
While some would feel content with the job they have done so far, neither coach is ready to stop improving.
'You try to be optimistic when you are hiring head coaches, you try to think about the best case scenario and we have had that,' BYU Athletic Director Tom Holmoe said. 'I think Dave Rose and Bronco Mendenhall, along with their staffs, have done a remarkable job and the best part about it is that neither of them are close to resting.'
In their second year, both coaches had remarkable success, which included a national ranking, a conference championship, and at season's end the Mountain West Conference honored both coaches with coach-of-the-year awards.
'They are able to be fierce competitors and then step back and be planners and deal with team issues,' Holmoe said. 'And they want to build strong programs, and strong programs are not predicated on one good year.'
Building programs at any college is not an easy task. It demands a tremendous amount of dedication and passion, all on top of the pressure associated with the position.
'What I have learned most as a head coach is that this is a challenge, a big challenge,' Rose said. 'Everyday is a challenge. I just continue to operate with our staff under the terms of everyday work. Some days are better than others.'
Combining those everyday challenges of being a college coach with other unique challenges BYU provides is something that the coaches must embrace.
'The visibility was the hardest adjustment,' Mendenhall said. 'I am a representative of the BYU football program, the institution, and, quite frankly, the church twenty-four-seven, and that opportunity is one that has changed my life.'
Both Mendenhall and Rose understand the challenges ahead of them and they try to show support for each other, as much as their busy schedules allow them.
'We speak on occasion, usually during the season,' Rose said. 'We talk a couple times during the football season, a couple times during the basketball season and I think it is way more a matter of a support issue. During his season I want him to know that I am very supportive and am pulling for him and he does the same for me during our season.'
While the pressures are felt, both of these coaches have thrived off the challenges ahead of them. By getting their players to buy into their unique outlooks on sports and life, both Mendenhall and Rose have impressed the BYU community.
'I think in the last two years with coach Mendenhall in football and coach Rose in basketball they have done a tremendous job,' BYU President Cecil O. Samuelson said. 'The thing that pleases me most is that they are doing it the right way; they do it with integrity and with honor.'
Preventing problems off the field and requiring accountability from their players is something that is extremely important to the BYU administration. Accomplishing that, as well as success on the field of play, is something BYU looks for in all of their athletic endeavors.
'I am very happy with all of the programs, I think we have great coaches and particularly with the high visibility programs we have had such great success over the past couple years,' President Samuelson said. 'I worry sometimes because people don't realize how many conference championships we have had in track, cross country, volleyball and all the other sports.'
While Mendenhall and Rose seem to be the faces of BYU athletics, their qualities are found in all of the other sports coaches on campus.
'I am leery to talk about just those two because the other sports coaches have done so well also,' he said. 'What I said about Dave and Bronco you could say about all of our coaches.'
While BYU athletics enjoys their success of the past year, the leadership of Coach Mendenhall and Coach Rose will continue to be the marker for the outside world looking in.
Based on what they have shown in their first two seasons, the Cougars seem to be in good hands.