Former football coaches and players reunited Saturday morning to play in a golf tournament and support the BYU Varsity Club mentoring program.
“It’s important that past players come back and associate with the successful program that LaVell [Edwards] started,” said Louis Wong, current head football coach at Timpview High School and BYU offensive guard on the 1984 national championship team. “Bronco’s doing a good job as far as keeping some of those traditions and that’s why we all come back.”
Junior Arielle Bitner, a BYU Varsity Club intern from Boise, said the purpose of the Y Varsity Club football chapter is to perpetuate the brotherhood of BYU football through social activities and service.
The main focus to making the Y Varsity Club successful is building up their mentoring program, which allows the former football players to mentor current players in transitioning into professional careers.
“It helps add to the tradition,” said LaVell Edwards, head coach of the 1984 national championship team. “It’s a very important thing because it gives players something to build on and that becomes a basis of what their life is.”
The mentoring program invites former players to network and introduce people in their own professional fields to current football players. There are 18 players currently working with former players, and Y Varsity is hoping to build it up to more.
Robbie Bosco, quarterback for the 1984 BYU national championship team, is director of the BYU Varsity Club and emphasized the importance of the former players coming back.
Bosco said the Varsity Club is not only for the mentoring program but also for reuniting former players to continue the feeling of belonging to a team of brotherhood.
The BYU Varsity Club website emphasizes the importance of reconnecting with the men who are such a big part of their past. The coaches and players were able to do this by competing against each other on a golf course instead of a football field.
“Oh, it’s a competition and no, it’s not friendly,” Wong said. “We’re trying to show people that we can do some skill stuff, like golf.”
More than 80 players and coaches attended the golf tournament at the golf course at Sleepy Ridge and enjoyed reuniting and reminiscing.
“The stories get better the older we get,” Edwards said. “And the feeling of being together again is unlike anything else.”
