Cougars carry on mud football tradition with foam fun

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Austin Rustand
Ashlei Lovell, Keely Bullock and their friends pose for a photo after sliding through the True Blue Foam at Helaman Field on Friday. (Austin Rustand)

Being a “true blue” BYU Cougar became more than an adage for almost 4,000 BYU students as they participated in the True Blue Foam slide Friday.

“True Blue Foam is an annual campus tradition and a must have experience for every BYU student. Kick off the year with the biggest, bluest, and slickest slides you‘ve ever seen,” the BYU Student Connection and Leadership Center said in its advertisement for the event.

The event was held at Helaman Field just north of the Helaman Halls freshman dorms and was open from 4-6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 10.

Bee Golding is a sophomore studying experience design management and a part of the BYU Student Connection and Leadership Center team. She was the head organizer of the True Blue Foam event.

Golding said the tradition began back in the 1960s when students began playing mud football on Helaman Field. The organizers of the event soon realized that playing football in the mud wasn’t good for the grass which caused the switch to foam football.

With the number of people attending the foam football game growing by the year, the organizers decided a Slip-n-Slide covered in blue foam would be an easier way to facilitate the many students that wanted to feel the spirit of the Y.

“Going into planning, we completely changed the infrastructure of this event,” Golding said. “We were anticipating not only the freshmen who are having all their ‘freshman’ experiences to attend, but we were also expecting the sophomores because they had such a non-traditional first-year experience.”

In the first 30 minutes of the event, almost 1,000 BYU students, many of them sophomores, juniors and seniors already found themselves covered in blue foam.

Ashlei Lovell, a sophomore resident assistant in the dorms, said she felt like a freshman all over again. “It just makes me feel like there is more of a community on campus and that I get the true college experience.”

Between taking turns sliding down the grass hill behind Miller Park, students could interact, make new friends and experience what was lost because of cancelled events during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Golding said this event is only the beginning of what their team has planned to bring the BYU community together following the COVID-19 year of 2020.

To learn more about other events put on by the BYU Student Connection and Leadership Center, readers can visit its website.

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