Breaking news:Kalani Sitake Head coach,BYU football set part ways with $100 million mega Star…
Breaking news:Kalani Sitake Head coach,BYU football set part ways with $100 million mega Star…
The Latter-day Saint rituals weren’t his own, but Retzlaff learned to find comfort and even a kind of divine beauty in them. During the pregame team prayers, when all the other players bow their heads, he looks up and around the locker room at his friends and teammates—trying “to be present in the moment” as he reflects on his own gratitude.
Retzlaff’s experience took on a new dimension after the October 7 attacks on Israel last year. As campuses across America erupted in protests over the war in Gaza, and as many of those protests curdled into virulent anti-Semitism, Retzlaff was struck by how different his classmates seemed from the people in viral video clips hurling epithets at Jewish students. He suspected that the secularism that dominated those other campuses played a part. “I’d love to ask them about their faith,” Retzlaff told me of the protesters. “What are the odds that they’re faithful at all? I’d bet you they’re not.” For all the inconvenience and occasional awkwardness that BYU’s deep religious culture might cause him, Retzlaff believes it’s allowed his fellow students to see his Judaism not as a marker of political identity but as a faith that warrants respect, even reverence.
In fact, Retzlaff told me, as BYU’s quarterback he’s encountered more anti-Mormonism than anti-Semitism. The year before he joined the team, some fans at the University of Oregon greeted the Cougars with chants of “Fuck the Mormons.” The school eventually apologized, but Retzlaff told me he and his teammates have continued to face religious taunts in opposing stadiums. He’s less scandalized by the heckling than by the lack of outrage it seems to engender. “The blatant disrespect for their faith—it’s something to think about. What if there was a Jewish university that had a Jewish football team, and they were saying that in the stands?” Retzlaff asked me. “Like, imagine if that hit the papers. That would be a big deal.” The casual bigotry, and muted response to it, unnerves him. “There’s a lot of people who just don’t like Mormon people, for no reason,” he told me. “That’s what happened to the Jews all throughout history.”
In the arena on Saturday, Retzlaff and his team found their rhythm in the second quarter. After a perfect 20-yard touchdown pass tied the game, the Cougars never looked back. They scored 24 unanswered points, and forced four turnovers. We sang the fight song until our voices went hoarse, and by the time the game ended in a 41–19 blowout, my kids were converted. I had a Jewish quarterback to thank for helping me pass my fandom down to the next generation.
But BYU’s win wasn’t meaningful only to the Latter-day Saints who were watching that day. After the game ended, Retzlaff made his way to the locker room to shower and change, and then took questions at a press conference. Playing like that on Yom Kippur was, he would later tell me, a “spiritual experience.” He was exhausted and emotional. But before he could leave, he got word that someone was waiting for him in the stadium, now mostly empty. A Jewish fan had waited more than an hour to take a picture with the quarterback. After shaking Retzlaff’s hand and thanking him, the man said he was going home to break his fast.
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