Misty sent this paper that Jackson wrote. I love it.

Jackson Bishop

LA4-Mrs. Ellis

Narrative

September 23, 2013

Cougar Bound

I never believed my dad until felt it for myself. I never believed my mom until I saw it with my own eyes. The only way I could believe them was to experience it on my own. The thin Utah air hit me as I walked off the plane that morning. That evening I felt the stadium shake when 70,000 people roared as the Brigham Young Cougars football team took the field. At that moment, I believed all the times my parents told me the environment at BYU would change my life.

Saturday morning wasn’t the ordinary start of my Fall weekends: waking up at 7:30 in the morning, going to football, coming home, plopping my butt on my couch and going right back to sleep. Instead I woke up at 9:00 AM in a Marriott hotel in Provo, Utah. As a part of my recruiting process the assistant baseball coach at BYU, Coach Haring, took me out to eat a full course breakfast at MiMi’s breakfast shack. It sure beat my usual bowl of bland cereal. Immediately following breakfast, Haring took me and the other recruits to the bookstore to get some game-day-apparel. Already my morning was ten times better in Provo than my whole day would have been in my hometown of Jonesburg, Missouri.

Marching around campus with my new group of friends and teammates made me feel like a king. All decked out in our new BYU apparel, we walked with complete confidence. As a group we’d approach people and talk to them until they’d ask us if we were a part of the baseball team. We would proudly reply, “Yes!” Then tell them to go to the football game that night and look for us on the sidelines. We’d then move on to the next group of people. We felt as if people were coming to see us instead of the football game (which was completely insane to think that was actually true).

Finally--Game time! We walked in Cougar stadium with what seemed to be crowns on our heads, but in all reality we just had paper bracelets stamped, “sideline pass.” While standing on the sidelines I was in the land of giants. You’d think standing next to some of the most athletic people I’d ever met would be the most impressive part of it all. But when 70,000 fans were chanting “B-Y-U- COUGARS” the stadium literally shook. The rush was contagious!

Throughout that game, while I was standing on the sidelines, a thought hit me like an unblocked linebacker: In the not so distant future I will be spending four years of my life, and maybe more, out here in what seems like paradise. I had no idea how truly blessed I was to be able to attend college and play baseball for the Brigham Young Cougars. When I stepped on the plane to come out to Provo I had no idea how much my parents knew. When I got into my parents car at the airport in St. Louis, the first thing I told them was, “I believe you now.”