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Provo • Any fears Brigham Young University supporters have that their school's new president isn't one of them when it comes to sports fanaticism should be allayed by a one-word response — or is it four letters? — when Kevin Worthen was asked to list the one thing he couldn't live without.
"ESPN," Worthen replied, referencing the television sports giant before noting that BYU-owned BYUtv is nice to have around, too.
Worthen succeeded another Cougar sports nut, Cecil O. Samuelson, as the school's 13th president in the spring and recently agreed to answer a series of questions posed by The Salt Lake Tribune regarding his own athletic background, his sports fandom, BYU's most visible coaches and his vision for Cougar athletics as the NCAA enters the age of autonomy for schools that belong to the so-called Power 5 conferences.
Unlike Samuelson, a founding member of the University of Utah's Crimson Club before becoming BYU's president in 2003, Worthen, 58, has been a Cougar die-hard since the days he could walk the dusty streets of eastern Utah's Coal Country.
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Blue beginnings • Worthen can't remember the exact moment he became a BYU fan, but by fourth grade he was hooked. One memory he holds dear came in 1966, when he saw Dick Nemelka and Jeff Congdon power a run-and-gun Cougar offense under Stan Watts to a 115-100 win over Utah.
"As I sat in the Smith Fieldhouse, I thought, 'This must be what heaven is like,' " he says.
After leaving LDS Church-owned BYU with a law degree in 1982 and becoming a clerk for Associate Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White, Worthen still followed the Cougars religiously in northern Virginia, watching football games broadcast via satellite to a nearby Mormon meetinghouse.
During his time practicing law in Phoenix from 1984-87, he often found himself driving around town to get the best radio reception to follow the Cougars. While he was in Chile in 1994 as a Fulbright Scholar, friends would videotape BYU football games and send them express mail.
"I did whatever I could to follow the Cougars," he says.
Since he was appointed as BYU's advancement vice president in 2008, Worthen has attended hundreds of events involving school teams, including NCAA Tournament basketball, soccer and volleyball contests, bowl matchups, away games and home games.
He surely will be front and center at BYU basketball games in the Marriott Center this winter, because basketball is his favorite sport, the one he played in college before enrolling at BYU. Will the "Whoosh, Cecil" chants by BYU students be replaced by alliterative yells of "Whoosh, Worthen"?
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From coal mines to hard courts • Worthen joined the basketball team at the two-year College of Eastern Utah (now Utah State-Eastern) in Price after graduating from high school in 1974 and became the Eagles' team co-captain his second year, he says, "largely because the coach believed in having experienced leadership, and I was one of two sophomores on the team."
Worthen worked in a nearby coal mine to help put himself through school, and his play on the court was rough and tumble. He described himself as a part-time starter who often fouled out, "meaning I had to play all out to keep up."
His most memorable moment came during his sophomore season. Although the Eagles struggled to win games that year, they upset a ranked College of Southern Idaho squad in their final game.
"A good reminder that you always have a chance," he says.
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BYU on a firm foundation • BYU annually has one of the nation's top 50 all-around sports programs as shown by the annual Learfield Sports Directors' Cup standings. The school's most visible programs — football, men's basketball, men's volleyball, women's basketball, women's soccer, women's volleyball — are seemingly in good hands with accomplished coaches: Bronco Mendenhall, Dave Rose, Chris McGown, Jeff Judkins, Jennifer Rockwood and Shawn Olmstead.
Athletic director Tom Holmoe is in his 10th year, and he and Worthen know each other well, having worked side by side in 2010, when BYU explored the possibility of leaving the Mountain West Conference. The school did bolt, becoming an independent in football and joining the West Coast Conference in most other sports.
"Each has done a magnificent job of aligning their programs with the mission of the university," Worthen says. "We are fortunate to have coaches and athletic administrators who understand the bigger picture; they are able to put together teams that compete at the highest levels while still giving priority to things that matter most."
Although football ran into a minor bump recently and self-reported possible improper benefits to the NCAA, Worthen says he is satisfied that BYU coaches are doing things the right way.
"That is a much more difficult task than most appreciate," he says. "All of them understand fully the nature of the challenge, and each embraces the opportunity to develop programs and student athletes that highlight the values and commitment to excellence that we strive to promote as a university."
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Thinking about tomorrow • BYU occupies unusual turf in the current college sports landscape as a football independent longing to be invited to a Power 5 conference.
The Cougars have the tradition, facilities, resources and record to be counted among the haves, yet sit on an island in the West, especially after rival Utah jumped to the Pac-12 in 2011. That BYU will not compete on Sundays complicates the picture.
Worthen has watched it all unfold and monitors it daily along with Holmoe and other administrators.
"I would like to see all our teams flourish at a national level, while promoting the values of the university and our sponsoring church. Right now, being an independent in football allows us to do that very well," Worthen says. "There are emerging dynamics that may make that more difficult in the future. Time will tell. We need to be prepared to make timely, thoughtful decisions as the landscape changes, and we are taking the steps necessary to make sure we can do that."
After sister school BYU-Hawaii announced it was phasing out intercollegiate athletics last spring, and in light of BYU-Idaho dumping sports in 2000, Cougar fans are uneasy about the future of the programs in Provo.
Holmoe says a recent opinion piece about the possibility of BYU someday dropping sports caused him to "snicker," and Worthen pretty much seconds that notion.
"While we share a common core of values, each of the BYU schools has a distinctive mission and role to play, and each makes decisions that reflect those distinctive roles and the unique situation of each school," Worthen says. "I am more concerned about emerging trends toward the professionalization of college athletics than about decisions made at the other BYU campuses."
Twitter: @drewjay —
BYU President Kevin Worthen's sports background
Grew up in the tiny eastern Utah town of Dragerton playing football, basketball and baseball.
Co-captained the College of Eastern Utah's men's basketball team as a 6-foot-5 forward.
Served as BYU's faculty athletic representative to the NCAA and as chairman of the University Athletic Advisory Council from 1992-2000.
Coached his son's Junior Jazz youth basketball team.