This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Through all these years of covering games and reviewing heavy metal concerts, I've made a critical discovery: Never try to tell devoted fans whom they should cheer for, or against.

Yeah, you can learn a lot from Judas Priest followers.

A full-page advertisement that appeared in last Sunday's printed Sports sections of The Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News was headlined as "a message to LDS Ute fans who dislike BYU." The subject caused quite a stir in social media, evoking much discussion and many questions: Who is this person? Why write this now? What is a newspaper?

The essay was well-intended, but it may have created the effect of further turning off football fans who are permanently aligned with the University of Utah and against BYU, disregarding their LDS Church membership.

It is a rivalry, after all.

The anonymous writer was not asking members to disavow the Utes, just to support the Cougars as well. My initial reaction was that the notion made some sense, until I imagined myself being told to cheer for a rival school .

Suppose I loved the University of Redlands, whose rivals include Cal Lutheran. Would I still hope the Kingsmen win football games, in the interest of advancing the cause?

Sure, Redlands and CLU play in Division III, far removed from the ESPN exposure that BYU receives. I've also advocated less obsession with the Utah-BYU rivalry and some acknowledgment of the other program's success, when merited.

Yet the very nature of a rivalry means picking a side and sticking with it, and if that means finding some degree of joy in the other team's struggles, that's part of the fun. Through family ties, I once followed Texas A&M football. My favorite days were when the Aggies beat Texas, when Texas A&M won the Big 12 championship game and when Texas lost 63-14 to Oklahoma — almost in that order.

I'm not personally criticizing the writer, a middle-aged man who lives in the Salt Lake Valley, judging by a partial revealing of his identity in a 1280 The Zone interview. He sounded like a well-reasoned person, just trying to share his opinion. And he paid money to do so, which I can only appreciate, even if I disagree with his stance or with whoever published an anti-transgender ad in Sunday's Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Any "passionate hatred" of BYU that the writer cited among some LDS members is unfounded. But asking Ute fans to not "cheer against" BYU's football team is extreme. During his career as a Ute linebacker, Mike Wright once told me he occasionally was offended by anti-BYU sentiment as a returned missionary. "But at the same time, I sometimes get caught up in the rivalry and I might agree with some of the things that they say," Wright said. "That just goes with being a part of this rivalry."

Yes, it does. And if anyone thought the rivalry emotion would be diminished during this two-year break in the football competition, guess again. If Utah coach Kyle Whittingham never says the name "BYU" — even as an LDS Church member and former BYU star — why should every Ute fan in his demographic embrace the Cougars?

The football teams in essence play one another Saturday — notably last weekend, when the Pac-12 Network staged a doubleheader of Utah vs. Colorado and BYU vs. California. The Utes and Cougars faced comparable opponents and won by virtually the same score.

Hardly anybody around here was completely happy that day. Well, the writer got his wish when both teams won, but his subset of the total fan base is a minority group.

I do agree that when there's a major breakthrough for one school or the other that benefits the perception of our state, all fans should applaud the achievement. But that doesn't mean they have to like it.

Twitter: @tribkurt