Gordon Monson: Remembering my email from LDS apostle Jeffrey Holland

I had a decision to make. What would you have done?

Jeffrey Holland, the apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who died Saturday at age 85, years ago emailed me to tell me he really liked and appreciated a column I wrote about Wilbur Braithwaite.

And I had to write him back.

First, who was Wilbur Braithwaite?

He was a legendary mentor at Manti High School who coached tennis there for 51 years and basketball for 37, winning a combined 12 state championships among those two sports. He was a philosopher and a poet as much as a coach, a World War II veteran who had been severely wounded in battle who went on to pen hundreds of poems about sports and challenges, about faith and fear. He reached deep to instruct kids on more than the rudiments of zone defenses and smooth backhands. He taught them about life and the best ways to live it.

“If all you’re teaching is sports, then you’re falling short,” Braithwaite said. “I liked watching the changes in the kids’ lives, seeing them grow. That’s fulfilling. Michelangelo said he was happiest with a chisel in his hand. I’m happiest with a basketball and a tennis racket in mine.”

Braithwaite shared association with other coaches, people whose fame blew far beyond the boundaries of Sanpete County, names and notables such as UCLA’s John Wooden and, apparently, nabobs of other orders as well.

Holland certainly knew all about the coach, who died in April 2010, at age 84, in part because he shared more than a few commonalities with the man. Both were long-in-the-tooth former athletes, still sports fans and spiritual souls, both having grown up in small, isolated communities in the mid-to-lower regions of Utah, both having tried to do God’s work on Earth.

Now, beyond all the eternal, ecclesiastical and ecumenical stuff, both can hoop it up in heaven together, huffing and puffing up and down the varnished golden courts in the great beyond.

Holland the athlete

I thought of Braithwaite when Holland died because the Latter-day Saint leader held this high school coach in such high regard. His email, sent directly from him, the apostle, to me, the columnist, sang the coach’s praises for all the right reasons. It was tender and touching, an honored and honorable religious leader paying tribute to an honored and honorable educator.

It might come as a surprise, but I don’t often get personal communiques straight from Latter-day Saint apostles and prophets. It’s happened three times — once from apostle Robert Hales, once from Holland, and once from church President Thomas Monson, who approached me at a tennis tournament in which his grandson and my daughter were competing. He walked over to me in front of small bleachers, extended his hand and said, “I guess one Monson ought to be courteous enough to introduce himself to another.”

I guess he, too, was a sports fan, same as Holland, who played basketball and football in high school in St. George in the late 1950s, winning state titles, and basketball in college in southwestern Utah, where he was the team’s co-captain.

It is said that Holland bagged groceries and delivered newspapers in St. George as a kid, and I have to respect that. He went on from there to expand his big brain at church-owned Brigham Young University, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English and religious education before moving on to Yale, where he received a master’s and a doctorate in American studies.

From there, he taught and worked in various roles for his church before ascending to become BYU president in 1980. After that, he became a church general authority, first as a Seventy and then an apostle. He traveled the globe, building the church and visiting with government leaders of other countries.

He was often admired for his sermons, many of which were heartfelt, interesting and meticulously composed, seeming as much poetic essays as they were church talks. He was one of the faith’s best, most anticipated speakers at General Conferences — for good reason: He was articulate and, more importantly, fun to listen to. He extended warmth to people of all races, all faiths, all walks of life.

The ‘musket’ speech

When he gave his hotly disputed musket-fire, defend-the-doctrine talk at BYU in 2021 — a speech that was delivered less than warmly by Holland and received less than warmly by many others, those inside and outside the LGBTQ community — a firestorm ignited. Criticism came from all kinds of people, believers and nonbelievers, people like me who thought Holland was lifting a clenched fist toward the marginalized in the faith instead of an open hand.

It was most uncharacteristic of this apostle.

If any human is to be remembered, though, for the body of his efforts, his positive contributions to the world and, in this case, to his church, the large portion of Holland’s are to be commemorated with respect, as an honored and honorable man. On the whole, even in the face of some imperfection, that’s the way I saw him, a lot like the way I saw Wilber Braithwaite.

An educator, a poet, a good mensch.

Speaking of which, when it came time to send a message back to Holland all those years ago, I had to decide how to best lead it. I mean, as a lifelong believer, should I address His apostleship all proper and formal as Elder Holland or as Elder Jeffrey R. Holland or rather simply as Jeff?

That last humble one is the way he signed off on his original message to me. After I wrote a sweet, fitting response, thanking him for his email and joining in on celebrating Wilbur’s wonderful achievements in a life well lived, at the top I addressed him the same way I salute him now.

Rest in peace, Jeff. Rest in peace.