COLUMN: Trip to Provo not worth the drive

Julie Ann Grosshans

I had a horrible day Friday.

I missed my first class of the day, failed my political science essay exam and faced the typical boy troubles of the day – all before noon.

I didn’t think it could get any worse.

Then, at 3 p.m. Jason Turner – the assistant sports editor – and I attempted to make our way to LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo for the Utah State vs. BYU football game.

I was wrong. Things really could get worse.

Where do I begin?

I think I should have let Julie Ann Grosshan go to the football game. I mean, the media pass wasn’t even for me after all; my last name is spelled differently.

Jason and I figured leaving four hours prior to the game would give us plenty of time to arrive early and enjoy the wonderful food the media is given.

Traffic had another plan for us as we arrived at the game well into the second quarter.

We began to hit traffic around Brigham City and it never let up. The worst of the traffic came around Bluffdale near Point of the Mountain, where we sat in stopped traffic as the Aggies began football action.

At least we had good ol’ Al Lewis to listen to on the radio.

Finding parking for most was a nightmare. We thought we would have it easy, media parking pass. Think again. For some crazy reason BYU decided to hand out more parking passes than there are parking spots. We ended up parking my car in some huge grassy area, praying we would not find a ticket on the car when we came back. Luckily there never ended up being one.

As if we, college sports writers, don’t feel like we are the laughing stock of the press box as it is, Jason and I finally found our way to the Cougar press box with 10 minutes remaining in the first half.

After driving five hours to Provo, we were hungry. The nice media food was gone and all we were left with were greasy cookies and bananas.

Since I couldn’t eat dinner, I thought at least I could calm my frustration with a nice cold cup of Coke. I forgot where I was though and had to settle for Sprite.

In the press box, Jason and I sat next to the writer for The Daily Universe, BYU’s student paper.

Talk about lack of journalistic knowledge.

The guy was totally biased and had something to say after every play as we sat there biting our lips knowing we are not allowed to even cheer for our Aggies.

Forget the drive, the lack of food in my system and the biased writer sitting next to me. I was really disappointed I wasn’t sitting next to my friend, a writer from another newspaper. That just added to the nightmare I went through Friday.

Oh. And there was a football game being played on top of everything else. We won’t talk about that. We already know the outcome of that sad story.

When all was said and done, I’m really thinking Julie Ann Grosshan should have gone to the game.

Julie Ann Grosshans, a sophomore, is the sports editor for The Statesman. Comments can be sent to her at purplefootprints@

hotmail.com