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Show .THE DAILY UTAH CHRONICLE Wednesday, November 25, 2009 Wide dedicated to family, football Running back's relationships on and off thefield create success Liz Frome STAFF WRITER Eddie Wide III has become an integral part of the. Ute family, but he hasn't forgotten his own. After his parents divorced when Wide was just 18 months old, his father, Eddie Wide Jr., raised him and his three sisters by himself in Las Vegas. With Eddie as his only son, Wide Jr. said he and Eddie developed a close bond during Eddie's childhood that remains strong to this day. "My (goal) was for them to enjoy their childhood and not focus on the (aspects) of being raised by a single parent," Wide Jr. said. "I wanted them to be okay and enjoy themselves. (Eddie) was easier (to raise) because we had that bond, that father-son relationship. I could teach the girls how to fight, but I couldn't teach them how to be girls.". Wide, the U's junior running back, has also maintained a close connection to his sisters. Wide Jr. said that Wide always wanted to be involved in what his sisters were doing when he was young, and as he grew up, he made an effort to include them in his activities, especially his youngest sister, Marian. "In high school, he'd go to the movies with his friends," Wide Jr. said. "Ten or 15 of them would all go to the movies and, Mariah, she'd want to go and see the video and she's six years younger than him. But (Eddie) would go ahead and say (to his friends), 'Hey, you know what? Mariah wants to go to the movies, we'll all go see what she wants to watch.' And they were all cool with that. The same happens now when he comes back in town. If he's gonna go do something and she wants to hang out, he'll change all his plans." Wide is majoring in sociology at the U and is planning on getting his criminology certificate so he can possibly pursue a career in law enforcement like his father, a BUBBA BROWN Sophomore, Mass Communication s MIKE MANGUM/TTie Daily Utah (hrpnidt Eddie Wide has stepped up to help the Utes' running game after Matt Asiata went down earlier this season. When Wide is finished with school he wants to use his sociology degree to get a job in law enforcement like his father. probation officer in Las Vegas. Wide said seeing his father help people get a second chance motivated him to go the same route. Whittingham said that between balancing classes, homework, football and a personal life, the laid-back 21-year-old has set an example for other student-athletes. "He's a great kid and a great student," Whittingham said. "Just a mature kid, the epitome of a student-athlete—that's what Eddie Wide is." Wide Jr. said although he misses his son, he's proud of the way Wide has worked for what he wants, and hopes he continues to push himself. "I told him, 'I want you to enjoy your college experience the same way you enjoyed your childhood,"' Wide Jr. said. "It's a lifetime experience...and I'm totally happy for him to be experiencing something like this because not everybody gets a chance to. See WIDE Page 4 Rivalry game will be Johnson's day to shine with crucial interceptions he Holy War 2009 is •finally upon us. Another chapter of the rivalry will be written in two short days. Even1 though there is nothing more at stake than a rivalry win, the game promises to be exciting as always. Although players and coaches swear they focus on games one week at a time and don't look ahead, sometimes it's difficult to believe them. If T BYU honor code creates hurdle for recruiting I were Robert Johnson, I would have had a hard time not looking forward to the BYU game since early in the season. Johnson leads the conference in interceptions caught, and Max Hall leads the conference in interceptions thrown. It's a dream scenario for Johnson. Emotions always run high in big rivalry games, with bragging rights and confer- MIKE MANGVM/Ihe Deity Utah Oironidc Robert Johnson leads the Mountain West Conference in interceptions caught this year and will be facing Max Hall on Saturday. Hall threw five picks to Utah last year and leads the MWC in interceptions this year. ence supremacy at stake. Whether anyone likes to admit it, getting emotional increases the likelihood PAIGE of errors being made. FlELDSTED Ask Hall, who threw five interceptions in last year's rivalry game—a game that Senior, Mass Communication if BYU had won, would've and Pyschology created a three-way tie for the Mountain West second-half comeback. He sinConference championship. gle-handedly put the Colorado That game has to be haunting State game on his shoulders, for Hall. earning three interceptions, Johnson was just one of all of which resulted in touchfour Utes to pick Hall in last downs for the Utes. His other season's game and could have a interception blew the UNLV heyday against him this year. game open for the Utes. Johnson was nowhere to be BYU lives and dies with seen in the loss to TCU, which the pass game, as it averages was too bad for Utah because almost twice as many passthe defense could've used the ing yards as rushing yards electric spark an interception per game. This is perfect for almost always provides. Johnson and company, who have proven to be much more I have no doubt the Utes effective in protecting the have the talent and ability pass than stopping the rush. to win in Provo—something • Utah's pass defense is third they haven't done in four in the country, allowing only years—but Utah will have to 173.3 passing yards per game— shut down Hall to do it. a lot less than BYU's average Johnson and the rest of the of 295 yards of passing offense Utah defense should be licking per game. their chops in anticipation for Johnson has come up with the chance to embarrass Hall big interceptions in almost and come away with a huge every key game this season. rivalry win. He got an interception against p.fieldsted@ Oregon that was part of Utah's chronicle.utah.edu ince the early '80s, BYU football has been touted as the cream of the small-conference crop. But during the past decade, the Boise States, TCUs and Utahs of the world have snatched the torch from the Cougars and surpassed BYU as the little guys who can best stand up to the bullies of the Bowl Championship Series conferences. The reason for the Cougars' descent down the ranks of the best of the non-BCS is simple. BYU's honor code has not allowed it to recruit the necessary athletes to consistently beat top-flight teams. Even before the first whistle of the season blows, the Cougars are behind. The Cougars' recruiting pool is limited compared to conference rivals TCU and Utah. While BYU is searching for players-willing to commit to its honor code—which prohibits premarital sex and the use of alcohol, among other things—TCU is scouring its talent hotbed of a backyard for Jerry Hughes and Daryl Washington, and Utah is searching Sin City for the likes of Stevenson Sylvester, That's not to say that players such as Hughes, Washington and Sylvester are necessarily unwilling to live by BYU's standards—it's just that the honor code severely limits the number of Hughes-like players the Cougars have to choose from. That makes putting as many players as possible who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or who might be willing to follow the honor code into Cougar uniforms of the utmost importance. The Cougars can ill afford to let LDS players such as Manti Te'o, one of the country's top linebacker recruits, who chose Notre Dame over BYU, slip through their fingers. That's not to say that BYU doesn't recruit its share of talented players. It was able to lure nfgnly touted quarterback prospect Jake Heaps into its 2010 recruiting class. Max Hall, Harvey Unga, Dennis Pitta and Jan Jorgensen are some of the finest players in the conference, if not the country, and have enabled the Cougars to string together three straight 10-win campaigns, with a chance for a fourth this season. Still, as good as those players have been, they have not been able to get the Cougars over the hump against highly athletic teams. Looking at each of BYU's four regular season losses in the past two seasons, there are two common threads running through each defeat: The Cougars could not match their opponent's athleticism, and each game was rather lopsided. Two of those losses came at the hands of TCU, and the other losses came against Utah and Florida State. All three of those programs are known for their outstanding speed and athleticism, which the Cougars couldn't match. BYU defends its honor code by insisting that it helps the program develop its players into young men worthy of representing the LDS Church. By emphasizing the honor code over recruiting top athletes, BYU sends a message that fielding a team of honor code-abiding players is more important than football, which, while certainly respectable in today's sports world full of Pacman Joneses and Plaxico Burresses, doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that BYU can one day replicate the national success it once enjoyed. b.brown@ chronicle.utah.edu Families must decide where loyalties lie with Holy War Joseph Simmons STAFF WRITER Nothing tears a family apart like having one of its members switch allegiances in a rivalry. Without sports, it wouldn't be quite so infuriating to see a loved one suddenly start cheering for a rival school, and in Utah the rift created can be particularly deep. Everyone knows that Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham played for rival BYU, but no one questions his allegiance; For other former Cougar players, the switch can be impossible for families to handle. Timpview High School football head coach Louis Wong played on the offensive line for BYU and was on its 1984 national championship team. However, after his playing days were over, he coached as a graduate assistant at Utah with Ron McBride. The swatch from Cougar blue to *V Ute red was too much for some family members to handle, and Wong said he quickly ran afoul with a few of his in-laws. "It was my first year at Utah and Rivalry Week, and a distant brotherin-law who was a big BYU fan came by asking me where my loyalties were," Wong said. Wong said he told him that even though he was an alumnus and played for BYU's national championship team, it was now his job to beat BYU. "I told him that I was loyal to my work, but he kept bugging me, saying, 'You know you still bleed blue,'" Wong said. "He thought I would change my mind, and i didn't, so he stormed out of my house, and he got into his car and backed it right into my red Jetta and drove off." The next day, Wong said he called his brother in-law and asked why he had rammed his car. "He told me it just made him so angry that I would say I wanted to beat BYU," Wong said. "Then he told me, 'Just get itfixedand let me know how much I owe you,' but didn't say sorry," Wong said. The next day, Wong told McBride about the incident. McBride told him to use it as a motivational speech. "I just used the story to get the guys fired up for the rivalry game, and it did," Wong said. Things become much more complicated when a staunch Ute family has a child marry a BYU fan. Longtime Crimson Club members and die-hard Ute fans, the parents in the Salmon family faced a dilemma when their son Bryant chose to go to BYU over Utah for school. "They almost dropped me out of the family when I went to the Y, but I stayed faithful in my attendance to Utah football and basketball," Bryant Salmon said. Things got worse for the Salmons \. when Bryant Salmon fell for not only a BYU student, but a BYU studentathlete. Meredith Simmons played goalkeeper at BYU and said that her five years as the only BYU fan in a Crimson Club family have been tough. "*They received me into the family with love, but then and still now it's been non-stop teasing about BYU sports," Meredith Salmon said. "It's been afive-yearbattle having to hold my own for the Y." The Salmon family has worked on converting their blue sheep to Ute red, with mixed results. One tt'vumph was in 2003, for the infamous 3-0 Ute victory in Provo, when father Kevin Salmon got Meredith Salmon to go to the game decked out in Ute gear by bribing her with a day of driving his Nissan 300Z and paying for her and Bryant to go out to a fancy dinner. In other situations, it's been more about compromise. Last season, when Bryant Salmon got the family tickets for the BYU-Utah game, he agreed to take his wife only if she wore red to the game and cheered for Utah. Meredith wouldn't go that far, and in the end the couple agreed on her wearing black and not cheering for BYU., "I couldn't cheer for the Cougars out loud, but I still cheered for them in my heart," Meredith Salmon said. Brfcyant Salmon said that despite his wife's protests, he can see her slowly turning to the U. He said that at the 2004 Fiesta Bowl, she cheered for the Utes as loud as anyone in the stadium. Still, in the end, the two of them know it's only a game, albeit a fierce rivalry one. "I'm not a Utah fan, but I'm a fan of being married peacefully," Meredith Salmon said. "I know how to pick my battles." j,simmons@ chronicle.utah^du |