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Sports Stuff
by Mike Morrow

While Family Home Evening is something all members of the Church know about, little is known about the Extended Family Home Evening.

For those who work nights, or have no Monday-through-Friday work schedule because their shifts are irregular, a home evening, any home evening, is looked upon as something special. A few days ago, members of our night-time sports crew had an Extended Family Home Evening, where we discussed a variety of things relating to the Winter Olympics, to Utah and Salt Lake City, and to the Church.

Already, the Olympic Games have created a mostly positive curiosity about the Church and the questions are far-reaching. From the usual questions (and we don't have to be specific) to the meaning of the Moroni figure atop the temples to someone asking if I'd have to leave the Church because my work schedule requires me to work at least two Sundays a month.

A few days ago, we were crowded around one of the televisions at the office to watch the United States and Sweden meet in a women's curling event. Yes, curling. Imagine the reaction of our in-the-field writing staff when they heard we were switching between curling and the Westminster Dog Show rather than a college basketball game or a classic sports highlight.

There were about seven of us crowded around the television, shouting encouragement as the big stone (or is it called a rock?) was being swept up the court (or is it called the ice?) toward a big circle. There was good-natured shouting when the United States stone crashed into the Swedish stone, causing it to glide out of the circle, giving the Americans a point and, eventually, a 6-5 victory.

"This is really kind of cool," said Jeremy Littau, who designs sports pages.

And it was.

It was one of those special moments, though. Like many special moments in these Winter Olympic Games.

The big prize
BYU got more than an All-American quarterback when it finally got the signature of 6-foot-5 left-handed quarterback Ben Olson on national signing day for college football. Olson-who is from Thousand Oaks, Calif., and is regarded as the No. 1 catch in this year's recruiting crop-"is one of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet," according to Vincent Bongisnore, another colleague of mine that covers high school sports for the paper. "He is the real thing. He is smart, he is big and he is strong-he is a lot like Daunte Culpepper (of the Minnesota Vikings). What's more important is he is a good guy. A real good guy."

Off to Oregon
The loss of defensive lineman Haloti Ngata to Oregon was a shock to fans of the BYU football team. Had the Cougars been able to recruit Ngata-a 6-foot-4, 308-pounder from Salt Lake City Highland High-national experts would have rated this year's BYU recruiting class as one of the top five in the country. One service said the signing of

Olson, the top offensive recruit, and Ngata, the top defensive recruit, would have been the biggest coup in years. In actuality, the loss of Ngata dropped BYU out of the top 20 in recruiting.

There were reports that Ngata had verbally committed to BYU but later changed his mind.

Sports editor's note
Thanks to Meridian readers, we have been able to identify several LDS athletes that are competing in the Winter Games in Salt Lake. Following is a list of those athletes that have been verifiably identified as LDS (K.L.M.):

·    Rowena Bright, women's downhill skiing, Australia

·    Dinah Browne, women's luge, U.S. Virgin Islands

·    Chris Hoeger, men's luge, Venezuela

·    Werner Hoeger, men's luge, Venezuela

·    Joe Pack, men's freestyle skiing, United States

·    Sabine Ruckauer, women's ice hockey, Germany

·    Tamami Tanaka, women's biathlon, Japan

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