I have to feel for the kids at The Daily Universe, the student paper at Brigham Young University.

As The Salt Lake Tribune reported, Monday's edition of The Daily Universe featured what editorial manager Rich Evans called "the worst possible mistake" - a photo of leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, with a caption that referred to the group as "the Quorum of the Twelve Apostates."

(Glossary for the non-religious: An apostate is someone who speaks against the doctrines of a church - and, in LDS circles, is about the nastiest thing you can call a good upstanding Mormon.)

The Universe staff tried to retrieve the 18,500 copies printed, and reprinted a corrected version. They also issued an apology to church leaders, and explained that the error was due to the paper's spell-checking software substituting "apostate" for a misspelled version of "apostle. (Lesson to young journalists: Spell-check doesn't fix everything.)

Lest the Tribune be accused of, as scripture says, noting the mote in its neighbor's eye while ignoring the log in its own, I'll note that such blundering happens at every paper. A week ago, a Tribune story about a speech by LDS Church President Thomas Monson carried a headline that called him Gordon Monson - who happens to be one of the Trib's sports columnists.

I will leave it to theologians to debate which is worse: To be called an apostate or to be called a sportswriter.

Labels: Brigham Young University, journalism, LDS, sports

Fans of Brigham Young University know Gifford Nielsen as the Cougars' star quarterback in the mid-'70s, leading BYU to the WAC title in '76 and '77 and earning a place in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Nielsen was drafted by the NFL's Houston Oilers, where he played six seasons - first as a back-up to Dan Pastorini and Ken Stabler, then as a starter alongside Archie Manning and Oliver Luck.

For the last 25 years, since leaving the NFL, Nielsen has been sportscaster and sports director at Houston's CBS affiliate KHOU.

Today is Nielsen's his last day at KHOU. He announced his retirement on Monday's newscast, and the station posted a tribute page to "Giff."

Labels: Brigham Young University, sports

College-basketball fanatics in Utah can rejoice: The Utah Utes, BYU Cougars and Utah State Aggies all got into the NCAA Tournament.

• The Utes, seeded No. 5 in the Midwest regional, will face Arizona in the first round, Friday in Miami.
• The Cougars, a No. 8 seed, will play Texas A&M on Thursday in the West bracket in Philadelphia.
• The Aggies, a No. 11 seed, will play Marquette (they're from Wisconsin) in the the West bracket Friday in Boise.

If nothing else, all his proves that the NCAA - which puts Miami in the Midwest and Philadelphia in the West - needs to offer a remedial course in geography.

Meanwhile, every office worker today is hitting the sports websites so they can bone up on the teams before filling out their brackets. (By the way, both Dick Vitale and Digger Phelps on ESPN predicted Sunday that Arizona would upset the Utes - something for Utes coach Jim Boylan to post on the locker-room bulletin board.)

But the real match-up worth speculating over is this: How will Big Blue, the Utah State's large bull-headed mascot, do facing Marquette's Golden Eagle (pictured) - especially after Blue's now-infamous throwdown with "Pistol Pete" from New Mexico State at the WAC tourney.

Labels: Brigham Young University, University of Utah, Utah State University

I received an e-mail when I got back from vacation, informing me that Harvey Jackson Unga - father of Harvey Unga, the star running back for Brigham Young University's Cougar football team (pictured) - is endorsing Republican candidate Jason Chaffetz (himself the Cougars' starting place-kicker in the late '80s) for Utah's 3rd congressional district.

"There is no question that Jason Chaffetz has the potential for great things," said the elder Unga in a statement, sent by a publicist. "He is the right choice for our society and community. He is an athlete. He is well known amongst the BYU athletes and by BYU."

Is Unga's endorsement going to influence your vote? Is the opinion of a famous athlete's father - or a rock star (like Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel, who played at a Barack Obama fund-raiser last week) - important in helping you decide for whom you should cast your ballot?

How about the considered opinion of the editorial board of your local newspaper?

The Salt Lake Tribune's editorial board this weekend issued its endorsement in the presidential race. The headline sums it up: "A simple choice: The nation needs Barack Obama in the White House."

After pointing out that the Tribune endorsed Obama's opponent, Hillary Clinton, in Utah's Democratic primary this spring, the editorial acknowledges that the board has come around:

"Under the most intense scrutiny and attacks from both parties, Obama has shown the temperament, judgment, intellect and political acumen that are essential in a president that would lead the United States out of the crises created by President Bush, a complicit Congress and our own apathy."

Surely the Tribune's endorsement - along with endorsements from dozens of other newspapers (including that of the Chicago Tribune, making the favorite son Obama the first Democrat that paper has endorsed in its 161-year history) - will give conservatives grist for their usual "liberal media bias" gripes. And just as surely it will give relief to that tenacious breed known as Utah liberals, many of whom accused the Tribune editorial writers of knuckling under to a publisher's decree when the paper endorsed George W. Bush four years ago.

But will the Tribune's endorsement move Utah from the red column to the blue? Will it have any more effect on Utah voters than the number of lawn signs each candidate has (Obama is well ahead in that count in Utah) or how many 7-Eleven coffee cups were sold with each candidates' names on them (Obama came out ahead there, too)?

Probably not, but that's not the point. Endorsements serve as helpful guides to the candidates' positions and barometers of the candidates' temperament. They are written by people who have studied the candidates, and they urge you - the voter - to study them, too.

Labels: Barack Obama, Brigham Young University, politics

It's a deeply held belief in some quarters that watching violence in TV and movies can make a viewer more hostile. Now research from a Brigham Young University professor suggests that just watching people being verbally mean to each other can have a similar effect.

The study, reported in the British paper The Telegraph, involved British university students watching one of three films: A knife fight from "Kill Bill," a catty conversation from Lindsay Lohan's "Mean Girls" and a quiet seance scene from the horror movie "What Lies Beneath."

One of two tests were then administered. One involved competing in an online game in which the loser would get a blast of noise - and the person taking the test could set the noise level. In the other test, the subjects reacted to an actor pretending to be a rude researcher.

The subjects who watched the "Kill Bill" clip or the "Mean Girls" clip reacted more aggressively than the third group, Dr. Sarah Coyne (pictured), assistant professor in BYU's School of Family Life, told The Telegraph. Her study is published in the November issue of Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and available online.

Labels: Brigham Young University