HB Arnett's "Lite" <mailto:hbarnett@fiber.net> hbarnett@fiber.net 801 372 0819 Vol. 38, Issue 12, - October 15, 2018 BYU Breaks 3-Week Football Fast With 49-23 Hawaiian Feast I'm an internet expert on fasting. I've tried the 16-hour daily fast to lose weight. <https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/intermittent-fasting-guide> Intermittent Fasting. Didn't work. Too many good taco food trucks and carts available that are still open at 9 pm. In high school we used to play Calexico HS yearly. We would always cross the border at Mexicali to buy the delicious street tacos for a dime each. A teammate made the mistake of asking the vendor what kind of meat he was using. He replied, "Carne es Carne". Translated: Meat is Meat. Don't know what he was expecting for a dime. I watched the Netflix special on the benefits of fasting. It was intriguing and fascinating. I recommend it as a great informative watch. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrZQei5BdcQ> The Science of Fasting. But my addiction to Banana Flavored Laffy Taffy and Diet Mtn Dew is a hard stumbling-block to overcome. I used to be a mormon, but I am now a proud member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Certain Women's auxiliaries of my Church have been asked to fast for various periods of times from Social Media by our Prophet, <https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2018/10/sisters-participation-in-the -gathering-of-israel?lang=eng> President Nelson. A new fasting diet that some are now pushing is called "reverse fasting". This one is simple. You can only eat when you are backing out in reverse from your driveway or parking stall at work. This one is tricky and requires hand to mouth coordination coupled with great rear-view mirror vision in a very short period of time during the day. <https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/reverse-fasting-benefits> Reverse Fasting. Thankfully for BYU football fans worldwide, Kalani Sitake, set the standard late Saturday night for breaking a 3-week football fast offensively with BYU's 49-23 win over Hawaii. Sitake used the Blythe, CA. (where I grew up) technique taught to me by my dad. During the summers when the temperatures reached 115 degrees, I would ask my father if we at least could drink some water during our monthly fast. His response was that it would probably be okay if just before we passed out, we could take a small sip of H2O. Sitake used the same technique. His coaching seat was getting extremely hot. Just before he passed out from looking like he had no clue, he took a sip of Zach Wilson and looked like he may have revived himself and BYU football. Ilaisa Tuiaki, the Cougars defensive coordinator, broke his fast at a Las Vegas style buffet of blitzes. Just when it looked like he was passing out as an unimaginative defensive coordinator, suddenly he gorged and gutted Hawaii's vaunted passing attack with blitzes BYU fans had not seen for two years. Forget moderation in all things. He stuffed himself and Hawaii with a mouthful of Corbin Kaufusi. The BYU defensive buffet was serving up Kaufusi in a variety of ways. Middle Linebacker, Defensive End, Spy and Sacker. For Hawaii's offense, Kaufusi was a one-man horror movie called "The Thing" which rhymes with ka-ching, the sound of NFL money potentially to be made by Kaufusi for his herculean performance against the UH Warriors. Wilson saved Tom Hanks from going crazy in the movie <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO_MYX_Oto0> Cast Away. In this short scene portrayed by clicking above, Hanks is profusely saying sorry to Wilson. Kalani Sitake and Jeff Grimes might be thinking the same thing. "Sorry Zach Wilson, we should have played you sooner". If you remember, Wilson was lost at sea, during a perilous time for Hanks. Nobody knows where he ended up. Now we know. He showed up on the BYU football shore and appears to have shored up what had been an anemic offense of the past year and a half. Based on Wilson's debut performance as a Cougar, we want to get a head start on getting a good nickname for him. How about ZDub? Let's try Kid Rock. With the plethora of freshmen playing offensively for BYU this season, what about Nursery Leader? My vote is cast for "DG". That stands for Darn Good. Since we have already talked movies, my R rated nickname would be HDG. That would be Hoover DAM Good! Fluff and Stuff Taysom Talks the Talk and Wilson Walks the Walk.Here's what Taysom Hill says about Zach Wilson and then watch Wilson walk the walk about which Hill talked by <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSU9KPJY5Q4> Clicking Here.Wilson and Women.The BYU Women's Volleyball team is not a castaway but far and away the best team I've seen in the decades I have been covering Cougar athletics. They are currently rated No. 1 in the nation and are currently 18-0 overall and 8-0 in WCC play. Just how good is this team? They have only lost 5 sets during this entire season. Next up is Loyola Marymount this Thursday at 7 pm in Provo. The match will be televised by BYUTV and will allow you to also see how good this team is.We Do Hard Things was the Michigan Lansing Mission slogan. Tanner Mangum has epitomized that slogan during his career at BYU. With all the polarization and pillaging taking place in the political arena and even in the local pigskin arena, Mangum has shown grace and good despite the public fact checking and editorials concerning his football skills and private life. Despite having his football career and personal life dissected and dissed for two years by the media and public, he has taken it all with the grace of a statesman and stud who bleeds BYU blue. Barring an unforeseen injury to Zach Wilson, we won't be seeing him on the football field again, but the character he has shown in his career at BYU, guarantees that we will be seeing him again as a successful contributor to society somewhere in this life. He has been the face of BYU football for the last three seasons and faced adversity personally and as a player and done it all without movie makeup or makeover. Just my opinion, but he is the genuine grace and goodness of a true statesman and spokesman for what is right with BYU and the world.Bronco Mendenhall is making waves in Virginia. <https://www.dailyprogress.com/cavalierinsider/three-things-we-learned-about -virginia-coach-bronco-mendenhall-in/article_fbbc0990-cff8-11e8-a688-2f0690c b0c3d.html> Click to read what they are saying in Charlottesville about the former BYU coach and his former BYU staff after a 16-13 win over ranked Miami. Just in Case Hawaii Won.. I like to be prepared for any occasion. Here is what I penned last week before the Hawaii/BYU showdown in Provo in preparation for a BYU loss. Robert Frost Weighs in on the Future of BYU Football The Road Not Taken BY <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-frost> ROBERT FROST Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. America's Most Widely Misread Literary Work According to The Atlantic, the magazine Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" is often interpreted as an anthem of individualism and nonconformity, seemingly encouraging readers to take the road less traveled. This interpretation has long been propagated through countless song lyrics, newspaper columns, and graduation speeches. But as Frost liked to <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/89511/robert-frost-the-road-not-t aken> warn his listeners, "You have to be careful of that one; it's a tricky poem-very tricky." In actuality, the two roads diverging in a yellow wood are "really about the same," according to Frost, and are equally traveled and quite interchangeable. In fact, the critic David Orr deemed Frost's work "the most misread poem in America," <http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/09/11/the-most-misread-poem-in-amer ica/> writing in <http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/09/11/the-most-misread-poem-in-amer ica/> The Paris Review: "This is the kind of claim we make when we want to comfort or blame ourselves by assuming that our current position is the product of our own choices. The poem isn't a salute to can-do individualism. It's a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives." In the final stanza, we can't know whether the speaker is sighing with contentedness or regret as he justifies the choices he's made and shapes the narrative of his life. Frost wrote the poem to tease his chronically indecisive friend, Edward Thomas, who misinterpreted the meaning and enlisted in the military shortly thereafter, only to be killed two years later in WWI. BYU Fans Most Widely Misread Perception on BYU Sports, Particularly Football and Basketball, According to Me Here are the two roads that must both be traveled by BYU coaches. There is no option if you want a paycheck. HONOR CODE and ACADEMICS. The way it is now with BYU athletics, both of those roads eventually lead to less talented athletes overall than other competing schools have to deal with. I don't care if it is Robert Frost, Scott Frost, Nick Saban, St. Nick, Leach, as in Mike or Lingo, as in Johnny, no other school or coach in the nation has to traverse those two roads. I'm old enough and have followed BYU athletics long enough to remember when the two roads of Honor Code and Academics were much less visible and consequently much more flexible for coaches of an earlier era. The biggest detriment to BYU football and basketball, in my opinion, are cell phone cameras and social media. I'm not advocating a revisit to the old days. I'm just pointing out that it doesn't make a significant difference who coaches at BYU as long as the two Roads and blocks are what they are. I'm not advocating a change, just pointing out what I consider to be the unalterable facts. Regardless of whose face is leading the program and what road they choose. Until those two roads are widened, paved and made more passable, even Robert Frost couldn't compete with the big boys for the talent needed to compete on the college football biggest stage. Now after the game, here is my new take on "the road not taken". Consulting a Google Map would have been very helpful in determining the decision on who would be the BYU starting quarterback before the season started. Knowledge of where each road was headed and ended could have saved a lot of anguish for coaches, players, fans and Robert Frost. It still wouldn't have stopped the road-kill drubbing put on BYU by Washington and Utah State. But, according to the inalienable 20/20 hindsight of myself and all BYU football fans who have shouted to Sitake, "I told you so", it is always appropriate to remember what Jean de La Fountaine reportedly said about BYU football results, records and recruiting: "A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it". For those of you who may have forgot, de La Fountaine was a 4-star recruit from France and one of the most widely read and recruited poets of the 17th Century. He was recruited by Alabama, Texas A&M, Ohio State, Harvard and Princeton. He took the road less traveled to Arizona Western JC in Yuma. That's why he is quasi-quoted in a less traveled and less read rag like Cougar Sportsline.
