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Show ATHLETIC PROTESTS gestures. Protesters in the stands threw raw eggs and loose debris. When Colorado’s players returned, protesters moved to one of the corners. Several fights broke out. Forty Colorado security officers and Fort Collins policemen marched onto the court. Someone in the stands threw a piece of metal, which bounced off one of the helmeted security officers and struck a Rocky Mountain News photographer, leaving him temporarily unconscious. A Molotov-type cocktail followed, bursting into flames but not exploding. Seven people were eventually arrested, six suspended.117 After a half-hour delay, during which the court was cleared and cleaned, the Cougarettes finished their drill and play resumed. “I know the coach [Stan Watts] realized that what he was having to decide could actually mean the lives of his players,” BYU’s center Scott Warner commented.118 “The thing that worries me and the boys,” Watts told Sports Illustrated, “is how far will it go? . . . One of these days, you know, somebody might pull a gun or something.”119 Larry DeLaittre, one of five non-LDS members on BYU’s varsity team, remarked: “I really do sympathize with the protesters . . . I really get uptight when we come out and I see the cold stares. I want to grab hold of somebody and yell, ‘I’m Catholic! I’m Catholic!’”120 Other BYU players likewise admitted they felt uneasy about the situation and sympathized to some degree with protestors. In contrast, Utah sportscaster Paul James, who called the game for KSL Radio, labeled the demonstration as “an insult to every law abiding citizen and every principle of law and order that this country stands for.”121 Fearful, Wilkinson looked for answers in LDS theology. “Do you or any of your staff,” he asked the dean of BYU’s College of Religious Education, “know of any revelations that are specific as to what we might expect by way of disorders in the near future? Anything you can give me will be helpful to me in this time of crisis.”122 He also asked trustees for a supplemental appropriation of $100,000 for “security protection.”123 “These demonstrations against BYU,” the religion dean subsequently asserted, “are not really demonstrations against the racial policies of this University [but] 117 “No Legitimacy in CSU Riot,” Daily Universe, May 7, 1970; “CSU Prexy Reverses Ruling on Protesters,” Provo Daily Herald, August 5, 1970. 118 Dahl, BYU’s Stan Watts, 171. 119 William F. Reed, “The Other Side of ‘the Y,’” Sports Illustrated, January 26, 1970, 38; see also “Stan Watts Years Still Remembered,” Daily Universe, October 14, 1983; “Violent Demonstration Marks BYU–Colorado Game,” Daily Universe, February 6, 1970; “Demonstration Line Forms Before Game,” Daily Universe, February 9, 1970; Dahl, BYU’s Stan Watts, 168–71; “CSUPD History,” accessed November 28, 2011, http://police.colostate.edu/pages/history.aspx; “Conviction Brought from CSU–BYU Riot,” Provo Daily Herald, March 12, 1970. 120 Reed, “The Other Side of ‘the Y,’” 38. 121 “Retrospect: Brigham Young at Colorado State,” Daily Universe, February 11, 1970. See also Paul James, Cougar Tales:The Inside Stories from 20 Years of BYU Sports (Sandy, UT: Randall Books, 1984), 47–52. 122 Wilkinson, memorandum to Daniel H. Ludlow, February 11, 1970, Perry Special Collections. 123 Wilkinson, memoranda to Ludlow, February 16 and March 11, 1970, and attachments, Perry Special Collections; Executive Committee, Board of Trustees, Minutes, February 19, 1970. Wilkinson was advised to look for the money in other areas of his budget. 223 |
