It’s only a legit option if you play for BYU-Provo Campus.
Story time (names redacted to protect the innocent): When I was on my mission, I spent some time as the mission secretary. This was pre-email, so my job was to handle missionary mail (outbound and inbound) and I handled non-sensitive mail for the mission president as well.
We had an elder in the mission who played football for BYU-Provo Campus (this was during the Edwards era). He had redshirted as a freshman before his mission. Honestly, he was a great missionary…super zealous, hard worker, really nice guy. Meanwhile, the mission president was a big Utah fan.
Around the holidays – about 6 months before this elder was due to return home – the mission president received a letter from Lavell asking if he could be released a month early so he’d be back in time for fall camp at Provo Campus. I remember the mission president reading it and scoffing as he read. “I’ll take care of this. I’m calling Elder _______ tonight to talk about it.”
A couple days later, the mission president had me send a letter back to Lavell. Knowing that I was a Utah fan, he let me read it first. It said:
“Dear Coach Edwards,
I received your letter requesting that Elder __________ be released early so that he can return to BYU in time for fall football camp. It is the policy of the [name of the mission] to not release missionaries early for school-related reasons, so unfortunately, Elder __________ will miss fall football camp.
Elder __________ is an excellent missionary and is totally committed to the work and is an incredible asset to our mission. So I felt inspired to ask him if he would like to extend his mission by 1 month, which he eagerly agreed to. Therefore I must inform you that Elder __________ will also miss the entire football season.
Sincerely,
[Mission president]
P.S. Go Utes!”
For those wondering, that elder returned to BYU-Provo Campus the following year and played half a season before he sadly blew out his knee on a special teams play. He never played football again. Now he is a startup CEO in Silicon Valley.
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