Many people have asked Kent Samuelson how he and his siblings feel about their brother, Cecil O. Samuelson, being named president of Brigham Young University.
"Well, we're very embarrassed by it," he tells them with a wry grin. "If our parents were alive today, this would kill them."
Truth is, though they are a multigenerational University of Utah family, the Samuelsons are proud of Cecil O. Samuelson Jr. They're all behind him.
"It's a great opportunity for him and for the Y.," said Kent Samuelson, a Salt Lake orthopedist. "He will bring a lot to the Y."
But, "it's hard to pass up the chance to rib him about it."
Cecil Samuelson, 61, a former U. student, professor and administrator, takes the reins of the Provo university May 1. He has declined to do any interviews until after he moves into the office.
Kent Samuelson says his older brother doesn't have any real need to put his personal mark on BYU immediately. But if Cecil Samuelson's wedding day is any indication, he'll be hard at work before the honeymoon starts.
After an early morning ceremony in the Salt Lake Temple on the day before Thanksgiving nearly 39 years ago, bride Sharon Samuelson and her new brother-in-law Kent dropped off the groom at the U. for a critical pre-med class.
Skipping the lecture could have set him back for an upcoming exam and jeopardized his medical school recommendation from the professor.
"It was so important that he didn't want to miss it," Sharon Samuelson said, "and then I saw him later that night for the reception."
Just hours into the marriage, Cecil Samuelson's work ethic had become evident.
Into Cougar Country
It probably won't take him long to establish the same ethic in his new relationship with BYU.
"He will have very high standards for BYU," says longtime friend Jim Jardine, a Salt Lake attorney and former U. trustee.
Had things worked out differently, Cecil Samuelson, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Presidency of the Seventy, could be president of the University of Utah.
Former U. President Chase Peterson asked the LDS Church First Presidency to consider giving Cecil Samuelson a leave of absence after then-U. President Arthur Smith left a few years ago. After thinking it over, Peterson said, church leaders decided he was "too precious down here." Peterson and Cecil Samuelson had worked together closely at the U. medical center.
Having spent more than a third of his life at the U., Cecil Samuelson is somewhat unfamiliar with Cougar Country.
"I know the campus better than he does," Sharon Samuelson said. "He'll figure it out. Right now, he's just finding his way."
The way for Cecil Samuelson has always been paved by someone looking out for him.
Cecil Samuelson has joked that his union with the former Sharon Giauque was an "arranged marriage" courtesy of his father, Cecil O. Samuelson, a U. educational psychology professor.
Seems his father always had a few things to do in his office when Cecil Samuelson arrived in the family's only automobile to pick him up after a day of classes. That left plenty of time for the recently returned missionary to chat with the senior Samuelson's secretary.
"It took him four months to ask me out," Sharon Samuelson recalled.
Rising to the top
Cecil Samuelson will have about four months to become acquainted with BYU before that arranged marriage of sorts becomes formalized in September. He did not seek to head the university. LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley — president of the school's board of trustees — chose him for the job.
That's kind of the way Cecil Samuelson's life has gone since his medical residency at Duke University in Durham, N.C. He's never really had to apply for a job.
Both Duke and the U. wanted him on their faculties. Though the Samuelsons thoroughly enjoyed their time in Durham, they chose to remain in Utah in the Tudor-style house Cecil Samuelson built himself. They still live there.
Cecil Samuelson rose through the ranks as an associate professor of medicine, full professor, assistant dean, associate dean and acting dean of the U. School of Medicine.
"Acting" positions are usually given to individuals who are not candidates for the job. But Cecil Samuelson's leadership, hard work and people skills made it difficult for university administrators to ignore him.
"He's a little like Joseph in Egypt," Jardine said. "Whatever situation you put him in, he rises to the top."
In 1988, he became U. vice president of health sciences. Two years later, he made the unplanned move to Intermountain Health Care, where he was a senior vice president until President Hinckley called him to the First Quorum of Seventy in October 1994.
Jardine, a member of the U. trustees at the time, said there was a great sense of loss when Cecil Samuelson left University Hospital for its friendly rival, IHC. He succeeded in what could have been an uncomfortable situation by gaining the loyalty and affection of his colleagues. Jardine calls that experience a "very good predictor of what will happen at BYU."
A gift for friendship
Known as "Cec" to close friends, Cecil Samuelson has a gift for friendship. He makes an effort to keep track of friends, old and new, and runs into acquaintances everywhere he travels.
"Periodically, I try to say 'Elder Samuelson,' but the 'Cec' pops out," says Pamela Atkinson, former IHC vice president for mission services.
Atkinson says she always admired the way Cecil Samuelson held others accountable while expecting no less of himself
Recently, she gave him a check she hoped he could get to a former Utah family that had returned to Mexico after the father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Working through an LDS Church mission president and missionaries, Cecil Samuelson had the money hand-delivered.
"Cec made sure," Atkinson said, adding he let her know via e-mail. "That is one of the marks of Cec Samuelson, that he really does care."
Friends say Cecil Samuelson takes his job seriously without taking himself too seriously.
"He has a dry, wonderful sense of humor, and goodness knows we need that in all our public officials these days," Peterson says. "People get awfully tense. Excessively, I think."
At one of his first meetings at BYU, Cecil Samuelson was asked what he thought about the football team. "I think their chances for a championship in Division II are very high," he replied.
Things change
Cecil Samuelson, the father of five grown children including adopted Guatemalan twins, has had to learn to juggle family life with professional and religious assignments that often take him away from home. Having an understanding wife doesn't hurt.
"Sharon displays a unique combination of supportiveness, loyalty and independence," Cecil Samuelson told the Church News shortly after becoming a general authority. "She has always been absolutely supportive of me, but brutally honest about both her feelings and my deficiencies."
C.O. Samuelson, the couple's oldest child, said his fondest childhood memories include attending U. football and basketball games with his father.
"We're a Utah family and always have been," he says, and ruefully adds, "things change a little bit."
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