During the NFL draft, the New York Jets selected BYU quarterback Zach Wilson, and Atlantic writer McKay Coppins immediately tweeted what many young Latter-day Saints in the Empire State must have been thinking.
I’m told it’s a big deal that Zach was drafted second overall. I’ll be honest, I do not pay much attention to football or the people who play it.
What I’m much more inclined to care about is the celebrity surrounding these people. And Zach Wilson just became a celebrity. Not just any celebrity, a Latter-day Saint celebrity, which means when it comes to the Zach Wilson story, the Venn diagram of my background and my interests is a perfect circle.
Zach doesn’t shy away from his faith, but he does express some hesitation about identifying as a “representative” of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Certainly, it’s none of my business how public Wilson is about his faith. And really, it’s beside the point, because we still claim stars with little discernible connection to the faith, like Amy Adams, Aaron Eckhart and Steve Martin (we all know that last one has only ever been a false rumor). There’s also Ryan Gosling, who might still have some Latter-day Saint tendencies left in him simply because I know two separate people who have spotted him at Disneyland.
Sure, there’s a specific and special thrill when a celebrity identifies as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I feel connected to those celebrities in a way I really don’t deserve (Stars! They’re just like me!). For example, as a child I thought Steve Young was the biggest star in the universe.
I grew up in Provo at the height of Young’s career with the San Francisco 49ers. Young owned a home a short walk from where I lived, and during the summer myself and my posse of 9-year-old ne’er-do-wells bumped into Young outside his home. Our hearts quickened and our faces flushed as we asked him to sign the random objects we had on hand — a Will’s Pit Stop soda cup still half-filled with red cream soda, a worn sock and a piece of plywood — and we were thrilled when he gave an exhausted sigh and pulled out a pen. I knew even less about football then as I do now, which, again, is nothing, but in my mind meeting Steve Young was akin to meeting the pope, the president and Jonathan Taylor Thomas all in one. He was the most talked about celebrity in the adult conversations on which I eavesdropped and his dating life was the No. 1 item of gossip at every neighborhood gathering.
I heard rumors of young ladies the world over sending letters, videos and resumes to Young’s family in hopes they would pass them along to Young himself. A woman moved into our neighborhood and when anyone asked what brought her to Provo, she explained she moved there to date Steve Young, though she had yet to meet him. After being met with the raised eyebrows and tilted heads of everyone she told that to, she moved away. Most attempts to get Young’s attention were not that extreme. But many attempts were made.
A lot of single Latter-day Saint women, all of Provo and every purveyor of BYU-adjacent gossip waited with bated breath to see who Young would choose. For years. When he finally married Barbara Graham in 2000, we were happy for the new couple in theory, but some of us were secretly a little disappointed to no longer have the dating life of such an eligible bachelor to hypothesize about. We’ve been desperate for another one for 21 years, and, if I’m being honest, there are some of us hoping we get it back with Zach Wilson.
Now, to be clear, Wilson does have a girlfriend and she does seem wonderful and she did fly to Ohio with the Wilson family for the draft (I may have conducted some Instagram research in the name of journalism). But they are a very young couple. Got-their-driver’s-licenses-less-than-five-years-ago young. One-of-them-still-has-“teen”-in-their-age young.
Maybe they’ll end up together and we’ll watch their happily ever after via Zach’s mom’s Insta-stories. But maybe they won’t, because most young couples don’t. And maybe Zach Wilson will show up to the Lincoln Center Young Adult Ward mix and mingle, in which case, those who have been waiting two decades for the next big BYU football dating story, will be buying popcorn up in the peanut gallery. So too, I assume, will many single women in the Manhattan Young Adult Stake.
After one has been involved with the same singles ward congregation for a while, there’s excitement when any new, dateable blood walks through the chapel doors. And this new, handsome blood has a $35 million 4-year contract attached to it.
Let me be clear — the young women in our church are smart and should know better than to date someone just for their money or athletic prowess. I’m not suggesting otherwise. I’m just saying a pro athlete salary has never made anyone less attractive. Especially in a singles ward where women often outnumber men 2-to-1.
But not everyone is meant to date a football star, despite what all wildly inappropriate teen dramedies from the ’90s might suggest (Watching “She’s All That” with my mom in 1999 remains the most awkward experience of my entire life). And not everyone wants to date a football star. Some would much prefer to spectate others hunting the big game from the back pew, my favorite vantage point back when singles wards were my scene.
From there I witnessed the same phenomenon occur over and over in every congregation I sat in during my young adult years: A conventionally attractive male or female was identified as the The One To Date and was pursued heavily by every member of the opposite sex until he or she chose a mate or broke 20 hearts by declaring they were engaged to someone in their major. Then the pack identified a new The One To Date and the cycle started over.
I wouldn’t call it an efficient cycle, but it made for some good stories. Like the time The One of the week invited two of my roommates to his apartment, sat them both down on his couch, explained he was attracted to both of them, and told them to choose who, out of the two of them, he should date. That day both my roommates learned The One might not be the one for them. A lesson most of us learned, more often than not the hard way, and then chose the back pew spectator life.
Zach Wilson seems predetermined to be The One for at least a while should he choose to attend his singles ward. If we’re lucky, we’ll get some good Steve Young-esque stories for the spectators on the back pews.
But Wilson might settle down quickly. He might even marry his girlfriend, in which case we’ll have to direct our unhealthy thirst for gossip elsewhere. Perhaps to Detroit, where Latter-day Saint offensive tackle Penei Sewell, who is single, will play with the Lions after being drafted seventh overall. Or perhaps some of the five BYU Cougars who were drafted into the NFL and the seven who signed as free agents will have meteoric rises to fame and we’ll get multiple romantic storylines to follow.
Can you imagine how great the view from the back pew could get?
Ultimately, however, it’s not just about the romance or the gossip, as great as they are. It’s about rooting for someone in my community to succeed in the national spotlight, and hoping for their happiness in their personal life. As secretly disappointed as some of us felt when Steve Young met Barbara, together they’ve accomplished great things in our community as advocates and philanthropists. We continue to root for their success, just like we root for any of the Latter-day Saint celebrities to whom we feel connected, deservedly or not.
We’re rooting for Zach, and for Penei, and for any of us who find themselves in the spotlight. But we won’t be mad if we get some good back-pew stories from the road to success.
Meg Walter is the editor-in-chief of The Beehive and a Deseret News contributor.