AJ Dybantsa and Bear Bachmeier walked into Rick Gill’s class last September and sat down in the front row. Dybantsa was the No. 1-ranked basketball recruit in the world and Bachmeier had just become the first true freshman to start at quarterback for the Cougars in school history.
Gill watched them closely. The dean of undergraduate education on campus was among the bright minds who, three years earlier, felt a gap existed between newcomers to BYU and the culture on campus.
“What if we had a course that every incoming freshman got to take? It will be a small class, and it will put them close to one of our faculty members who really understands what the university means,” reflected Gill on the “Y’s Guys” livestream show this week. “We are going to help them become part of the BYU community.”
As a result of those discussions, University 101 was born.
Seeing Dybantsa and Bachmeier choose their seats at the head of the class showed Gill that the new kids in town were eager to learn just what kind of town they had moved into.
“It gave me confidence that we have some real leaders on the team. Those are guys who take their academics as seriously as their athletics,” Gill said. “As I watched these guys engage in the material, here we have Bear, who was at Stanford just a few months ago and now we are asking him to come in and lead the football team — and he’s all in. He’s engaged in, ‘What does it mean to be a BYU Cougar? What does it mean to represent The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints even if I am not a member? Not only that, but how am I going to succeed academically here?’ By being fully engaged in the class, I think we are giving them a leg up and helping them to represent the university.”
Over the last seven months, no one on campus has been interviewed or talked about more often by national media than Bachmeier, the Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year, or Dybantsa, who this week was named First Team AP All-American. The two young BYU ambassadors stand with confidence and freely discuss their experience, including the family atmosphere in their programs, the spiritual vibe on campus, even their favorite religion classes.
University 101 helped them get there.
“It’s fun to see that,” said Gill. “On Day 2 of the class, we talk about the university being prophetically directed. Because we have this community (or class) that is so religiously diverse, we get to step back and (ask), ‘What is a prophet? What does it mean? Let me tell you about Dallin H. Oaks. Do you realize he used to be president of BYU? We are led by a board of trustees that includes apostles. What is a modern-day apostle?’ It’s so exciting to get them grounded and oriented as they begin to represent the university.”
Honor code
One of the topics University 101 tackles is the BYU honor code, where Gill and the other instructors take a page right out of Kalani Sitake’s playbook.
“We’ve seen how Kalani interacts with his players and talks to them in meaningful ways about what it means to be here at BYU,” he said. “Especially when it comes to the honor code. It isn’t just a check list they are being forced to comply with, but in fact, when they come here and want to be part of this community, we are inviting them to honor that commitment.”
Gill looks into the eyes of his students and metaphorically points to their parents.
“At what point in your life did you switch from obeying your parents to honoring them and what did that look like? Gill asks them. “As they consider that, I say, ‘What you are being invited to do when we talk about the honor code is to not just obey it, but honor it.’ They are really interested in the application. What does this look like for me?
“In past years, it might have been, ‘How long can I have my hair?’ But when you invite them to think about — we are honoring this, it isn’t a question about hair length or what I wear, it’s about how I behave.”
Recognizing that students aren’t perfect and mistakes will be made, University 101 also focuses on the resources available to work through their challenges.
“Across higher education, students are needing help transitioning to the university. A lot is asked by the university,” Gill said. “By having this class as the front door, what we are doing is inviting them to think about their education in a much higher and holier way. You aren’t coming here to get trained for your first job, what we are training you for is to help you become a disciple of Christ (and) that your education is going to help you serve in the world in much more profound ways.”
The classroom
Gill earned his bachelor’s degree at BYU and a Ph.D. at Colorado State, and he logged time at Duke and Washington State before returning to BYU in 2008. He serves as the biology department chair and as dean of undergraduate education. Gill teaches University 101 in the Student Athlete Building.
“I love to think about the geography of a classroom on the first day. The front-row guys are the guys who, in a year or two, are going to wear a (captain’s) C on their chest. These are the guys who are the leaders,” Gill said. “You can kind of see the guys who are sitting in the back, who might have their headphones on, they are like, ‘I dare you to try and teach me something.’
“For most of them, at some point in the semester, they start migrating forward a little bit. They recognize, ‘Oh, if we are going break up into small groups and talk about the honor code, I think I want to talk in Bear’s group.’ So, they end up in the second row or maybe the third. You worry about the kids that migrate back. Because the class is small and we are proximate, they are the ones we chase down and say, ‘Before you end up walking out that back door, let’s make sure we have you looped in.’”
Egor Demin
Russian basketball star Egor Demin came to BYU to prepare for the NBA; however, his university experience changed him in profound ways, which he acknowledged during his news conference to declare for the NBA draft.
“I was coming here with faith, and I am leaving here with a bigger faith and a stronger faith in God and (that) good can happen if you believe in that, and if you pray and dedicate it to the Lord and if you trust Him.”
— BYU basketball player Egor Demin
“I was coming here with faith, and I am leaving here with a bigger faith and a stronger faith in God and (that) good can happen if you believe in that, and if you pray and dedicate it to the Lord and if you trust Him,” Demin said.
Gill was watching — and smiling
“I thought, ‘Oh, that’s University 101,’” he said. “That’s Book of Mormon, the courses they have those guys set up to take. I love that so many of them come in and take Mission Prep, not that they are prepping for a mission, but because that is a great environment for them to learn the foundation of the gospel.”
Demin took mission prep and enjoyed it so much he declared one night during dinner at Travis Hansen’s home, “Well, I’m either going on a mission or I’m going to the NBA!”
“What happens in that class is they teach about the Atonement of Christ and core religious principles and then they invite somebody like AJ to teach it to one of our young freshmen and that young freshmen teaches it back to him,” Gill said. “It’s that chance to really become conversant and to think deeply in what they believe.”
Changing times
BYU has come a long way since Gary Sheide’s first Sunday on campus in the fall of 1973. LaVell Edwards’ first passing quarterback from Antioch, California, walked up to the doors of the Cannon Center for breakfast, but it was closed.
Surprised, the newcomer to the culture asked a passing student why the cafeteria wasn’t open?
“It’s fast Sunday,” the student said.
“Fast Sunday?” What’s that?” Sheide wondered.
Later, on his own conversion path, he also learned that firesides don’t involve fires and stake centers don’t serve steaks. Sheide could have used University 101.
Gill has watched many current Cougars have much different experiences.
“I look at young men like Tre Alexander (cornerback) who is here, coming from a very different culture and background, but he comes to BYU and he is receiving the support he needs to understand and be part of the community and he’s getting coached up by amazing coaches,” Gill said. “Over and over again, we see the student-athletes don’t feel a tension between who they want to be and what they are being asked to do at the university.
“We see this real alignment and with that alignment, they are all in. We (do) lose people to the transfer portal, but far fewer than you would expect. From the very beginning, they say, ‘You know what, my goals are aligned with the university’s goals, that the university wants the best for me in the same way that my parents do and in the same way that I do.’”
Richie Saunders
If there was a true poster boy for University 101, it’s basketball star Richie Saunders, whether he knows it or not.
Saunders went down with a torn ACL on Feb. 14, which ended his senior season. Since his injury, in games when Saunders has been on the bench with his teammates, BYU is 4-1. The Cougars are 0-3 without his presence.
“You watch him coaching those guys up. This is the model. You want somebody who is there to mentor and to support who knows the system,” Gill said. “On the bench, you are seeing what we hope University 101 provides for all of our incoming students — that there is somebody there who is going to catch them and say, ‘No, that’s not how we do it. We are going to do it this way.’”
Heart of blue
Gill is among BYU’s biggest fans. As a student in 1990, he admittedly was among the first ones over the south end zone wall to storm the field after the Cougars upset No. 1 Miami in heart-stopping fashion. Years later, on Jan. 23, 2024, while watching BYU play No. 4 Houston in the Marriott Center, his heart nearly stopped altogether.
“I was just cheering on Richie, doing the best that I can, and all of a sudden, it’s like, ‘Hey, we better go to Utah Valley (Hospital),’” he said. Last August, as he lay in the recovery room after a second heart procedure, Gill received word that the Big 12 was honoring him among its “Faculty of the Year.”
It did his heart good and it continues to pump blue blood through his veins as he watches his young students mature into men and women.
“There have been a few times when I look out there and I think, ‘Oh, everyone out there, those are my students.’ I’ve read their reflections where they have written about how their goals align with the mission of a BYU education,” he said. “I see them and their commitment to the university and see how well they perform.
“And when they have challenges, I feel for them too, because they are my students. We love them. These last four (men’s basketball) games, as we’ve turned it around and I look at the defensive intensity that they are bringing to the court and I think, ‘Aw, that’s who I saw in the classroom.’”
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.