I’m not much of a sports fan. In fact, I am so not a sports fan that once when someone asked me what I thought about the Jazz — referring, of course, to the Utah Jazz, our local NBA team — I replied that I was more of a rock and blues kind of guy. I wasn’t trying to be a smart-ass. I simply failed to understand his question. And that is perhaps the best symbol of my relationship to the athletic competitions that consume the attention of so many people in our society. It’s not that I dislike sports. I am merely oblivious to them.

Tonight, however, a sporting event of sufficient magnitude occurred that even I cannot ignore it: the football team from my alma mater, the University of Utah, finished off a perfect winning season by pasting the arch-rival BYU Cougars 52-21. Undefeated in eleven games, the Running Utes will now head on to the Fiesta Bowl, the first non-BCS team to become eligible to play in a BCS Bowl game. Whatever that means. That kind of talk has the same effect on me that “technobabble” does on people who don’t watch Star Trek. Just as they wouldn’t know a warp drive from a Klingon disrupter, the terminology is meaningless to me. I just know that it’s something very rare and cool, and that deserves some praise.

So congratulations, Utes.

I won’t be watching the Fiesta Bowl — I probably won’t even realize when it’s on — but it is pleasing to know that my old school has earned such an impressive honor.