Writer Biography

Spencer Champlin acknowledges that he is an avid Aggie sports fan and HURD member. The mild obsession he has with the USU football team, in particular, completely consumed Champlin’s thoughts throughout the Fall semester of 2012, so this topic came very naturally. When his time isn’t completely squandered with USU athletics, he also enjoys bowling, riding scooters, attending concerts, discovering the mysteries of the universe, and spending time with loved ones. Spencer is currently a Junior at USU (as of 2012) studying Finance and Economics.

This essay was first published in the 2013 edition of Voices and uses MLA documentation.

BALL ON THE 20-YARD LINE, USU ball. Eleven seconds remaining in the game. USU trails by two points. Josh Thompson lines up for the field goal. The ball is snapped, and the kick is away. Every Utah State fan’s heart stops as they watch it fly toward the field goalpost. If it goes in, we win the game. Each moment drags on until the image flashes on the screen of the ball’s imminent doom as it sails just right of the field goalpost and hits the ground. After a hard-fought performance, Josh Thompson misses the field goal, and nothing remains but disappointment and frustration.

The Utah State University HURD is regarded nationally as one of the greatest student sections in all collegiate sports. On their website, their mission statement reads, “We are the HURD. The rowdiest, loudest, biggest, and best fans of USU athletics. We are the ones on the front row at every event. Other teams fear us. We bring Aggie Spirit everywhere we go. We are LOUD and we are PROUD. We are the HURD” (HURD). The HURD has gained recognition through implementing another phrase best taken from their own website: they are “unified, creative, belligerent, and downright insane” (HURD). The most famous and controversial concept used by the USU HURD to unleash its wrath upon its opponents is that of completely belittling the individuals competing against them. When the visiting team makes a mistake, it rarely goes unnoticed. The USU HURD points those mistakes out by chanting “stupid,” “air ball,” and “you still suck,” to name a few. These are often incredibly effective tactics that give their team an upper hand. The opposition can’t escape it, they can only cope with it until the game clock strikes zero, and it can all be left behind. But what if the player who most upset the USU HURD didn’t belong to the opposing team at all? What if one of the very players that the HURD dedicates themselves to helping and defending was the player who lost them a game?

For the first time in decades, Logan is buzzing with the type of collegiate football excitement that has previously been unknown here at USU. For the first time in school history, the USU football team has won ten games in a season, only the fourth winning season we’ve experienced since 1981. To start off the season, we defeated our long-time nemesis and collegiate football powerhouse, Utah, in overtime. Not only is the team completely shattering the very frail expectations that any Aggie fan may have had going into the season, but they are even starting to turn heads nationally.

With such brilliant results, surely the HURD, along with all other Aggie fans, should be prouder than ever of our accomplishments. Yet, with all of the buzz surfacing in the community, there is an overwhelmingly bitter taste to all of this accomplishment for one simple fact: we didn’t win two games to put us at 12-0. An attainable, undefeated season was supposedly shattered because the USU place kicker, Josh Thompson, was unable to sink a 37-yard field goal against Wisconsin or a 38-yarder against BYU. So instead of basking in the joy of an amazing season, many fans have turned to blaming “the player responsible.” Instead of praise for the success of the team, we encounter HURD members and those in the media complaining about Josh’s misfortunes. Members of the USU HURD need to overlook one player’s mistake, retract their scrutiny, and enjoy the excitement unfolding this season.

Josh Thompson, the USU kicker who unfortunately missed these field goals, is merely a 22-year-old football player. If someone were to do research on him and his background, they would learn that in high school, Josh was primarily a wide receiver who only stepped up to the kicking position during his sophomore year to benefit Logan High School in a position they didn’t have filled. Upon graduating, he was not offered a scholarship to USU but, rather, walked onto the team and has only received playing time over the past three years because of injuries that have occurred to the starting kickers. At the beginning of this season, he was the backup kicker and didn’t go into a game until the starting kicker suffered a minor injury against Utah that would make him unable to play the rest of the game. Josh’s very first kick of the season was his 37-yard field goal against Wisconsin in from of 80,321 people and on national television. Oh, and by the way, those two missed kicks against Wisconsin and BYU that “lost us the games” are his only missed field goals of the season. Yet, none of these facts are taken into account as the HURD and other Aggie fans critique him and his failures. He instead has become the face of what might have been for the Aggie football team this season.

Instead of being a celebrated member of the USU football team, Josh’s legacy has become the scapegoat for its shortcomings. Nathanael J. Fast, a professor of management at Marshall University, discovered, “[B]lame creates a culture of fear, and this leads to a host of negative consequences for individuals and for groups” (University of Southern California). We have all, at one time or another, been the recipient of blame and could assuredly testify to its negative effects, but can you fathom how detrimental the effects of blame could be on an individual when instigated by thousands of people? Imagine the guilt and pain induced by blame intensified by an entire student body and community. Has any fan assessed the detriment such treatment could have for one individual before spouting their criticism of Josh Thompson? If any of us found ourselves in such a situation, each one of us would be eager to receive the forgiveness of our peers, but rather than forgiveness, the HURD has extended nothing but blame and disdain for a person they don’t even know.

As members of the USU HURD and fans throughout the valley have sulked in the misfortune of Josh’s missed kicks, USU head football coach Gary Andersen has taken a stand to defend his player and open the eyes of the fans. In response to one of Josh’s failed field goals, he emphatically declared, “There’s no way, shape, or form one play wins or loses a game like that. If the kick goes in, yeah, it’s a game-winning kick, but it didn’t win the game alone. I feel the same way about it not going in. There are a lot of young men that you look at who could have made a game winning play” (qtd. in Olsen). He later placed blame on himself and tried to distract any unfair judgment being placed on Josh Thompson.

As a former football player and teammate of Josh Thompson’s, these are the exact thoughts that came to my mind. Whenever I discuss the outcomes of each of the two losses the Aggies have suffered with other HURD members, I am overwhelmed by the scrutiny that these fans place on Josh Thompson’s efforts. In these two games, the Aggies amassed 114 yards of penalties, only converted on 30% of their third downs, punted 18 times, had two turnovers, dropped timely passes, and missed key tackles. How is it that the only mistake that resonates in the minds of Aggie fans was a football flying mere feet to the right of the field goalpost? Yes, it is a kicker’s job to make those kicks, but Josh deserves no more blame than any other player on the team for not making plays to win the game.

In September of this year (2012), ironically, the same month that USU lost its first football game, an article was released by Lee Jenkins of Sports Illustrated about certain kickers whose heroics or meltdowns have gained their fame or infamy throughout the years. By focusing particularly on the examples of other kickers’ meltdowns and the experiences that followed, we can take a glimpse into how Josh’s world must be after his missed kicks. One such example is kicker Alexis Serna. Serna was a kicker who wasn’t given a scholarship; he was just a regular student who tried out for the Oregon State football team and made his way up the ranks to be the starting kicker. He had to take a job working the graveyard shift as a janitor just to pay for his tuition and support his dreams of being a collegiate kicker. In the first game of collegiate career, his team faced Louisiana State University on national television. During the game, he missed three extra points, and his team ended up losing by just one point. After the game, he was ridiculed by his teammates, sent hateful mail and emails, and was even told that he should “go kill himself.”

In example after example, Lee Jenkins shows cases of mere college students missing a single infamous kick, like Josh Thompson, and having their worlds’ turned upside down. A Boise State kicker received threats on Facebook and even from gamblers who lost money because he failed to make a kick at the end of the game. Other kickers describe experiences they had following failed kick attempts in which they had to attend their classes wearing hoodies and sunglasses in hopes that they could escape the embarrassment of being noticed by their classmates. In each of these cases, individuals who are often not even considered “players” by the fans or their teammates are given the role of scapegoat for the team and forced to live with the consequences. Not for hours or even a weekend, but oftentimes for weeks, months, and even years.

Obviously, this isn’t something that could happen in Logan, Utah, could it? We’re the citizens that jump into freezing rivers and overturn burning vehicles to save lives. We’d obviously be too rational to attack Josh Thompson for missing a kick that “lost us a game,” right? Following the first loss, frustrations were high. Across the USU campus, countless groups of students and HURD members could be heard murmuring about what might have been had Josh only made that kick! One writer in the Salt Lake Tribune authored an article titled “…USU Kicker Must Kick Away Infamy” (Monson). Another writer for the Cache Valley Daily even recognized the scrutiny Thompson had been put under, saying, “Much fuss has been made about Josh Thompson’s missed field goal” (Olsen). The USU Statesman, Herald Journal, and Salt Lake Tribune all displayed the same photo in their publications the next day of Thompson hanging his head following the missed kick. If I, an average USU student, can hear the HURD’s complaints and writers’ scrutiny, surely Thompson must be going through hell—reliving with every passing moment the mistake he made days before, constantly criticized by his peers.

A few weeks later, when the result was repeated in the USU v. BYU game, any complaint held back by Aggie fans was unleashed. The next day, the outside world let him have it. Newspapers wrote, “Two missed field goals, two losses” (Lundstrom), “USU left points off the scoreboard when Josh Thompson missed a 38-yarder” (Stucki), “Deja USU: Missed FG haunts Aggies once again” (Wilkinson). To this day, the harassment hasn’t been lifted. Just this week, an article was released by the Deseret News that praised Coach Andersen for his efforts, but the article wasn’t complete until it took a moment to remind all readers of those unfortunate kicks. Murmurs can still be heard across campus when fans are reminded of Josh Thompson or the football season. Article after article stands as evidence of the host of negativity that intertwines with the blame being placed on Josh.

While HURD members have found solace in blaming Josh Thompson for the team’s losses, one may wonder how his teammates have responded—those fellow players that have dedicated hundreds upon hundreds of hours of preparation for this season and the games they have played. Kyler Fackrell, a USU linebacker, said, in response to one of their two losses, “We needed one more stop, we just didn’t make the plays” (qtd. in Stucki). Another player, receiver Matt Austin, responded, “Everyone wants to point the finger at why we lost. But we should’ve executed our game plan as an offense and we didn’t” (qtd. in Jones). Nowhere in either of these statements do Josh Thompson’s teammates wish he’d made that kick or blame him for such a loss. They, like Coach Gary Andersen, realize that the kicks were just any other play in those football games, and although it was unfortunate that Josh couldn’t squeeze the football through the uprights, he is no more to blame than they are for missing tackles or dropping catches. For this very purpose, he shouldn’t have to continue carrying the horrible weight being placed on him and him alone by the USU HURD.

No player deserves to be attacked or blamed for his failures. Blame, as stated by Nathanael J. Fast, brings many negative consequences to one’s life (University of Southern California), consequences that Josh Thompson simply doesn’t deserve for trying his best to benefit his team. The HURD needs to quit listening to the scrutiny of Josh by newspaper writers, to push aside any reasons why our football team has suffered their two losses, and follow the example established by Coach Andersen and his players. As “the rowdiest, loudest, biggest, and best fans of USU athletics,” the HURD must rally behind the athletes they claim to support, forgive Josh Thompson, and forget his unfortunate mistakes.

Works Cited

Jenkins, Lee. “05…04…You’re Not Even a Real Player…03…02…But You Will Make This Kick…” Sports Illustrated, 10 Sept. 2012, https://vault.si.com/vault/2012/09/10/0504youre-not-even-a-real-player0302but-you-will-make-this-kick. Accessed 18 Oct. 2012.

Jones, Tony. “Aggies Feel Frustration with Defeat.” Salt Lake Tribune, 6 Oct. 2012, https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=23446749&itype=storyID. Accessed 1 Nov. 2012.

Lundstrom, Curtis. “Aggie Football Loses Defensive Struggle.” USU Statesman, 9 Oct. 2012, https://usustatesman.com/aggie-football-loses-defensive-struggle/. Accessed 25 Oct. 2012.

Monson, Gordon. “BYU, USU Kickers Must Kick Away Infamy.” Salt Lake Tribune, 17 Sept. 2012, https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=23250116&itype=storyID. Accessed 18 Oct. 2012.

Olsen, Timothy R. “Missed Field Goal Not the Only Play That Cost USU at Wisconsin.” Cache Valley Daily, 17 Sept. 2012, https://www.cachevalleydaily.com/news/archive/2012/09/17/726d64e8-9d25-5712-8da5-04dfab875ba1/. Accessed 28 Oct. 2012.

Stucki, Tavin. “USU Loses to BYU.” USU Statesman, 6 Oct. 2012, https://usustatesman.com/usu-loses-to-byu/. Accessed 25 Oct. 2012.

Trotter, Jim. “Higher Stakes Mean More Pressure on Kickers in Playoffs.” Sports Illustrated, 1 Feb. 2012, https://www.si.com/.amp/more-sports/2012/02/01/late-gamekicks. Accessed 25 Oct. 2012.

University of Southern California. “Shifting Blame Is Socially Contagious.” ScienceDaily, 22 Nov. 2009, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091119194124.htm. Accessed 24 Nov. 2012.

“Utah State HURD.” Utah State University Student Involvement and Leadership, Utah State University, 2012, https://www.usu.edu/involvement/hurd/index. Accessed 11 Nov. 2012.

Wilkinson, Rhett. “Deja USU: Missed FG Haunts Aggies Once Again.” Standard Examiner, 6 Oct. 2012. Accessed 1 Nov. 2012.