Thursday's Hero

For my blog entry today I am going to write about my experience with the Thursday's Hero program that I help out with here at BYU. Thursday's Hero is a program that Coach Mendenhall introduced a few years back as a way to give back to the community. My job is to select the hero each week from the list of nominees and host the event, which includes giving the family a tour of the football facilities and introducing them to the team. It has been an awesome privilege to be able to meet the people we select each week and it's a very humbling experience to read through all of the nominations that are emailed to me and read of the challenges and adversity that these people are facing. It's hard having to select so few people from such a long list! I always look forward to Thursdays when I get to actually meet the hero in person because they are such amazing people. This year has seen quite a variety of adversity among the heroes... From people with special needs to people with cancer, to people who just recently lost their husband and father, to ordinary people who have suffered horrible accidents, they all exemplify faith, hope, determination, and love, and deserve to be recognized for their efforts. Being honored by Coach Mendenhall and his team is considered the greatest honor every by so many of the heroes and it's really neat to observe the team as they interact with the families and to see the time that Coach Mendenhall dedicates to this program. I am so grateful to have been assigned to coordinate this program; it's a very rewarding feeling for me to feel like I'm helping brighten someone's day. BYU's just awesome...