By Mary Lynn Johnson, ‘91
They are, in a word, avid. Together Todd, ’62, and Lanny, ’63, Britsch have seen arguably more BYU football and basketball games than anyone not part of a coaching staff. Lanny’s wife, JoAnn, ’62, characterizes her husband’s dedication by saying, “He once went to a football game in a snowstorm with pneumonia.”
But the brothers don’t exactly look like stereotypical superfans.
“When you think of Todd you think of this person who is extremely cultured, very sophisticated about the arts,” says Clayne L. Pope, ’65, a longtime colleague of the brothers. “We don’t usually think people like that are going to be completely devoted to athletics. But when Todd was in the administration and sitting in the president’s loge at the football games, he was never one to just sit there and engage in quiet conversation while the game was going on. He was down on the field with the players, wanting them to win. I think of him absolutely dying when there’s a fumble or a loss.”
The Britsches’ game-time intensity goes back to their childhoods when they attended BYU’s laboratory school.
“They used to let us take our elementary school activity cards and get into the BYU games,” says Todd. “Football I remember particularly, which was in the stadium off the side of the hill where the Richards Building is. We started attending regularly when I was nine and have missed very few games, when we’ve been within the state of Utah, since that time.”
“I can remember that horrible Wyoming game right after World War II, when the only entertaining thing was throwing snowballs at the cheerleaders and trying to hit the center of the megaphones–and then the snow would go right through into their eyes,” Lanny says.
“We had 0-and-11 and 1-and-10 seasons back then,” Todd recalls. “So neither of us cares if BYU runs up the score. No matter how badly we beat people, we still have to make up for some of those seasons we saw when we were young.”
But it’s not just sports that draw the Britsches’ loyal support. “Todd once told me that he’d never missed a devotional when he was on campus,” says English Department chair John S. Tanner, ’74.
And the brothers started frequenting BYU cultural events even before they became regular sports fans: Ralph A., ’33, and Florence Todd, ’38, Britsch first took their boys to Lyceums–a series of concerts and speeches given by visiting celebrities–at BYU at about ages 6 and 5. “Our folks had us convinced that going to those concerts was almost a hallowed privilege,” Lanny says. “And somehow they got us sufficiently psyched that we would sit there in absolute stillness and quiet.”
“I had a pair of scratchy wool trousers that just about killed me,” Todd says. “But I thought, ‘If I wiggle, maybe he won’t let me come again.’ So I would sit there absolutely still with my legs almost red from those trousers. Fortunately once my parents caught on to how itchy they were I didn’t have to wear them any more.”
The habit of attending BYU functions–and considering it a privilege–has continued throughout the brothers’ lives. Today Todd and his wife are especially consistent. “If Todd and Dorothy aren’t at a concert, you assume that they’re ill,” Pope says.
“This university,” Todd says, “is a place where you can get the most amazing kinds of experiences for almost nothing.”