A car idled at a stoplight on the northwest corner of the BYU practice fields while the radio delivered the news. BYU was going after Kyle Whittingham and possibly another coach. Inside the car sat the man the school had not called, and on the phone, his wife Holly started planning the move. That is how it works in college football. The staff changes, the boxes get packed, and the family follows the job.

Except Bronco interrupted her. He told her they were staying, that he would be the coach. She asked how he could possibly know that. He said, I know. There are small promptings and whisperings that come, he explains on this week's episode of Why We Believe, and within days the man who calls himself BYU's last resort was named head coach of the only football program owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

What he did with that job is the real story. Bronco Mendenhall sat down with host Nathan Gwilliam to talk about the 11 seasons that followed, the firesides that mattered more to him than the 99 wins, and the testimony that became his own somewhere between an empty office at 5:30 in the morning and a prison at the point of the mountain.

The Last Resort Nobody Wanted  

Bronco is direct about how the job came to him. BYU pursued at least two other coaches first. The offensive players did not want him. The defensive players went to the administration and asked for him by name, and the interim athletic director gave the last candidate standing a chance.

He had never aspired to be a head coach. He chose Oregon State as a player for a single reason, BYU was on the schedule, and after beating the Cougars in Provo he lay spread-eagle on the Y and wondered why the victory felt so empty. Years later, he was leading the same program he once picked a college to beat.

His first morning in the office, the pink message slips stood stacked like dominoes on the desk, and he sat behind them with no idea where to start. At about 5:30 a.m. there was a knock. LaVell Edwards pulled a chair close, looked at him for a long, uncomfortable moment, and said two things. You have a hard job. You have a great job. Bronco spent the next decade learning how deeply both were true.

One Question in the Interview  

Before the hire was final, Bronco met with Elder Henry B. Eyring, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He expected football questions. Strategy, recruiting, the state of the roster. The Apostle sat knee to knee with him and asked one thing. Will you bear your testimony to me of your beliefs?

Bronco does not remember the exact words he said. He remembers the feeling in which he said them. At the end, the answer came back that he was the right man, and Bronco understood the assignment underneath the assignment. He was not being hired for his defensive schemes. He was being trusted with a program that should never teach anything, including the alphabet, without the Spirit.

He framed the whole job from that interview forward. If a testimony was the qualifying question, then a testimony would be the organizing principle. At one point, 85 percent of his roster were returned missionaries, and firesides went on the calendar next to the games.

Firesides Where the Spirit Was Already Waiting  

On the road, the firesides overflowed. Members and nonmembers drove in across state lines, chapels filled to the classrooms, and people sat on the grass outside the open doors to hear a football team share a message of faith and song the night before a game. At home, attendance was thinner, and Bronco realized he was not reaching the people who needed it most.

So the team started holding firesides at the prison at the point of the mountain before home games. Bronco admits he was not sure you could feel the Spirit in a prison. Then the gates buzzed open, and he heard hymns. An inmate choir in white jumpsuits had gathered to welcome the team, and the coach of BYU football stood inside the door in tears. His question was answered before the fireside began.

He describes the men listening as if they were trying to grab the words out of the air. He felt useful, important, and purposeful in a way the game never quite matched. Winning felt good. This felt like the reason for the platform.

Hard Things and the Proving Pattern  

Bronco builds young people the way he believes God builds His children, through chosen hard things. His off-season test of will began with a mile swim, climbed the Y carrying weight plates, ran the stadium steps, rode 40 miles of canyon road, and finished on foot at a summit. Players did not know the course until the night before. The one promise he asked of them was to finish, and in all his years running the event at New Mexico and BYU, he says, no player who started failed to finish. Nobody came down the mountain until the last man was in.

The NCAA eventually banned the event over countable hours, so he rebuilt it and renamed it the interview, because that is what life is. He taught his teams a four-part standard for accountability. Tell the truth, tell it all, tell it immediately, and tell it yourself.

When he arrived at Utah State, a letter with no return address waited on his desk. It read, you will bless lives and build character just as you've always done. It was signed Jeff. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland had handed him a guidepost for the next stretch of the trail, and Bronco has taken the sentence as his directive in Logan.

Borrowed Light Made His Own  

Bronco grew up surrounded by testimony. His grandfather Wendell B. Mendenhall led the Church building program in the South Pacific. His other grandfather, John H. Vandenberg, served as Presiding Bishop. His father Paul, a cowboy who served a mission in New Zealand and loved the haka until the end of his life, told him missionary stories over morning chores at Dry Creek Ranch. Bronco believed from childhood. He could not imagine being outside the body of the Church.

Believing, he is careful to say, is not the same as knowing. The knowing came later, when he stood as BYU's coach speaking to thousands about the gospel of Jesus Christ and felt the confirmation arrive while the words were leaving his mouth. Knowing came through sharing, and the sharing came through living. The borrowed light of parents and grandparents became his own flame in the bearing of it.

Asked at the end of the episode why he believes, his answer is quiet. The Spirit speaks in a still, small manner, and the number of times truth has been manifest to him is beyond counting. The reassurance returns when he asks with sincerity, a broken heart, and a contrite spirit. Through a lifetime of striving and humility, the constant reassurance is simply undeniable.

What Bronco's Story Teaches Us  

Bronco's journey carries lessons for anyone building faith while building a life. Borrowed light becomes our own when we share it, and he knew the gospel was true as he taught it. God answers a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and the reassurance has come to Bronco each time he has asked. Our Father in Heaven may have a different plan than the one we offer, something Bronco's dad saw before he did. God opens ears through those He places on platforms, and people who came for the coach left carrying the message of Christ. The Lord proves His people through hard things, and enduring to the end shapes who we become in Him.

If Bronco's story stirred something in you, listen to the full conversation and then act on one prompting this week. Visit WhyWeBelieve.com to download Your FREE guide on 13 Strategies to Increase Faith in Jesus Christ, to support you as you strengthen your own testimony of Jesus Christ.

Thank you for reading this week's blog post inspired by the Why We Believe show. If you are interested in more stories like this, you can check out our other blog posts and episodes at WhyWeBelieve.com, or listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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