Game Changers: AJ Dybantsa, BYU, and the Struggle for the Soul of Basketball

Game Changers: AJ Dybantsa, BYU, and the Struggle for the Soul of Basketball

In one of the most unlikely coups in college basketball history, a religious school in Utah signed basketball phenomenon AJ Dybantsa. He will play for Brigham Young University—hardly the sort of basketball powerhouse that typically attracts exceptional and non-Mormon players like him. Game Changers explores how BYU managed this stunning feat. A year before signing Dybantsa, the university lured coaching star Kevin Young from the NBA to run its basketball program. In the decade before, court rulings and institutional reform put money at the forefront of college sports in ways the American public had never seen. And for generations before that, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built a theological structure and institutional commitment to basketball that put the sport front and center at BYU. Game Changers places Dybantsa in the context of this history and culture and explores the tensions in the sport. For Latter-day Saints and many other basketball fans, the sport is about personal discipline, character, and a commitment to success. But more and more, universities, the NCAA, and the professional leagues place money above everything else. These dual impulses have pulled the sport in general, and the church-owned BYU in particular, in opposite directions. The book reveals why Dybantsa decided to attend BYU and what he means to the sports world—in Provo, in the United States, and around the globe—as his career unfolds. “This captivating book chronicles the inspiring journey of AJ Dybantsa and his family as he stands on the cusp of transforming basketball, not only at BYU but in the professional game. This thought-provoking read goes beyond AJ’s role in the sport, exploring the rich history of amateurism in athletics and its evolution into the NIL world of sports as business we know today.” —Thurl Bailey, Utah Jazz legend and broadcast analyst “This utterly riveting and deeply relevant book is a tale of two impulses: the push to corporatize and monetize college basketball, and the winsome desire to save the sport from those same pressures. These competing priorities collide in the long and circuitous roads that brought AJ Dybantsa to BYU. Game Changers is both a cultural commentary and a history lesson that will interest anyone regardless of their level of sports fandom.” —Benjamin E. Park, author of American Zion: A New History of Mormonism “ Game Changers is a timely and important book that will interest a wide readership as it offers smart and insightful commentary on the past, present, and future ties and tensions between religion, capitalism, and college sports—what the authors call ‘the struggle for the soul of basketball.’ It also provides a compelling and previously unwritten history of basketball at BYU that will interest all Cougar fans.” —Christopher Cannon Jones, assistant professor of history, Brigham Young University “ Game Changers connects the dots of more than a century of basketball. Fans will love reminiscing about Mel Hutchins, Krešimir Ćosić, Danny Ainge, and Jimmer Fredette, while looking forward to the possibilities that come with AJ Dybantsa.” —Lee Benson, sports writer and Deseret News columnist  Matthew Bowman is the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies and professor of religion and history at Claremont Graduate University. He is the author of The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (Random House, 2012) and Christian: The Politics of a Word in America (Harvard, 2018). He played church ball until his knees began protesting during the second Obama administration. Wayne LeCheminant is a hoops aficionado, writer, and academic. He earned a PhD from the University of Southern California and a BA from Brigham Young University. He lives with his family in Claremont, California.