When “Locked on Big 12″ podcast host Drake Toll traveled to Provo for BYU’s much-anticipated game against Notre Dame — and his wedding — last month, he didn’t expect to have one of the most moving moments of his media career.
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Ahead of his visit, Toll received a phone call from Jon McBride, BYU’s associate athletic director for communications and media strategy, who invited him to tour The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Missionary Training Center in Provo.
Toll had never heard of the Missionary Training Center and had to do a quick Google search, he said on his podcast.
“I had no idea the training that went into sending missionaries into the world,” he told the Deseret News. “I didn’t know if it was a high school process, if it was middle school, if it was done through the church. What I didn’t realize until maybe the day of is that it’s a designated facility.”
Hours before one of the biggest college football games of the year, Toll and his wife joined Shehan Jeyarajah, a writer for CBS Sports, and John Kurtz, the host of the “Open For Business” podcast, for the exclusive tour, which included McBride, BYU athletic director Brian Santiago and former BYU quarterback Taysom Hill.
“Brian Santiago was clear that an event of this nature is incredibly rare, if not the first of its kind, and they meant that,” Toll said. “So to open it up to the media, to open up the heart of BYU, part of the faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is incredibly cool.”
Inside the MTC
As part of their tour, Toll and the media members met with a group of missionaries preparing to serve in Thailand for 45 minutes.
Toll, though not a member of the faith, has been an advocate for the Church of Jesus Christ and BYU in the midst of opposing fans’ use of derogatory chants directed at Latter-day Saints.
Toll asked the young missionaries several questions, mostly about how they’ve approached misconceptions and even hate toward the church. While growing up in Arkansas, Toll knew many people who believed some of those misconceptions.
“When I’m talking about misconceptions and hate or ignorance that go into a worldview of the church, it’s misunderstandings that people don’t realize that Jesus Christ is at the base of the church and that Jesus Christ is the mission of the church,” he said. “And in that room (in the MTC), you felt that power and you felt that commitment.”
The answers the missionaries shared with Toll were “really eye-opening.”
“It was moving to understand the sacrifice and to look sacrifice in the eye and hear its voice, and that’s what the room was.”
— Drake Toll
“The No. 1 answer was to love people, that love unlocks understanding, and that was consensus across the group,” he said.
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During the tour, Hill took the time to talk to the missionaries headed to Thailand about his mission in Australia. Hill also shared how a Hall of Fame teammate stuck up for him and his faith in the New Orleans Saints’ locker room.
“(Hill) said he’s been asked every question you could ever imagine, but that very early on, any hate or misconceptions were put to rest by Drew Brees,” Toll said. “To be in the presence of Taysom Hill, who’s recounting to me how Drew Brees protected Taysom’s faith during his early years in the NFL was — it gave me chills. It was really cool.”
Appreciating ‘the sacrifice’ of a mission
Weeks later, the dedication of two missionaries has still stuck with Toll. He had asked the group of missionaries when was the last time they saw their parents.
Many of the missionaries were from Utah or Idaho and had been escorted to the MTC by their parents. For one sister, she said goodbye to her parents at the Pittsburgh airport.
“It became even more fascinating that she was moving thousands of miles away to receive this kind of training before she’s a missionary in Thailand,” Toll said. “Another thing that stuck out, she spoke about her many friends in Pittsburgh that aren’t members of the church and how they’ve accepted her and how they’ve loved her and how they’ve become incredibly understanding.”
That same sister had taken summer classes at BYU just weeks prior to pausing her education to serve a mission.
“She pointed out the window of the MTC and said, ‘A month ago, I was driving on that road headed to class, and I had to give that up because I knew it was Heavenly Father’s plan for me to serve a mission,’” Toll recalled. “That hit me like a ton of bricks.”
The sacrifice of that sister — and all the missionaries Toll met — touched him.
“The moving piece of this is understanding the sacrifice that 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds are about to make,” he said. “When I was 19, my worry was whether or not Buc-ee’s would have Diet Coke when I was driving through on my way back to college. … It was moving to understand the sacrifice and to look sacrifice in the eye and hear its voice, and that’s what the room was.”
Toll also still remembers meeting an elder from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The elder pointed out the window of the MTC to LaVell Edwards Stadium. He told Toll he’d know if BYU had beaten Notre Dame — which they did, 28-24 — if he saw fireworks erupting from the stadium.
“I thought, wow, the sacrifice he’s made to not watch BYU and Notre Dame play the biggest game in BYU history, and he’ll have to wait until the very last play and hope that he sees fireworks,” Toll said. “Of course, he did, and I thought about him when I rushed the field that night.”
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