'Don't wake me up': Kalani Sitake feels like he's living a dream as BYU's football coach

ARLINGTON, Texas ― Ask Kalani Sitake about his earliest memories of BYU football, and he won’t talk about his days as a player, which culminated with him starting three years in the late 1990s, or as the head coach, which he has been since 2016.

Instead, he’ll talk about the 1980 Holiday Bowl.

BYU vs. SMU.

Forever known to Cougar fans as the Miracle Bowl because BYU scored 22 points in the final three minutes of the game to beat Eric Dickerson, Craig James and the Mustangs 46-45.

Sitake was 5.

“This is one of those moments where Jim McMahon just willed the team to win the game,” Sitake said of the legendary BYU quarterback who threw the game-winning touchdown with only three seconds left. “It was pretty cool.”

Sitake smiled as he retold the story at Big 12 Media Days.

“And I’ve been able to interact with Jim McMahon quite a bit since then, so as you can imagine, being a fan at an early age, now I’m talking to these great players,” Sitake said, smiling again. “Steve Young and Andy Reid and Jim McMahon and Gifford Nielsen and all these amazing players.

“It’s like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ I’m just trying to not have the fan come out too much. I’m trying to be professional.”

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But at the same time, Sitake isn’t hiding the fact he’s a big fan of the program he now coaches.

Today concludes a series looking at the football coaches at the Big 12’s four new schools: Sitake at BYU, Scott Satterfield at Cincinnati, Dana Holgorsen at Houston and Gus Malzahn at UCF. They are the first faces of the newbie schools with whom many will become familiar.

Sitake is easily the most affable of the group.

When there was a pause in the queries from reporters at media days, Sitake, a former fullback, quipped that everyone was probably just hungry like he was.

Later, when asked a question about why it’s so difficult for opponents to go to BYU and win at LaVell Edwards Stadium, Sitake turned his answer into a celebration of Cougar fans.

“They’re amazing,” he said. “The energy and the excitement that they bring to the games, I think it’s a good experience for visiting teams.

“They give you ice cream before the fourth quarter, guys. I think everybody should do that but should probably extend it … to the coaches on the sideline. That would be really cool. That could be innovative where I’m eating ice cream going into the fourth quarter.”

Sitake wasn’t kidding about the ice cream.

During every BYU home game, what’s been described as an army of alums will descend on the visitors’ section before the start of the fourth quarter and distribute hundreds of free servings of ice cream from BYU’s renowned creamery.

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BYU types have taken to calling it “ice cream diplomacy.”

“It’s a different experience,” Sitake said of games at BYU. “The beauty from the fans matches what you’re seeing in the landscape, the mountains and everything.”

Sitake talks differently than most football coaches. More like a basketball coach, actually. Usually, college football coaches are guarded and measured, unlike most college basketball coaches. They’ll talk about all sorts of things, and while their sport is one of those topics, so are other things.

That’s how Sitake is.

And one of the things he’s most open about is how much he loves BYU.

Born in Tonga but raised in Hawaii, then California and Utah, Sitake and his family didn’t have much money. But whenever BYU played, they gathered in front of the TV to watch.

It just so happened that Sitake’s childhood coincided with the glory days of BYU football.

That Miracle Bowl in 1980 was something of a springboard for the program. It was the first bowl victory under LaVell Edwards, who coached BYU from 1972 to 2000, and over the next five seasons, the Cougars went a combined 54-10.

That included the 1984 season, a perfect 13-0 record and a national title.

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Sitake turned 9 that season.

While he looked up to the players during that era ― McMahon, Kyle Whittingham, Young, Robbie Bosco ― he revered Edwards. Sitake dreamed of playing for him, then got that chance, and when Sitake became the head coach at BYU, Edwards was a mentor.

“I wanted to become a coach because of him,” Sitake said. “That’s how much he influenced my life.”

Edwards died Dec. 29, 2016, eight days after BYU won the Poinsettia Bowl and Sitake claimed his first bowl win as a head coach. But even now, Edwards’ influence is significant on Sitake and the Cougars.

“Everything that we do, I try to run the program like he did when I was a player,” Sitake said. “Just trying to make him proud.”

Truthfully, Sitake is trying to make all Cougar fans proud. He knows how much this move to the Big 12 and Power Five football means to them because he feels the same way. It means a lot to him, too.

Yes, he played at BYU. Sure, he’s the head coach now. But he’ll always be a fan who first loved the Cougars when he was a little boy watching them on TV.

“This has been a great dream for me,” Sitake said, “so please don’t wake me up.”

Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok or on Threads at jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Big 12 expansion: Kalani Sitake's love for BYU rooted in childhood