Not seeing is believing for BYU fan

By Doug Robinson
Deseret Morning News
Published: Monday, Oct. 16, 2006 10:17 p.m. MDT
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Lynn Cruser has attended nearly every BYU home football game for 24 years, but he's never seen one.

He's a fixture in Section H of LaVell Edwards Stadium. From John (Walsh) to John (Beck), from Steve (Young) to Steve (Lindsley) to Steve (Sarkisian), he was there for it all.

And yet he's never seen Chad Lewis catch or Rob Morris tackle or Luke Staley run or LaVell Edwards stand on the sidelines with his arms folded.

Lynn Cruser has been blind since birth.

He can't see anything except a wash of colors. He can't recognize faces. He can't read, unless it's Braille. He can't see the field. But he rarely misses a home game. He could listen to it just as well in the comfort of his home and save himself the long drive from Ogden to Provo to boot, but it's not the same.

"I enjoy the atmosphere," says the 71-year-old Cruser. "You just can't quite match that when you sit in your living room."

He knows what's going on in the game because, like a lot of seeing fans, he listens to the radio during the game, plus he gets expert color commentary from his wife, Sharon.

At times, the fans are so loud that he can't hear the radio or Sharon, but he knows what's going on anyway based on the crowd reaction. "I get a glimpse of what's going on," he says. But not always. There have been times when he stood up and cheered at the wrong time, a lone voice in a crowd of silent BYU fans.

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He missed only one season since 1982, and that was because — to put it in football terms — he went on injured reserve in 1998. Watching how worked up Lynn got listening to games, Sharon once told him, "You're going to have a heart attack." And then he did. After watching the Cougars play San Jose State in 1998, he reported to the hospital, mistakenly thinking he had had a heart attack. Two days later he had the real thing and underwent triple bypass surgery.

The hospital couldn't get radio or TV reception of BYU's next game, so Sharon listened to the car radio and ran back and forth between the parking lot and Lynn's room to give him updates.

"She did a great job," he says. "There were times when I thought I was at the game."

Lynn has been known to take radios into movie theaters and concerts so he can listen to BYU road games. (Yes, he attends movies, when he can find something worth watching, um, listening to.) Talk about blind loyalty. While he's attending home games, he also videotapes the games on his TV at home so he and his family can relive them later in the week.

"If they win, we watch it. If they don't, forget that," he says. "It's fun to go back and see the plays again." After a pause, he says, "Did I say 'see?"'

Cruser grew up in southern Idaho. He attended a school for the blind until high school. His love affair with sports began as a youth listening to the Red Sox and Cardinals in the World Series and Army and Navy on the gridiron. He became a Cougar fan while earning a sociology degree at BYU in the 1950s, at a time when the Cougars gave their fans little to cheer.

He's been listening to them ever since, but not without some frustration. Simulcasts and TV coverage mean little to him, and he wishes radio broadcasters would remember that. "They think they're doing it for TV instead of radio," he complains. "They talk about the side things rather than describing the action on the field."

From what he's seen — um, heard — Cruser believes this is going to be a season worth watching. Or listening to.

Doug Robinson's column runs on Tuesday. Please send e-mail to drob@desnews.com.

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