When I was a student at BYU, I became friends with Nicolas (Nick) Laurent. Nick was in the Master of Accountancy (MAcc) program with me. We first met when we were randomly assigned to the same team in one of our classes.
Nick was a huge fan of intramural sports at BYU. In some ways, he was an “intramural” major who took courses on the side. He was of medium height with an athletic build, blond, curly hair, and a New England (New Hampshire) accent. He was definitely a gifted athlete, and he was also adept at recruiting and organizing. Nick played flag football, tennis, floor hockey, basketball, and his personal favorite, ultimate frisbee. Every semester after I met Nick, he participated in one or more intramural sports.
He had a closet full of t-shirts from intramural sports championships. The only way to get one of the shirts was to win the championship tournament at the end of an intramural sport season. These t-shirts were one of the most coveted items at BYU. I met many other students who talked about trying to win one. Nick had tens of them.
After Nick and I became friends, he invited me to play intramural sports with him. My intramural sports history was with flag football. Every fall semester, I played intramural flag football with my ward team. It was common for each BYU ward to have at least one intramural football team each season. While I enjoyed playing, I was never on a team that was good enough to advance to the tournament at the end of the season.
The only sport Nick did that interested me was ultimate frisbee, so I joined his team. I did show up as a substitute for one game of indoor floor hockey because he had several teammates who were sick or otherwise unavailable for that game. Nick asked me to show up as the last man so that he would not have to forfeit the game for not having enough players.
Nick had assembled an elite set of friends to play on his ultimate frisbee team. For many of the more popular intramural sports, BYU had a set of leagues based on the level of competition. Nick’s ultimate frisbee team competed in the highest league. After the first game, I found out the league was highly competitive. Both teams had handpicked players who were phenomenal athletes.
In the end, I won three championship t-shirts playing with Nick on his ultimate frisbee team. We also lost one championship game in overtime. I was not a significant contributor on the team, but I could hold my own running down a disc and knocking it away from a competitor or catching it. It was fun to be part of the elite crowd who earned a championship t-shirt, but what mattered more was being included by a friend who kept pulling me into experiences I would not have found on my own.
By Fall 1992, our senior year, Nick and I were first-year MAcc students taking the MBA core courses alongside students from the MBA, MOB, and Master of Public Administration programs. Nick and I ended up on the same team for the MBA courses.
Frank “Frankie” Fredericks was one of the full-time MBA students in our cohort. Frankie was a track and field athlete from Namibia. He was on the BYU track team. He won the silver medal in the 100m and 200m sprints at the 1992 Olympic Games.
Nick recruited Frankie to join our ultimate frisbee team. It was exciting to have Frankie on our team. He was a major reason we won the championship that year. One of our go-to plays, when Frankie was on the team, and we got the disc deep in our own territory, was simple: get the disc to Nick and send Frankie sprinting toward the far end zone. Nick would launch the disc as far as he could, and Frankie would simply run it down and catch it. He could run like the wind.
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