This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

New Year's resolutions are a waste of time. Hope, on the other hand, endures.

You say you want to drop 20, and by the end of New Year's Day, as the final seconds slide off the clock of that last bowl game, you look around at a stack of empty greasy cardboard boxes and realize you've devoured two pepperonis, a double cheese, a Hawaiian, and a meat lover's.

But there's always hope for the next day.

You say you want to spend more time with the kids, and by halftime of the Sugar Bowl, it dawns on you that you've watched 12 straight hours of football. Your 5- and 7-year-olds could have been juggling steak knives in the kitchen all day, and all you know is that Darren McFadden is one fine running back and USC plays tough D.

But hope remains.

Hope is alive.

Hope gets us out of bed each morning, no matter how long its odds or how poorly it is made into any kind of reality.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said: "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."

Hear, hear.

Friedrich Nietzsche - didn't his brother, Ray, play for Green Bay? - conversely claimed that: "Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man."

Either way, what follows are my 10 Hopes for 2008. Up with hopes, down with dopes . . .

1. The Jazz become what they really are.

Nothing in sports is worse than inconsistent play - unless it's unfulfilled potential. And the Jazz, of late, have been guilty of both. You know it, and they know it, too. Read it in their postgame comments, so many of them littered with clichés, after all of their recent losses. The more a team undermines itself on the court, the more it relies on tired phrases to explain the results.

Are the Jazz the emerging contender we saw in the playoffs and earlier this season, or are they the stumbling troupe that panicked at the mere hint of a zone, and forgot how to win, losing 11 games, in December?

2. The Super Bowl be super.

It isn't likely because the Game That Annually Eats America usually isn't close. The parties are good.

The reverencing of football is good. The sense of community is good. The competition stinks.

In 41 previous Super Bowls, only nine have been decided by fewer than seven points. And in a year when one team is as dominant as the Patriots have been, Ray Nietzsche's brother's words are bound to be true.

3. Utah, Brigham Young, or Utah State qualify for the NCAA Tournament, and then win a game.

Nobody's tasted victory in the tournament since the Utes made the Sweet 16 in Ray Giacoletti's first season. BYU hasn't won a tournament game since 1993. Utah State? Who knows.

Best route to a win is earning enough respect during the regular season to get seeded high enough to avoid an impossible matchup in the first round, although BYU thus far this season has shown the ability to pull off a big upset.

4. The Celtics are for real.

What a bonus it would be for Boston to extend the kind of threat it seems to pose out of the East in the NBA Finals against the Spurs, or whichever team survives the playoff draw in the West. A compelling Finals would be worth relishing, especially if the old familiar franchise in green were finally a part of it.

5. Real Salt Lake mix in enough victories on the field to wash away lingering ill will from the club's stadium fiasco.

Winning is the primary cure-all. Soccer isn't what people hate. Losing is.

6. The words performance-enhancing and baseball never again be used in the same sentence.

See Dr. King's quote above.

7. Every world record that falls in Beijing won't be clouded by doubt.

Nobody trusts nothing no more. What's the first thing that comes to mind when a great athletic feat is accomplished? Yeah . . . juice. The theme of the Beijing Olympics might as well be One World, One Dream, One Suspicion.

Too bad.

8. BYU goes undefeated in football.

Until Nov. 29.

9. Utah goes undefeated in football.

Until Nov. 29.

10. Somewhere under the debris of empty greasy pizza boxes and yet-imperfect familial relations, one of those two teams plays in a bowl game more than half its fans - and the nation as a whole - actually care about.

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* GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com.