These were the top Utah sports stories of 2024

In the past year, sports began to reshape our capital city. They connected cultures and caused consternation. Pucks dropped, rivalries reignited and torches passed hands.

These were Utah’s biggest sports stories of 2024.

The coaching carousel spins

Significant coaching changes on the state’s college basketball staffs occurred, highlighted by BYU’s Mark Pope getting hired by Kentucky and thereafter replaced by Phoenix Suns assistant Kevin Young. That change carried with it national attention and implications, with Pope taking the wheel of a blue-blood Wildcats program and Young starting a new movement at BYU.

Utah lost its women’s head basketball coach, Lynne Roberts, who had lifted the Utes’ program to new heights, including three straight trips to the NCAA Tournament and a 2022-23 Sweet 16 appearance. Four games into the 2024-25 season, Roberts was hired as the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks head coach.

At Utah State, Danny Sprinkle left, hired away by Washington, replaced by Youngstown State’s Jerrod Calhoun.

— Gordon Monson

Firings, lawsuits and investigations

In July, former USU head coach Blake Anderson was fired from the program for allegedly violating the university’s Title IX protocols.

The incident was the latest in a series of controversies surrounding a Utah State program with a history of sexual abuse allegations and misconduct serious enough that the United States Department of Justice has taken action.

Longtime assistant athletic directors Jerry Bovee and Amy Crosbie were terminated from the program. Former Utah State assistant coach Austin Albrecht was also fired in connection with the investigation.

Anderson, who has since taken a job as Southern Mississippi’s offensive coordinator, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the university, alleging he had been the victim of a “public smear campaign.”

In the interim, USU went 4-7 under interim head coach Nate Dreiling. The 33-year-old who was suddenly thrust into the job was the youngest head coach in the FBS.

Utah State ended the year by hiring former BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall to rebuild its football program.

— Jason Batacao

Take me out of the ball game

Baseball of one sort or another has been played at the corner of 1300 South and West Temple in Salt Lake City since 1928, with more than a few bits of drama and history mixed in along the way.

There were visits from legends such as Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron. The was an arson fire back in the ’40s, a monumental win streak by the Salt Lake Trappers back in the ‘80s, a couple of rebuilt and renamed ballparks, from Community Park to Derks Field to Franklin Quest Field to Franklin Covey Field to Spring Mobile Ballpark to Smith’s Ballpark.

But as the summer of 2024 came to a close, so did an era.

The Salt Lake Bees played their final game in the city’s ballpark on Sept. 22, a sunny Sunday afternoon with more than 13,000 fans watching.

Next season, the Triple-A team will call a newly built stadium in South Jordan’s Daybreak neighborhood home.

— Gordon Monson

Playing for her culture

While Iowa’s Caitlin Clark brought millions of new women’s basketball fans into gyms across the country, another star was having a major impact on her own community.

Everywhere Utah basketball player Alissa Pili went during her senior season, Indigenous and Polynesian fans lined up for autographs and a chance to meet one of the country’s best scoring threats.

“They have somebody to look up to. It’s something that they’ve been needing,” Pili said. “It’s hard for me to think of myself like that, but I know that I’m having an impact on these girls, and [helping] more Indigenous and Polynesian girls grow in basketball. I’m carrying my culture on my back.”

— Aaron Falk

The BYJew

BYU’s 10-win football season surprised everybody.

So did Jake Retzlaff’s rise to national prominence.

As the quarterback led the Cougars to a No. 6 ranking at one point in the season, BYU’s first Jewish quarterback and his late-game heroics garnered a following.

Rabbis from around Utah flocked to LaVell Edwards Stadium to catch a glimpse of the “BYJew”. The QBs T-shirts were being sold to faithful fans from California to New York.

BYU ended up missing the College Football Playoffs. But Retzlaff’s year ended on a happy note. He became the first face of the Manischewitz company — an iconic Jewish food brand.

— Kevin Reynolds

Into the tank

The Jazz’s second campaign after trading Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert ended as poorly as the first, as the team traded veterans like Kelly Olynyk and Simone Fontecchio away for future draft picks.

In the offseason, Jazz management Danny Ainge and Justin Zanik chased change, telling reporters they were ready to go “big game hunting” for star players to join the Jazz’s roster.

No big game was forthcoming — though the team was able to re-sign its best player, Lauri Markkanen, to a near-max contract. So the Jazz entered into Plan B. In chasing the 2025 NBA Draft’s best prospects, the team planned to prioritize its youth over older talent; in other words, they prioritized getting as many ping-pong balls as possible by losing as many games as possible.

They’re doing exactly that. The team’s 5-20 start to the season was its worst start to the season since 1974, the first year of the New Orleans Jazz’s existence.

— Andy Larsen

Utah football’s QB problems

Utah was the preseason favorite to win the Big 12.

By the end of the campaign, the so-called truckstop conference had run the Utes over.

Utah’s season began to unravel when quarterback Cam Rising was shoved out of bounds and into a table of Gatorade coolers in the third game of the year.

The Utes would turn to freshman Isaac Wilson and longtime backups Brandon Rose and Luke Bottari at different times throughout the season. But Utah’s offense never got moving.

Utah finished with the second-worst offense in the entire Big 12, averaging 329.8 yards per game and 23.6 points per game. Utah also had a red zone problem, converting the second least touchdowns in the entire conference.

Offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig resigned from the program after Utah’s loss to TCU in October.

Utah finished 5-7 and missed a bowl game, ending a campaign that head coach Kyle Whittingham called the most difficult season of his 20-year head coaching career.

— Jason Batacao

The hold heard ’round the world

As if losing to BYU in football wasn’t painful enough for Utah, Ute athletic director Mark Harlan added insult to injury when he called an emergency postgame news conference to tell reporters, to tell the world that the game had been “stolen” from the Utes by Big 12 referees. He added that Utah had been happy to join the Big 12 after the Pac-12’s collapse, but, no, not on this particular occasion.

A defensive holding call against the Utes near game’s end preserved a BYU drive that was punctuated with a field goal that saw the Cougars eke out a 22-21 win.

A subsequent Harlan “apology” issued by the AD was more of a statement, lacking any kind of apologetic language. Harlan was fined $40,000 by the league.

— Gordon Monson

BYU basketball’s biggest recruit

Who would’ve thought BYU basketball would be Utah’s hottest ticket in 2025?

Two years ago, the Cougars were 7-9 in the West Coast Conference. But, oh, how times have changed.

In December, the No. 1 recruit in the country — and the probable No. 1 NBA Draft pick in 2026 — AJ Dybansta went on ESPN’s “First Take” to tell the world he was going to play his college ball at BYU.

Dybantsa is expected to get more than $5 million in name, image and likeness money for playing for the Cougars.

He picked BYU over blue-blood programs North Carolina and Kansas.

And Dybantsa wasted no time setting the expectations.

“Definitely a national championship,” he said plainly. “I think with the team we have coming in, it is definitely possible.”

You’d have to go back to the Jimmer days the last time BYU basketball was this much of a spectacle.

Let’s see if Dybantsa’s name can turn into a verb, too.

— Kevin Reynolds

Hockey Town, USA

A new team. A new city. A new era.

After purchasing the Arizona Coyotes’ roster for a reported $1 billion, Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith moved the struggling NHL team out of the desert and into the mountains.

Utah Hockey Club doesn’t yet have its official name; that’s something that will be announced sometime next year.

But the state of Utah has its hockey team.

“This is probably the most excited I’ve ever been to play a hockey game. Coming to the rink today, even though it’s morning skate, you still feel like you’re getting chills,” forward Logan Cooley said before the team’s opening night. “You get a buzz around the city and it’s just so exciting. It feels like you’re just in the best moment of your life with these people.”

Utah Hockey Club opened up its new chapter with a win over the Chicago Blackhawks at the Delta Center on Oct. 8. The team is currently in the hunt for a playoff position as the calendar turns.

— Belle Fraser

The Olympics and their return

If the Paris Summer Games signified the resurgence of the Olympic Movement, Utah played no small part.

Athletes brought up running and riding the state’s hills and tracks provided some of the most heart-swelling moments of the Games. Think of the unadulterated joy of Hunter Woodhall, a Syracuse High alum, when his wife, Tara Davis Woodhall, leapt into his arms after she won gold in the women’s long jump. It was a joy reflected in her when he, in turn, won Paralympics gold in the 400-meter T62. Or, consider the sportsmanship shown by BYU graduates Clayton Young and Conner Mantz when they returned to the finish line of the men’s marathon to lift up their fellow runners.

Utah athletes also set the tone for Team USA in terms of performance. Park City native Haley Batten’s silver in mountain biking was the country’s best result ever in the sport, men’s or women’s. And Grant Fisher, a new Park City transplant, kicked off track events by taking bronze in the 10,000 meters, becoming just the second man in 56 years to medal in the event. He bookended that feat by winning the bronze in the 5,000-meters, becoming the first American to medal in both in a single Olympics.

And if that whet Utahns’ appetite for the Games, they have plenty to look forward to. In the days before the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony, Utah was officially awarded hosting rights for the 2034 Winter Games.

— Julie Jag

Sports begin to reshape downtown SLC

The Utah Legislature approved nearly $2 billion in public money for projects in Salt Lake City.

All in the name of sports.

Lawmakers signed off on a plan to provide some $900 million to help build a mixed-use district and a stadium along North Temple aimed at luring a Major League Baseball franchise to Utah.

At the same time, the Legislature OK’d another $900 million for a sports and entertainment district and renovations to the Delta Center in downtown Salt Lake City.

“Every time we’re told we can’t do something we find a way to do it,” said Sen. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, the sponsor of the legislation. “I’m hopeful that the resolution that we passed [supporting hockey] along with this will be enough to convince [the NHL] we’re committed to not only the National Hockey League, but we’re committed to our NBA team being successful. But not will they be successful, they’ll be successful in our urban core.”

The Smith Entertainment Group’s plans for the area around the Delta Center call for demolishing two-thirds of the Salt Palace Convention Center, in favor of a district with bars, restaurants, hotels, and a residential tower. Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall supported the plan, fearing the Jazz would move outside of downtown and to the Wasatch Front’s suburbs if the city didn’t approve the deal.

The public financing will come from a half-a-percentage-point sales tax increase that the Salt Lake City Council passed in October.

— Andy Larsen