Okay, everyone. I need your help. Since Meridian has become a premier gathering place for Latter-day Saints online, I am in the process of ‘gathering’ lists of LDS athletes and coaches at the collegiate and professional levels. Here’s my goal: I want to compile the most comprehensive list of LDS athletes anywhere on the Web. Once the list is more complete, we’ll make it a permanent fixture on our Meridian Sports pages. Since Meridian is being read in more than 162 nations, I’m not limiting this to football and basketball in the United States. Can you help me?

A few months ago, I ran a list of some of the LDS athletes that I am aware of that are playing collegiate and professional football. Several of you took the time to let me know of ones that I missed. I saved them in my e-mail account only to inadvertently delete them about a month ago. Has that ever happened to you? So, I am asking for more help. With that inadvertent deletion went most of the additions to my LDS athlete list that I had procrastinated to add.

I welcome all of your additions to my humble (and admittedly incomplete) lists. The only thing I ask is that you send me the names of athletes or coaches that you know are LDS. I will not add names to my list if they are not verifiably LDS.

As for the predominantly LDS schools (viz., BYU, Utah, Utah State, etc.), I will be in contact with each school’s sports media departments to identify LDS athletes. Feel free to inform me of these schools’ LDS athletes, but to keep myself from being deluged with e-mail, I thought I’d throw that bit of clarification out there ahead of time.

As I said, it is my intent to generate the most comprehensive list of LDS athletes available anywhere. With your help, I am confident it will become just that. Meridian readers have proven to be a wonderful source of feedback and information since I joined the Meridian team nearly two years ago.

And as I said above, once this list is more complete, it will be a regular fixture on Meridian, providing all interested parties with a source to keep informed about LDS athletes. So go ahead, click that little link to the right, the one under the heading "What do you think?” and send me your additions.

Thanks in advance for any and all help that you are able to provide me with in this endeavor. Now if you’ll excuse me, I've a Reese's peanut butter cup with my name on it that requires my attention.

Collegiate Football
Kirk Chambers OT (Stanford)
Kirk Tuck C (University of Alabama at Birmingham)
Brad Weathers OT (Mississippi State)
Jason Fife QB (Oregon)
Chauncey Ako LB (Boise State)
Spencer Brinton QB (Michigan)
Mike Leach HEAD COACH (Texas Tech)

Collegiate Basketball
Nick Robinson F (Stanford)
Julius Barnes G (Stanford)

Professional Football
Ty Detmer QB (Lions)
Chad Lewis TE (Eagles)
Rob Morris LB (Colts)
Travis Hall DE (Falcons)
John Tait OT (Chiefs)
Edwin Mulitalo OT (Ravens)
Todd Heap TE (Ravens)
Brandon Manumaleuna TE (Rams)
Luke Staley RB (Lions)
Doug Jolley TE (Raiders)
Itula Mili TE (Seahawks)
Kyle Turley OT (Saints)
Junior Ione DT (Raiders)
Brandon Doman QB (49ers)
Andy Reid HEAD COACH (Eagles)

Professional Basketball
Casey Jacobsen (Suns)
Shawn Bradley (Mavericks)
Mark Madsen (Lakers)
Travis Knight (Knicks)
Mark Pope (Knicks)

Professional Baseball
McKay Christensen (Mets)
Garrett Stephenson (Cardinals)

Professional Golf
Jay-Don Blake
Mike Weir
Mike Reid

Professional Rodeo
Cody Hancock

Broadcasting
Michael Smith (Los Angeles Clippers)
Steve Young (ESPN)
Todd Christensen (ESPN)