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Summary
- Mark Pope, Kentucky’s head men’s basketball coach since April 2024, is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
- He never played at BYU: he played at Washington, where he was Pac-10 freshman of the year in 1992, and then at Kentucky, where he was a captain of the 1996 national champions.
- He coached at BYU as an assistant from 2011 to 2015, led Utah Valley from 2015 to 2019, and was BYU’s head coach from 2019 to 2024.
- He told BYU Magazine in 2021 that he was “pretty apathetic” about his faith as a boy and was “still kind of searching” as a college senior.
- The turn came, he said, on a stop with his father at Adam-ondi-Ahman in Missouri, a place named in the Doctrine and Covenants.
- After a win at Tennessee on January 28, 2025, he said an assistant’s pregame prayer had asked for “Godfidence.”
Bibliography (Click to show)
- A. Jeff Call, “Slam Dunk: Get to Know BYU’s Head Basketball Coach, Mark Pope,” BYU Magazine, Winter 2021. https://magazine.byu.edu/article/coach-pope/
- “Mark Pope,” Wikipedia (playing and coaching career, hiring dates, church membership). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Pope
- “Q&A: Mark Pope after Kentucky’s 78-73 win at Tennessee,” 247Sports, January 29, 2025. https://247sports.com/college/kentucky/longformarticle/kentucky-basketball-mark-pope-quotes-tennessee-244921931/
- “Adam-ondi-Ahman,” Guide to the Scriptures, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/gs/adam-ondi-ahman?lang=eng
- “The Mission of Brigham Young University,” Brigham Young University. https://aims.byu.edu/byu-mission-statement
- Doctrine and Covenants 107:53–56; 116. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament?lang=eng
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