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Some cynics don’t like the NBA rule that allows college students to play one year in college and turn pro.
Such one-and-done players aren’t real college students. They can take online courses and never participate on campus, the critics say.
AJ Dybantsa is not that guy.
The BYU freshman is expected to play one year at BYU and then enter the NBA draft, where experts project him to be one of the first three picks.
But he isn’t hiding in online classes.
“I’m actually in three in-person classes right now,” he said during an interview on Wednesday. “I’m taking Mission Prep — it’s like Religion 101. I take the required student success class, University 101. And I take this music class that I’m actually going to after this interview.”
Mission prep is a well-known class among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which sponsors BYU. Hundreds of students take it every semester as they prepare to serve proselyting missions.
“It’s designed for people who intend to go on missions,” said Lincoln Blumell, associate dean over research in Religious Education.
Dybantsa is not a Latter-day Saint. His stated mission is to have BYU help him prepare to play in the NBA. So why would he be taking Mission Prep?
Blumell expressed some surprise that the class was Dybantsa’s choice out of a larger number of options, but he said it makes sense for a student who isn’t a Latter-day Saint to take a class that is steeped in what missionaries will teach and preach.
“It’s covering the essential principles of the gospel, so it could be a real introduction to the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” Blumell said.
Dybantsa is not new to religious education. He attended St. Sebastian’s, an all-boys Catholic school in Needham, Mass., where he also played varsity basketball in the eighth and ninth grades.
BYU provides intentional support to student-athletes and others who are not Latter-day Saints as they work through the 14 hours of religious credit required to graduate, Blumell said.
“We offer a limited number of sections of core classes just for non-members,” he said. “We work with the athletic department to group classes for people who don’t know terms familiar to Latter-day Saints but unfamiliar to others, like Atonement or Restoration.”
He said the athletic department sends notices to instructors so they are aware when they have a student in a class who may be new to those concepts.
“If they are in a normal section with students who are returned missionaries or lifelong members of the church,” Blumell said, “we make them feel comfortable, bring them up to speed on vocabulary and the doctrines of the Restored Gospel and help them succeed in the class.”
The goal is simple.
“There’s a concerted effort to recognize and accommodate their needs,” Blumell said. “We want to help these students so they can both learn as well as enrich and strengthen their own faith.”
