For Family Of BYU Fans Impacted By Dementia, Storming The Field Meant Everything
Oct 22, 2025, 2:00 PM | Updated: Oct 23, 2025, 9:46 am
Photo courtesy Joeli Carroll
PROVO, Utah – Every time football fans storm a field, two things happen.
They’re celebrated.
They’re judged.
The court of public opinion used to rely on a jury of journalists. But with the proliferation of social media platforms, any keyboard warrior can – and will – weigh in on the debates that range from how dangerous it is to whether or not the moment is ‘meaningful enough’ for such an effusive display of joy.
View this post on Instagram
So, it was not surprising that after BYU fans stormed the field following the Cougars’ 24-21 win over Utah, there was a tsunami of opinions that can be distilled into this: storming the field on Saturday was silly.
But for the family of Tom Grose, it was as far from silly as life gets.
Standing on the field of Lavell Edwards Stadium with her parents, her children and thousands of delighted strangers, Joeli Carroll experienced a moment she will hold onto with all of her heart, for the rest of her life.
“There are very few moments where you’re like, ‘I feel so much joy and contentment right now in this moment’,” said Carroll, the youngest of Grose’s four children. “Because things are hard…And this was just a moment where I felt like – there is nowhere else on earth I’d rather be right now.”
For her, rushing the field had very little to do with celebrating a rivalry win.
It was about savoring every second with her dad before dementia steals any more of the man who raised her.
“Dementia doesn’t kill you,” she said softly. “It just takes away who you are. So, it’s like seeing that experience and just being like ‘he’s going to be less here in a year than he is right now. It’s just watching them disappear. It just takes and takes, and it’s heartbreaking for everyone.”
Carroll and her family are die-hard BYU fans. But their decision to join fans on the field was like everything else in their lives since Tom was diagnosed four years ago – complicated.
“You want to celebrate when your team wins, but…In the grand scheme of things, football doesn’t matter,” she said.
Except that it was football – BYU football – that gave the family some of their best memories.
“A ton of our family trips in the last 20 years have revolved around BYU football,” she said. “We’ve probably gone to 10 away games for family vacations. …It’s something we’ve always enjoyed with him.”
The ‘Rough Around The Edges’ Life Of Tom Grose
Tom isn’t a BYU alum, and he didn’t grow up cheering for the Cougars. In fact, he never had the experiences his grandchildren have enjoyed. He went to his first college football game when he was middle aged. And while he always cheered for BYU, he was also always a bit worried they’d break his heart, too.
That might be because life was always a mix of hope and heartache for Tom Grose.
He grew up in Park City when it was a hardscrabble mining town. His childhood was tough. But Tom turned out to be tougher.
And he got lucky in love.
He fell in love with Jana Rae Martinez when they were still in high school. She was a pretty brunette with a beautiful smile and kind heart. She was one of the few who could see past his gruff exterior.
When he found out she was pregnant, they were legally still kids. But Tom did what grown men do, and he married his sweetheart. Then he spent every day since then trying to give Jana Rae and their children what he never had.
Joeli said he opened his own car repair shop in Midway, Utah, because he was ‘rough around the edges’ and didn’t want to work for anyone else.
“My dad is just the manliest man I’ve ever known, in all the good ways,” Carroll said. “He is so smart. He could fix anything. He just took care of us in all the best ways.”
Joeli competed in pageants and she and her brother performed in various singing groups. She said her dad made anything they wanted to do possible.
“He did all the stuff you just take for granted,” she said. “He was never the guy that wanted to have a conversation or wanted to have this big talk. But he was always there. He supported everything we did. He is my best friend. …The worst thing in my entire life would be if my dad said he was disappointed in me.”
She recalled how he would throw a handful of change out his window on Main Street most mornings when he drove her to school. She thought it was just another of his quirks until she was old enough to realize why he did it.
“There was this little grandma in Midway,” she said. “I don’t know her story. I don’t know anything about her; but she would walk Main Street looking for coins that people had dropped. …He was throwing the change out so she could find it. I’m sure it wasn’t much. …But that’s who he was. He would give the shirt off his back to someone in need. And I love that about him.”
She said her parents struggled to build a life for their little family.
“They were so young when they had kids, and they didn’t really, they weren’t given a ton of help from anyone. They kind of were sent off on their own to figure it out.”
After a few years of working for other people, his wife’s parents lent him the money to buy the building where he’d open his own repair shop.
“He opened it the year I was born,” Joeli said. He grew up with his children, maturing into a man they could rely on. If she needed an oil change or a hug, Tom delivered.
She rattles off the things he’s fixed, including the time they were on a trip and he fixed the wheel of her stroller with a paper clip and a bottle cap. That set up actually extended the stroller’s life by two years.
Joeli said it was her big sister and her mom who are responsible for the family’s allegiance to BYU. They have season tickets, but she wasn’t sure her dad would even attend Saturday’s game because he gets confused in crowds.
“He doesn’t like going out of his comfort zone,” she said. “We have teenagers and they want to bring friends, so when he said, ‘I think I’ll go’ we were surprised.”
Enjoying Every Moment
They arrived at the game, and made their way to their seats.
“I said, ‘You made it’’,” Joelie said. “And he said, ‘Well, I don’t know where I made it to, but I’m glad to be here.’ …He is aware enough to know he’s with his family and that he’s watching football. But he didn’t really know who the teams are. Two years ago, he would have been there in his BYU gear, super excited about what was going on. …Now it’s more for us experiencing it with him.”
When the game ended in a Cougar victory, Joeli’s teenagers rushed down to the field with the other fans. But she and her parents were making their way out of the stadium when she decided she wanted one more special memory with her dad.
“I said, ‘Let’s take dad down there’,” she said to her mom. “He said, ‘They said we can’t go down here. We’re going to get fined.’ And I said, ‘It’s ok. I’ll pay your fine.’”
As they walked past a security guard, he asked the man where he should pay his fine.
“The guy was like, ‘You’re good. You can just go down. We’ll take care of the fine for you.’”
Photo by Chris Gardner/Getty Images)
Tom kept worrying about the fine, but Joeli and Jana Rae kept guiding him to the field.
As they stood amongst the fans, Joeli said she could see the confusion on her father’s face.
“I had a hard time holding back my emotions,” she said. “This is an awesome thing that doesn’t happen very often. …And I’ll probably never have this experience with him again.”
They stood in the chaos and lost themselves in the joy.
They exchanged hugs and high fives.
They took pictures.
And for a moment, they weren’t living in their complicated reality where Tom is both here – and gone.
“It’s been really hard,” Joeli said of navigating her dad’s dementia. “I think the hardest thing for us is we kind of go through this, this period of like, ‘this could be my last time doing this with my dad mentally.’ Like, he might still be here physically, but he’s not going to remember this….It’s been hard seeing him as kind of a shell of who he was. My dad was awesome.”
So she and her mom and her daughter, Ruby, stood with a man who would’ve hated this ending for himself and felt nothing but gratitude and joy.
“It was just one of those moments that I thought, I will probably never have this experience ever again.”
And maybe that’s actually the best way to live life – like you might never have this experience again. I’m not saying fans should rush the field every game, but maybe we could police each other’s joy a little less often.
Maybe we could consider that even communal experiences mean different things to different people. And maybe if we remembered what a Greek philosopher said about life, we’d be a little less judgemental and a lot more grateful.
