Shea Martinez was not impressed.
One day in February 2014, Martinez and other members of the BYU women’s track and field team were working out in the weight room when a teammate called her over to speak with a basketball player named Kyle Collinsworth.
The 6-foot-6 guard was sporting a mullet hairdo and wearing a cutoff hoodie, shorts and clunky black snow boots. He grinned as he asked her to “rate his outfit.”
“I looked at him and said, ‘Probably a 3,’” Martinez said. “Then I turned around and walked away, thinking, ‘I’m the biggest brat. Why did I say that?'”
But the two would meet again, and somewhere along the way, a friendlier relationship developed. Last month, Martinez and Collinsworth were married in the Salt Lake LDS Temple.
The basketball star and track standout are not the first student-athlete couple to marry at BYU. Some scholarship athletes who are balancing academics and the rigors of college athletics say they often have little time left over for a social life. At BYU, some end up dating and sometimes marrying those they see the most — other student-athletes at the Student Athlete Building.
Last year, BYU outfielder Andy Isom married soccer player Taylor Campbell. At the end of this month, former Cougar gymnast Summer Raymond will wed basketball star Tyler Haws. Martinez, Campbell and Raymond agree there is a unique dating network among student-athletes at BYU.
“The SAB is a little dating community,” Raymond said.