Southern Methodist University in Dallas is one of numerous
prestigious universities in Texas. The school's football team was
the pride of the university and the city. Before the late 1970s,
however, the relatively small school had trouble recruiting and
struggled to keep up with the big-time football universities that
were often more than double its size. Under pressure to compete,
the SMU football program engaged in ethics, rules, and recruiting
violations for years. When the corruption came to light, the NCAA
handed out its most serious punishment in the history of college
sports--the "death penalty"--which cancelled the team's entire 1987
schedule.
In "A Payroll to Meet," author David Whitford details the
Mustangs' descent into corruption and the fallout when it was
discovered. Most egregiously, the football program ran a huge slush
fund that was used to pay players from the mid-1970s through 1986.
Bill Clements, chairman of the SMU board and soon to be reelected
governor of Texas, knew all about the slush fund before the NCAA
did. He opted, however, to phase out the payments rather than stop
them immediately, for fear that angry players might go public and
create still more problems for SMU. Clements and the athletic
director Bob Hitch decided that the football program had "a payroll
to meet."
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