Southern Methodist University (SMU), located in suburban Dallas, Texas, was the second-smallest school in the Southwest Conference (SWC) and one of the smallest in Division I-A, with a total enrollment of just over 9,000 students in 1986.
[2] As they increased their efforts to keep up with the bigger schools, SMU's coaches and athletic staff began using unethical methods of recruiting and retaining players.
In early 1987, the NCAA investigated SMU's football program for these and other violations, and imposed what is referred to as the "death penalty"—banning a team from competition for a year or more.
In the winter of 1975, SMU hired Ron Meyer, an up-and-coming football coach who had previous success at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
[4] In the late 1970s, attention around SMU football grew, and in the 1978 offseason the university launched a media campaign which caused its average home attendance to double from 26,000 to 52,000.
One such player was Reggie Dupard, who was a National Football League (NFL) first round pick; he admitted to receiving sums of money and a car from a booster while playing as a running back at the school.
When the NCAA became aware of the payments, SMU was placed on probation and excluded from bowl games and television for a year; under these conditions the team won the SWC championship and was ranked fifth in the Associated Press's final poll.
16 in the poll following a surprising blowout loss to unranked Arizona, and then fell out of the published rankings the next week after losing to conference rival Baylor.
The team failed to improve in 1986; A 5–1 start was followed by a three-game losing streak, and SMU again finished at 6–5 despite breaking into the top 20 of the AP at midseason and getting as high as #18.
When he arrived at SMU, Stanley was also dealing with a substance abuse problem that grew progressively worse over the next two years as he battled injuries and frustration over his failed efforts to be named to the starting lineup.
[11] Prior to signing with SMU, Stanley made an on-campus visit, after which he and several recruits had dinner with Eric Dickerson at Campisi's Egyptian Restaurant.
In June 1986, John Sparks, a producer at Dallas–Fort Worth ABC affiliate WFAA-TV, received a tip from a former athletic department employee named Teresa Hawthorne about further wrongdoing at SMU.
Sparks, along with WFAA's sports director Dale Hansen, decided to follow up on the tip; the investigation eventually led to Stanley, who claimed that SMU athletic officials had paid him $25,000 to sign with the Mustangs in 1983 and then continued to pay him monthly while he played for the team.
Any local news outlet investigating SMU faced considerable risk, as the school's alumni had long dominated Dallas' business and social scene.
Had SMU's alumni chosen to retaliate in the same manner as they had with the Times Herald, Belo risked losing twice as much advertising revenue, if not more, due to owning both a newspaper and a television station.
Two days later, the Morning News revealed that starting tight end Albert Reese was living rent-free in a Dallas apartment paid for by George Owen, one of the boosters who had already been banned from the athletic program for his role in the events leading up to the 1985 probation.
The payments were made with the full knowledge and approval of athletic department staff, and there was a plan to discontinue the slush fund when all thirteen players still benefiting from it had left SMU.
According to the Morning News, Hitch knew about the existence of a slush fund as early as 1981, and was involved in the decision to continue the payments even after SMU was placed on probation in 1985.
A 1987 investigation by the College of Bishops of the United Methodist Church revealed that Clements had met with Hitch in 1985, and the two agreed that despite the probation, the payments had to continue because the football program had "a payroll to meet".
[19] At least two NFL players were identified as receiving payments—Patriots running back Reggie Dupard and Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Rod Jones.
[21] Soon after the scandal became public, SMU president L. Donald Shields resigned for health reasons; Hitch and Collins followed suit a few days later.
[25] Several members of the committee that imposed the sanctions later said that when the NCAA first enacted the "repeat violator" rules, it never anticipated that a situation meriting a death penalty would happen.
As soon as the NCAA announced its decision, hundreds of recruiters from 80 universities—including such powerhouses as Oklahoma, Penn State (then the reigning national champions), and Alabama—traveled to SMU in hopes of persuading players to transfer to their schools.
[37] The "naughty nine" were a group of SMU boosters who the NCAA banned from giving any further financial aid to the university after they continued to provide secret payments (to slush funds or to individual players) despite knowing the team was on probation.
Expected to have a winless season, the 1989 Mustangs were able to achieve a late comeback victory on September 16, 1989 over Connecticut, 31–30; that game is now remembered by fans as "The Miracle on Mockingbird".
Not long after that the team was, the Associated Press later reported, "scared, almost terrified" to leave the locker room to play number-one-ranked Notre Dame on November 11, 1989.
Additionally, in response to the scandal, SMU officials had significantly increased the admissions standards for prospective athletes, effectively removing the school from contention for the kinds of players they had attracted in the 1980s.
It already had a dubious reputation from the number of NCAA violations at its member schools (at one point, only three of its nine members—Arkansas, Baylor, and Rice—were not on probation), and the discovery of SMU's persistent cheating was a blow from which the conference never recovered.
In 2002, John Lombardi, then-president of the University of Florida, expressed the sentiment of many college officials when he said: SMU taught the committee that the death penalty is too much like the nuclear bomb.
Other notable interviews included SMU president R. Gerald Turner, broadcaster Brent Musburger, and longtime Dallas Cowboys director of player personnel Gil Brandt.