The Southern Methodist University football scandal occurred in 1987 when the SMU Mustangs football program at Southern Methodist University (SMU) was investigated and penalized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for massive violations of rules and regulations over a period of several years between the late 1970s and mid-1980s. The most serious violation was the maintenance of a large slush fund used for "under the table" payments to players and their families to entice them to come to SMU to play from the early 1970s onward.
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. While it was not the only SWC school to be sanctionedat one point, five of the conference's nine member schools were on some form of probationSMU's violations were considered to be particularly egregious. The severity of the sanctions the NCAA imposed in this case, while based on the number and seriousness of SMU's infractions, especially took into account the school's blatant disregard for previous efforts at enforcement; the university had been under nearly constant NCAA scrutiny for over a decade.
The NCAA canceled SMU's 1987 season, the first time it had canceled a member's entire football season. The university opted to sit out the 1988 season as well due to concerns it would be unable to field a competitive team. The two-year hiatus had long-term effects on the program and ultimately led to the dissolution of the Southwest Conference.
Background SMU, located in suburban Dallas, Texas, was the second-smallest school in the Southwest Conference (SWC) (only Rice was smaller) and one of the smallest in Division I-A, with a total enrollment of just over 9,000 students in 1986. From the 1950s onward, the team had found it difficult to compete against SWC schools that were double its size or more. As the 1980 season began, SMU had had only nine winning seasons since 1951, including the last five in a row.
As they increased their efforts to keep up with the bigger schools, SMU's coaches and athletic staff began using recruiting methods that strayed very close to the ethical line, and in some cases went over it. Schools in the NCAA were prohibited from paying a player to join or play for their team, and all players were required to remain bona fide students at their institutions. According to ESPN's 2010 documentary film Pony Excess, much of the cheating took place with the full knowledge of school administrators.
These practices landed SMU on probation five times between 1974 and 1985. By 1987, it had been on probation seven times overallmore than any other school in Division I-A.
The scandal Beginnings under Ron Meyer In the winter of 1975, SMU hired Ron Meyer, an up-and-coming football coach who had previous success with the UNLV Rebels. 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. Even as attendance grew, however, SMU's winloss record was not significantly improving; through Meyer's first four years there, the team's record was 1627 and they had not had a winning season. Reasoning that the team still lacked talent and size, he turned more of his attention to recruiting the biggest and best new players he could get. His first major find had been running back Emanuel Tolbert from Little Rock Central High School. While trying to keep his dealings quiet, Meyer began persuading more and more big, talented players to commit to SMU. Former Mustangs quarterback Lance McIlhenny later referred to Meyer as the greatest salesman he had ever met.
Meyer's recruiting strategy was very aggressive, pursuing the best football players from across Texas and beyond, but his methods were not always ethical; he and his staff were paying recruits. According to Steve Endicott, the first payments came at Kashmere High School: "[...] It was Ron, Myself, Rob [Robin Buddecke, Endicott's assistant], and maybe another coach... I can't pin it down it was maybe twenty or fifty bucks or something like that we gave". The Kashmere football players called the SMU recruiters "Santa Claus". The payments of $20 or $50 grew into $500, and escalated to the point that Buddecke was said to have handed out 100-dollar bills to recruits when meeting them at airports.
For years after this, new recruitsand existing players as wellcontinued to receive payments and gifts from SMU boosters. One such player was running back Reggie Dupard, who was selected in the first round of the 1986 NFL draft; he admitted to receiving sums of money and a car from a booster while playing at the school. In a 2022 interview, McIlhenny said that he had once confronted his coach about other players receiving envelopes of cash, and the next day discovered US$700 () in his locker.
Meyer's recruiting strategies began to reflect on the scoreboard in 1980, when the Mustangs qualified for their first bowl game since 1968 with a high-powered running offense led by running backs Craig James and Eric Dickerson, the latter of whom had allegedly received a new gold Pontiac Trans Am as part of his recruitment to Texas A&M. Facing BYU in the 1980 Holiday Bowl, SMU fell 4645 despite having led by three touchdowns late in the fourth quarter.
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 AP final poll. Meyer resigned following the season to become head coach of the NFL's New England Patriots.
Escalation under Bobby Collins Meyer's successor, Bobby Collins, continued making under-the-table payments to players despite probation, and the 1982 Mustangs finished unbeaten and won the 1983 Cotton Bowl Classic on their way to a #2 finish in the final polls. Only a tie against Arkansas denied them a share of the national championship. Collins led SMU to bowl appearances in his next two seasons, a loss in the 1983 Sun Bowl and a win in the 1984 Aloha Bowl; the Mustangs won a share of the SWC championship in the latter year, to earn their third conference championship in four years.
SMU's next probation came as the result of an investigation into the recruiting practices of several assistant coaches and boosters. Offensive lineman Sean Stopperich, who was part of the 1983 recruiting class and who had given an oral commitment to the Pittsburgh Panthers, told NCAA investigators that SMU boosters and assistant coaches had given him and his family several thousand dollars to renege on his Pittsburgh commitment and sign with the Mustangs instead.
The NCAA came down significantly harder on SMU than it had in the past. The school was not allowed to grant any new football scholarships for the 1985 season, and limited to fifteen for 1986. The Mustangs were also barred from postseason play for two seasons and banned from live television for 1986.
The Mustangs' on-field performance almost immediately suffered. Entering 1985 as the third-ranked team by the AP, SMU fell to No. 16 in the poll following a surprising blowout loss to unranked Arizona, and then fell out of the rankings altogether the next week after losing to conference rival Baylor. Losses to Arkansas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma followed, with the team finishing 65 for the year. The team failed to improve in 1986; a 51 start was followed by a three-game losing streak, and SMU again finished at 65 despite breaking into the top 20 of the AP at midseason and getting as high as #18. Their losses included a shutout against Arizona State, giving up 61 points against Notre Dame, and a second shutout in the season finale against Arkansas.
Repeat Violator rule In 1985, after SMU was sanctioned again, the NCAA called an emergency meeting in New Orleans to deal with the rash of cheating that had been uncovered in the late 1970s and early 1980s. At that meeting, the NCAA Council implemented several new rules to combat the problem. Among the decisions made at that meeting was one that reinforced the NCAA's power to shut down athletic programs found guilty of egregious violationsa power popularly known as the "death penalty". The new bylaw, called the "Repeat Violator rule", stated that if a school had been found guilty of two major violations within five years, it could be barred for up to two years from competing in the sport involved in the second violation. The NCAA had only canceled a team's season twice in its historyKentucky men's basketball in 195253 and Southwestern Louisiana men's basketball from 1973 to 1975. Though the "death penalty" had always been an option available to the NCAA, the new rule clarified its use and in some cases changed the way it would be applied. Once a school qualified as a repeat violator, the NCAA could no longer postpone judgment; it had to either hand down the penalty or explain why it was choosing not to do so.
Six schools on the council voted against adding the Repeat Violator rule. SMU was one of them; two of their SWC brethren, Texas and Houston, joined in dissenting. Both of those schools had also recently been under NCAA investigation for improper practices. In 1982 Texas had been cited for recruiting violations, and was caught for the same thing again in 1986. Houston was paying players as well; this led to the forced retirement of longtime coach Bill Yeoman at the end of the 1986 season, and later to stiff penalties.
David Stanley comes forward
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, which led them to another member of the 1983 recruiting class.
David Stanley was a Parade High School All-American from the Houston suburb of Angleton. He had been heavily recruited by both Texas and Texas Tech after his senior season, but SMU was his initial preference. He chose SMU after a Texas assistant allegedly had a fight with his father, Harley, over the telephone, while he also claimed Texas Tech made him a $50,000 cash offer that he rejected (both claims were denied).
However, just before he was going to sign his letter of intent to join the Mustangs, Stanley was contacted by SMU assistant coach Bootsie Larsen. He offered Stanley $25,000 in cash to sign the letter of intent, which Stanley accepted. From the fall of 1983, when he enrolled, until August of 1985, when Larsen was fired, Stanley said that he was paid $750 a month by the school during the semesters where he attended.