Thoughts on Pony Excess

[One Trick Pony]

The Beans have been spilt.

BTW sure hope someone has enough sense to bring firewood for this FreezeGate.

[peruna81]

Not even Craig James has ever claimed that he never took money-he has claimed that he didn't take money to sign with SMU. And I think it is correct to say that the NCAA, the Bishops Committee and the news media never proved otherwise. Pony Excess seems to confirm that. If there are truly fans of teams in the 1970s and 1980s that truly believe that their players weren't receiving extra benefits then they are hopelessly naive. This was true at Texas, A&M and every other school in the Southwest

Thought it was interesting that both James and ED have had very little to say about pay for play at SMU...even the brief repose by (IIRC) CJ in Pony Excess that intimated that noone will ever hear ED speak about it.

I have had only the most cursory of meetings with Craig James,(as a student and after) and found him to be very much a man driven to achieve...I find no fault with that as such, any more than I find fault with his reaction to the media coverage of his son's events at Tech. He is in a position with ESPN/CBS that is national in scope; as such, you lose a certain portion of anonimity as well as voice to comment.

I took away from Thad's film that there were a number of folks from that era (ED, et al) that were conveniently shunned more than most of us not in the power loop of SMU from '87-'08 would know...I reckon also some of the lack of SMU talk by CJ is, quite frankly, because there hasn't been a whole lot of good things on the gridiron to talk about. Fair enough...that is changing, thankfully.

[LVPony]

All and all a very good program. Too bad Thad was unable to get an interview with Sherwood Blunt. I would have loved to hear his side of the story. I bet it would have been very inromative. I also would have liked to know more about the interworkings of the Board of Governors. Who besides Clements knew what was going on would have been very interesting.

[ponyboy]

Don't sprain a hamstring jumping to conclusions as you're wont to do, Nick. It seems to me likely that James was innocent, never took money and yet was lumped in with the rest of the players SMU made clear for two decades weren't welcome on campus. How would you react?

Sherwood was his agent and employeer during college off-season....care to take back your opinion...

You are prob. right he just was at SMU b/c his G/F was there...

I don't know. I just want to think the best of people and think we ought to give our fellow Mustangs the benefit of the doubt before pronouncing judgement. Sounds like you have more info than I, so I'll follow your lead.

[One Trick Pony]

You, me, rgv, and sherwood @ javiers after bowl game...

I'll invite pony_fan as well, and someone remember to text Billy Clyde

Want me to invite GT while were at it?

[Big Al]

Thoughts:

Sherwood fell on his sword for the program, never spoke or pointed fingers, took the fall for the administration. Never talks about the subject, the only regret I hear him tell is that he was banned for life. Still loves the school, his daughter attended there and was a Kappa.

james surely was getting some sort of stipend, I remember seeing his new Olds Toronado (not many kids drove those) outside the Chi-O house.

Ron Meyer is a bad [deleted], great recruiter, very charismatic. Obviously he solicited the "bag men" to keep up with the Joneses. That's the way it was done back then.

Joke line of the show was the"charismatic" June Jones. Best line was ED saying"I hate Texas".

Watching the 1980 win over Texas was great, forgot they were #2 at that time.

Dale Hansen is still a blowhard with a bigger ego than anyone at SMU ever had.

McIlhenny was underrated.

DP was bad, but Ken Pye coming in and changing recruiting standards and screwing with the greek system was worse. Worsened SMU athletics for over 20 years.

[couch 'em]

Joke line of the show was the"charismatic" June Jones.

Jones is the most charismatic least charismatic person ever. I don't find him to be charismatic at all, yet he seems to win over everyone when he talks to them. I don't know how he does it, but he is certainly charismatic.

[SoCal_Pony]

I would be ashamed and embarrassed to even go on camera if I were Dickerson or James.

If TCU ever has an early 1980's FB reunion, better keep the cameras away from its star players, wouldn't want them to be ashamed and embarrassed

[SoCal_Pony]

It's the story of a small, proud university who's committed to winning the right way.

That sounds like a Ken Pye statement.

For the record, SMU was one of the WORST programs in D1-A for over 20 years. I did a comparsion several years ago, we ranked with Kent State and Buffalo at the very bottom.

Given our resources, that was nothing to be proud about.

[SoCal_Pony]

While I may disagree with it, I at least understand James's attitude toward SMU a little better. From the documentary, it sounds like he was clean and really didn't want to go to a program where things were shady.

amazing what I am reading on this thread.

you realize his CJ's other choice was that squeaky clean University of Alabama

[SoCal_Pony]

As has been pointed out, Craig was not "pay to play". He came though the program squeaky clean.

To my knowledge, Craig's testing of the political waters to speak at a Libertarian-party sponsored event at SMU was probably the first time he's been on campus in 25 years.

You have absolutely no basis to say CJ did not accept any $$$ to come to SMU.

Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, he is not being a candid as ED is now because he IS testing the political waters?

[mrflinnbob]

Doesn't Sherwood have a son enrolled this year as a freshman?

[SoCal_Pony]

I know one of the voices in the film. He said the fair estimate was about 40 percent of the roster were getting paid and the other 60 were not.

you have to define "getting paid"

I knew players that were not top tier that were still getting benefits.

[mrydel]

Folks I could rattle off a number of players during my time that were being paid, but I will not. That was not the issue. Does not matter who was and who was not. It was the involvement of the coaches and the BOT in the dealings, and our consistent and repetitive lying to the NCAA.

[abezontar]

While I may disagree with it, I at least understand James's attitude toward SMU a little better. From the documentary, it sounds like he was clean and really didn't want to go to a program where things were shady.

amazing what I am reading on this thread.

you realize his CJ's other choice was that squeaky clean University of Alabama

I realize that, that is why I qualified my statement regarding the presentation in the documentary.