Marshall Terry quote about Football...

[FordtoTolbert]

..from his book, "From High on the Hilltop..." A Brief History of SMU.

"Right now our academic superego looks down warily at our collective id and knows that it is football."

Has anyone ever read this book? FILLED with faculty v. football, admin. v. football, anti football stuff, from the very beginning. Interesting read.

-Had a football field before a library..
-1922 vote to suspend SMU from the SWC for variuos "rules violations"
-Early 20's "Dallas business elite" vs. administration on just exactly who should be running this school, and the business community's stance on "football first".
-The "debt and strain" of Ownby.
-1930: President of the U. made $10,00, Ray Morrison made $12,000 / year...cool! With a full prof. making $3500....the nerve.
-During the Depression: salaries slashed by 20%, and then again by 50%..President's salary cut by a 1/3rd....Morrison's salary not touched.
-Needing $85,000 to pay-off the "Ownby debt", Rose Bowl brought in $90,000 and was called the "Mustang Miracle".
Fast Forward (a constant theme of faculty v. football, Adminstration v. football).
-Early 70's interview with soon to be President Hardin. At dinner with Bill Clements, Hardin raised the question of the "wisdom of keeping big-time football at SMU" and was cut off by Clements, who told him it was not a matter for discussion.
-All through the book, Terry refers to SMU football as "King Football".

Seems like we have been having this "support" fight for quite some time now....BEAT HU!

[OC Mustang]

His opinions on football notwithstanding, Professor Terry is among the best professors of English the university had.

He bled red and blue, regardless of whether he was on the wrong side of the football debate or not.

I just want to make sure that we do not pull a Fox News on somebody whose goal was to make sure that the students coming through his classes got the best he could offer. The comparison Terry makes w/ faculty salaries is certainly gratuitous; I concede that (he didn't even have a doctorate, so he certainly would not have been in line for more money anyway). But please don't toss out all the good the guy did because he lined up against football. Fight the ideas, not the guy.

After all, Gov. Clements had serious vision cataracts on the whole payroll winding down thing. Had he contemplated what President Hardin put forth instead of cutting him off, perhaps he would have made a different decision, and perhaps the DP might not have ever happened.

I also wonder what he would say now...13 years after his book.

[FordtoTolbert]

...not "anti Terry", but, he did write the book, he did set the tone of the book, he choose what to say, and not say about "king Football" in a 75 page book. I respect Terry, just telling you about his book....