Fresno article about SMU

[Corso]

I give credit where it's due: SMUFAN located this story in the Fresno Bee and posted the link on the other site. But it's a real nice story about Coach Bennett and the Ponies, and gets you even more excited about the season.

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New beginnings: Returning to his Texas roots, first-year Southern Methodist coach Phil Bennett hopes to revive the Mustangs' foundering program.
By Marek Warszawski
The Fresno Bee
(Published Friday, July, 26, 2002, 6:14 AM)

BOISE, Idaho -- Phil Bennett's toughest task in life has nothing to do with restoring Southern Methodist's long-vanished football luster.

Try raising a 14-year-old son and an 11-year-old daughter as a single parent. Now there's a challenging assignment.

In August 1999, Nancy Bennett, Phil's wife of 15 years, was struck by lightning and killed while on a morning jog in Manhattan, Kan.

Ever since, family and football have become Bennett's entire life. Football is No. 2 on the priority list.

"It still hurts because she was my best friend, but it has shown me I could do more than I ever thought I could," Bennett says. "My kids have become my salvation."

The Avenal native has shown an amazing capacity to separate personal tragedy from professional duty.

Bennett came to SMU from Kansas State, where his defenses finished in the top four nationally three straight years (1999-2001). The first of those seasons began less than a month after Nancy's death.

When he was 9 or 10 (he can't quite remember) Bennett's family moved to Texas, where he still enjoys a built-in support system. Nancy's parents live 25 miles from Dallas, and he was able to convince older brother Jerry, a successful Texas high school coach, to join him as an assistant.

"This is a new beginning," Bennett says. "I don't want to say it's a light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm able to focus on some other things. ... The last three years have been an absolute blur."

The blur hasn't slowed since Bennett's arrival at SMU in December.

Despite getting a late start on recruiting, his staff managed to bring in what most experts rate as one of the WAC's top three classes. It helped that each of Bennett's assistants either has coached in Texas or recruited the Dallas area.

Bennett wasted little time shaking up the SMU football community, stating on his first day on the job his goal was to win the WAC championship.

He then went about winning over a team of underachieving players that went 4-7 the year before and cost Mike Cavan his job.

"Everybody was real nervous to see what this guy was going to be about," all-WAC linebacker Vic Viloria recalls. "He sat us down in a meeting room and just started up.

"He picked out a couple veteran players and challenged us to be leaders. It was real emotional. The thing that really shocked us was his fiery attitude. ... Around SMU, it got to the point where we accepted losing. And the first thing [Bennett] did when he came in was wipe that out of our minds."

Changing the fans' attitude will require a little more work.

Competing head-to-head with the Dallas Cowboys, Texas, Texas A&M and even Texas Tech and Texas Christian, SMU is little more than a footnote in the Metroplex sports scene. Average attendance last season was 17,386 (its lowest level since 1945), despite the on-campus presence of sparkling Gerald J. Ford Stadium.

The grand Mustangs tradition created by the likes of Doak Walker, Raymond Berry, Eric Dickerson, Craig James and Reggie Dupard remains vacuum packed inside the two-year "death penalty" levied in the late 1980s by the NCAA for severe violations.

Since its resurrection in 1989, SMU is 36-95 (.275) with one winning season.

"The tradition at SMU is unparalleled in this league -- I mean we've got seven Hall of Famers, and we've won a national title," Bennett says.

"I talked to a lot of people before I took this job. I didn't have to leave Kansas State. But the more I researched it, the more I became convinced of what could be accomplished with some excitement and a good coaching staff.

"I know we can do things better than what's been done."

SMU returns 16 starters from a year ago, including eight members of the league's No. 1 defense and flashy running back ShanDerrick Charles, who rushed for 860 yards as a true freshman.

There is a big question mark at quarterback. But maybe an exclamation point of a coach can transform the Mustangs into the WAC's surprise team.

"I haven't been this excited about football since my first day as a freshman," wide receiver Chris Cunningham says. "And it's all because of Coach Bennett."

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The reporter can be reached at [email protected] or 441-6218.