After decades of decline, pride has returned to SMU football
12:02 AM CST on Saturday, November 21, 2009
By KATE HAIROPOULOS / The Dallas Morning News
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[email protected] UNIVERSITY PARK – The players on the SMU sideline surged onto the field, whooping and leaping. Electricity and euphoria shot through Ford Stadium, the same one that seemed so polite for so many Saturdays, after last week's win over UTEP. Athletic director Steve Orsini clambered down the stairs from his suite, his 13-year-old daughter noting the tear in his eye. Lance McIlhenny, the former star quarterback from the heady years before this kind of purgatory was imagined, followed the party-ready students as they spilled from the stands.
The Hilltop felt hopeless no more. Generations of players and fans and big-money boosters, who had all waited for the same moment, merged."I hope they all feel like they played a part in it," Orsini said later. "What's happening on that field is continuing in its own way."
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