THE SCANDALOUS SOUTHWEST (conference)

[PonyTime]

I stumbled upon this great article form 1985 LA Times ... well written expose on the SWC ...takes you back in time. A great read and a lot of info I never knew about that time period - including the Meredith story about TCU vs SMU. Required reading for any SMU fan under the age of 35 (you will start to realize why all of us over 35 REALLY hate the NCAA for their selective enforcement).

http://articles.latimes.com/1985-10-14/sports/sp-14779_1_smu-s-campus-smu-s-mustangs-bumper-stickers

THE SCANDALOUS SOUTHWEST : Some May Call It Indecent Exposure, but in an Area of the Country Where the 'Politics of Football Are Probably More Important Than the Politics of Politics,' Recruiting Violations Have Schools in the Southwest Conference Pointing Fingers
October 14, 1985|RANDY HARVEY | Times Staff Writer

DALLAS — The first thing you have to know about the Southwest Conference is that every school hates at least one other school, and they all hate the University of Texas.

Four years ago, when SMU's Mustangs were beginning yet another probationary period and blaming Texas for turning them in, bumper stickers began appearing on the cars in the SMU student-parking lots, which closely resemble the parking lots around Rodeo Drive, that said, "My Maid Went to Texas." When confronted by Mustang preppies, Longhorn followers would respond: "Of course. So did your doctor and lawyer." But the best bumper sticker the students at Texas could produce said, "SMU: The Best Team Money Can Buy."

SMU students didn't mind. On the contrary, they adopted the theme and improved on it this fall, when the Mustangs went on probation for the fourth time since 1974 and the sixth time since 1958. New bumper stickers on SMU's campus say, "Ponies, Porsches & Probation, Nowhere But SMU."

Ponies and Porsches, maybe. But as you will see later, probation is not likely to remain the exclusive property of SMU.

The second thing you have to know about the Southwest Conference is that nothing in Texas is held in more reverence than football except for religion, and sometimes the lines between those two get crossed. Most of the time, this is in regard to T.L.'s Team. Insert either Tom Landry or The Lord. In Texas, it's the same difference. Ministers who normally don't mind keeping their parishioners until long past lunchtime routinely cut off their sermons before noon during the football season so that no one will miss the Cowboy kickoff. Likewise, there isn't a Baptist or a Methodist preacher in Texas who hasn't stood in the pulpit on some Sunday morning and said a prayer of thanks for a Baylor or an SMU victory the day before.

In itself, that's a powerful combination, everybody loving his team and hating almost everybody else's. But that's not what makes the Southwest Conference unique. Every conference has its share of loving and hating, although there is less fervor in other conferences than in the Southwest Conference. USC and UCLA are kissing cousins compared to Texas and Texas A&M. What makes the Southwest Conference unique is that eight of the nine schools are in the same state. Now Texas is a big state, but not so big that everybody doesn't know everybody else's business. That's true whether we're talking oil, real estate or football recruiting.

When Billy Sims was a high school senior at Hooks, Tex., a spot in the road in the northeast corner of the state, his grandmother, with whom he lived, reported him missing to the police. She said he had been kidnaped, but, as it was only 48 hours before the day when high school players could sign national letters of intent, most people assumed he had been stored in a place for safe keeping by the University of Oklahoma, which is in the Big Eight Conference but is guilty by association with its neighbors from the Southwest Conference. Members of the Southwest Conference will tell you it's the other way around, that it's they who are contaminated by having to recruit against "The Evil Empire." More on that later.

Baylor Coach Grant Teaff had no clues as to Sims' whereabouts, but he reported that the last time Sims had been seen in Hooks he was carrying around several crisp, new $100 bills.

"How do you know that?" Teaff was asked.

"We have some good Baptists up there in Hooks," Teaff said. Considering all of these factors, there had to be a major scandal sooner or later. Most people would have bet on sooner. But when it finally hit the sports pages this fall, it was nasty enough to cast suspicion on more than half of the schools in the conference and maybe even alter the course of the state's political future. There was a time when only LBJ could do that.

All of this started in August, when the NCAA found SMU guilty of 36 violations, most of them involving recruiting. The Mustangs were placed on three years probation, in which they are banned from bowl games in 1985 and 1986 and television in 1986. More damaging to Coach Bobby Collins' program, they had to forfeit 45 of a possible 60 scholarships over the next two years.

SMU Athletic Director Bob Hitch set about to clean up the mess. He placed one assistant coach on probation, made SMU's athletic facilities off-limits to nine boosters, who also were ordered to discontinue recruiting athletes for the university, and then proved he meant business by firing another assistant coach for associating with one of the nine blacklisted boosters. At the same time, he and other SMU officials accused the NCAA of selective enforcement, which is the defense every school uses when it gets caught cheating. (For reference, see USC.) It means: Everybody's doing it. Why pick on us?

SMU could either get mad or get even.

Some people will tell you the Mustangs did both.

A short time after the Mustangs went on probation, NCAA investigators visited the SMU campus to collect information about possible violations by other schools. Houston Coach Bill Yeoman later criticized the director of SMU's Board of Governors, Bill Clements, for aiding the investigation. Clements is a former Republican governor of Texas who plans to run again next year. Clements denied any role in the investigation. But H.R. (Bum) Bright, a part-owner of the Dallas Cowboys and a former chairman of the Texas A&M Board of Regents, made public a conversation he had with Clements. "Clements says the next one is TCU, then Texas Tech, then the University of Texas," Bright said.

Clements also denied that, but political strategists said the damage may already have been done to his candidacy. It was as if he had come out in favor of Communism or against off-shore drilling.

"In Texas, the politics of football are probably more important than the politics of politics," an unnamed Republican told the Dallas Times Herald. "People get very testy about football here. If people perceive that Clements is out pointing fingers at other schools just because he's upset about what happened to SMU, he could be in for a lot of trouble."

One thing for sure, every school in the conference was getting more exposure than it wanted. "It's like a bad case of the chicken pox," Clements said.

TCU wasn't next; Texas A&M was. A Dallas television station reported that a Dallas car dealer, a Texas A&M alumnus named Rod Dockery, leased a white Datsun 300SX to Texas A&M quarterback Kevin Murray, and then, according to a former Dockery bookkeeper, occasionally dropped $300 checks in the mail to Murray. The former bookkeeper turned the information over to the television station after Dockery granted her a maternity leave and then allegedly refused to reinstate her. When confronted with a copy of the lease by the television reporter, Murray said his signature was forged. He also denied leasing the car or receiving checks from Dockery. Texas A&M requested an NCAA investigation.

Then came TCU. A little more than 24 hours after the allegation against Texas A&M made the evening news in Dallas, TCU Coach Jim Wacker called a press conference to announce he had suspended six players, including All-American running back Kenneth Davis, for accepting money from boosters. Wacker later suspended a seventh player and said as many as 29 Horned Frogs might have been receiving payments before he became head coach in 1983. TCU requested an NCAA investigation.

Then came Texas Tech. According to a report last week in a San Antonio newspaper, a high school football recruit said he was given cash, a pair of cowboy boots and the use of a rental car and hotel room by a former assistant coach and three boosters in 1983. Also disclosing that the school responded in September to an NCAA inquiry concerning five other possible recruiting violations, Athletic Director T. Jones said Texas Tech has requested an investigation into the latest allegation.

Et tu UT? Thirty-seven Texas athletes, most of them football players, received a discounted group rate at an Austin apartment complex last summer. While other tenants paid $295 a month, the athletes paid $200. Two of the football players were incoming freshmen, who had not yet enrolled in classes. The apartment complex owner admitted the group rate had not been advertised, or had it ever been given to another group. Texas hasn't requested an NCAA investigation, but, as the wily scatback Mick Jagger might say, you don't always get what you don't want.

Who's next? Rice?

Don't bet against it. This is the conference that Arkansas Athletic Director Frank Broyles said coaches in other conferences call OPEC. That's because the Southwest Conference supposedly establishes the going rate for running backs and wide receivers.

A couple of weeks ago, 10 years after Baylor lost Billy Sims to Oklahoma in one of recent history's more interesting recruiting confrontations, Teaff was asked to estimate the going rate for a high school All-American running back. He said around $25,000, including upfront money and monthly payments through the player's four or five-year college career, but, as chairman of the American Football Coaches Association Ethics Committee, he didn't dwell on that line of questioning.

"Not one of us could stand up under full scrutiny of the NCAA," Teaff said. "Everybody has broken a rule here and there. But if you're talking about literally buying a player, I really don't think the number of schools doing it is higher than 20 or 25%, if that many. That's not rampant."

What he was saying is that everybody is not doing it.

What he also was saying, without meaning for the emphasis to be on this point, is that one of every four or five college teams is doing it.

Asked if he were surprised to discover that TCU was one of them, Teaff said, "I'd be less than honest if I didn't say I was surprised." Maybe there aren't as many good Baptists these days.

A few days earlier, the same question had been put to Texas Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds. "I wish I could be surprised, but I'm not surprised," he said. "I wish I could be shocked, but I'm not shocked. Some of the things we've seen, we've been hearing for the last three or four years."

TCU Coach Jim Wacker said he was shocked. Indeed, only a couple of hours before six Horned Frogs came clean, Wacker told a Fort Worth television reporter he would be "the most shocked man in the world" if there were cause for the NCAA to look into TCU's football program. Wacker since has admitted that he knew TCU players had been paid in the past. But he said that when he became the head coach in 1983 he had been assured in a meeting with prominent boosters that the payments would be stopped. One of the boosters, [deleted] Lowe, told him: "I'll try it your way. If it doesn't work, I'll go back to my way."

Lowe is a Fort Worth oil man who played at TCU in the late 40s, when Coach Dutch Meyer's Horned Frogs were more often than not competitive in the Southwest Conference. After Lowe left school, he became a "fringe player" in the oil business until the day he decided to go "elephant hunting" in Colorado and hit a big gusher. Suddenly, he was rich, as much as $13 million a day rich. That bought him entrance into Fort Worth society, if not the exclusive River Crest Country Club. But what's a little thing like a membership card among the Texas rich? Sitting with a friend at River Crest one day, Lowe laughed and said, "I'm not a member here, but I'm worth so much they don't know it."

It isn't difficult to figure why Lowe was driven to buying football players. Through the 60s, 70s and early 80s, TCU had only three winning seasons. As the losses mounted, so did the frustrations. In 1971, TCU's head coach, Jim Pittman, died of a heart attack on the sideline during a game against Baylor. A couple of years later, his successor, Billy Tohill, was involved in an early-morning, one-car accident and had to have his leg amputated from the knee down. In 1974, one of TCU's best players, Kent Waldrep, was paralyzed in a loss to Alabama. That was the year Jim Shofner became the head coach. He won two games in three seasons. One of Shofner's losses was by 81-16 to Texas. A friend of Lowe's said he had never seen him so despondent as he was that afternoon.

To make matters worse, TCU's arch-rival, SMU, had begun to win. Even though they are only 30 miles apart, they are in different states of mind. Both are private schools with roughly the same academic standards, but SMU plays Scarlett O'Hara to TCU's Melanie Wilkes. When former TCU Coach Abe Martin was trying to recruit Don Meredith out of Mount Vernon, a tiny East Texas farm town, he told the quarterback he could wear blue jeans if he came to the Fort Worth campus. "I've been wearing jeans all my life," Meredith told Martin. "I'd rather go to SMU and wear a coat and tie."

When the Mustangs began winning again in the early 80s, no one had to ask how they did it. The NCAA provided the answers. During an NCAA investigation in the 70s, SMU players said one coach, a religious zealot, was performing exorcism rites on them if he felt they were doing the devil's business, while another was paying them for tackles and fumble recoveries.

So Lowe said he was eager to contribute in any way he could when he and three other boosters met with an assistant coach in 1980, three years into F.A. Dry's stay as TCU's head coach. In accordance with their scheme, Lowe said he and several other boosters, 20 or 30 as estimated by one person close to TCU, began giving money to assistant coaches, who distributed it to players. All seven players suspended by Wacker were recruited while Dry was the head coach. Now an assistant coach at Baylor, Dry has denied knowledge of the payments.

In his letter of resignation last month as a member of TCU's Board of Regents, Lowe wrote, " . . . everyone else in the conference was buying players and . . . the only way we could compete was to buy players also."

That was not a philosophy shared by Wacker. A man who won two NAIA championships at Texas Lutheran and two NCAA Division II championships at Southwest Texas State, Wacker, 48, vowed he would win at TCU and win clean. After finishing 1-8-2 in his first season at TCU, his second team last season had an 8-4 record and played in the Bluebonnet Bowl. Unbeleeevable , as Wacker would say. TCU fans thought he had been sent by the Great Horned Frog in the Sky.

If you beleeeve Wacker, he didn't know that he was winning with players who were still on the payrolls of Lowe and other boosters. If he had known, he might not have written the letter to other Southwest Conference head coaches that encouraged them to sweep out their programs. As most other conference coaches suspected the under-the-table dealings that were going on at TCU, you can imagine their reaction to that letter.

Animosity between Southwest Conference coaches is nothing new. When Darrell Royal was at Texas, he used to make up scurrilous rumors about Hayden Fry, who was then at SMU. Call it barnyard humor. "But you know that's not true," Texas' sports information director Jones Ramsey would tell Royal. "I know," Royal would say. "But I want to hear him deny it."

Taking particular offense to Wacker's holier-than-thou attitude was Texas A&M's Jackie Sherrill, who referred to the TCU coach as "Elmer Gantry." It was bad enough that Wacker told Aggie jokes at banquets. (Aggie jokes are Texas' version of Polish jokes. Example: A lightning storm struck during a Texas A&M football game. After the other team ran for shelter in the dressing room, it took the Aggies only three plays to score.) But Sherrill was really angry when he discovered Wacker was critical of Texas A&M when he recruited. Negative recruiting is against Southwest Conference rules. Sherrill complained to the proper authorities, who reprimanded Wacker.

The irony was not lost on Sherrill last month, when Texas A&M's alleged transgression was knocked off the front pages by Wackergate.

On Tuesday, Sept. 17, NCAA investigators were on the SMU campus to meet with players about possible violations by other schools while they were being recruited. According to newspaper reports, the NCAA discovered information about Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and TCU. Concerned, Wacker called a team meeting at 5 p.m. on Sept. 18 to ask his players if there was anything he should know. About an hour after the meeting ended, Davis went to an assistant coach and confessed. Other confessions were forthcoming.

Davis since has said he received about $18,000 in three years at TCU, which he said is $20,000 less than he was promised by Lowe when the running back reneged on an agreement to attend Nebraska in 1981 and signed with the Horned Frogs. Davis told the Dallas Morning News he was sitting on the bench at practice during his freshman season when a TCU booster, pizza chain owner Chris Farkas, dropped an envelope containing $3,700 behind him. Davis said he went to an adjoining practice field and hid the money in a tire. Farkas, who reported he received a death threat after his name was linked to the scandal, has denied involvement.

Although he had promised Wacker in 1983 that the payments would stop, Lowe said they continued because a member of the former coaching staff convinced him that the players would become disgruntled after being cut off, transfer to other schools and then report TCU to the NCAA. Lowe said Wacker had no clue of the dirt in his program.

Collins, SMU's coach, probably had to bite his tongue when he heard that. After Collins said he knew nothing of the goings on at SMU, Wacker said the head coach always knows. Collins' revenge came in the form of SMU's 56-21 victory over the Horned Frogs a couple of weeks later.

SMU's next target is Texas. Even if Texas didn't turn in the Mustangs to the NCAA, the Mustangs believe Texas turned them in. No one at SMU is attempting to discourage that feeling among the players, who are fuming. Those clever students are preparing more bumper stickers, these saying, "The Lies of Texas Are Upon You." That could lead to a interesting confrontation on Oct. 26 at Texas Stadium. Down here, they call it a "Texas Death Match."

This is nothing new for Texas, which has a blood feud brewing with Oklahoma almost every year. The Longhorns don't like it that the Sooners recruit so many Texans; the Sooners don't like it that the Longhorns seem to believe Texans wouldn't agree to spend four years in Oklahoma unless they were bought. Royal once suggested that he and Switzer meet at a neutral site and take lie-detector tests about their recruiting habits, with Baylor's Teaff officiating. They could have gotten a sponsor and called it the Pillsbury Lie-Off.

Switzer wouldn't agree to that, if for no other reason than it might have eased Royal's mind. I always thought Switzer enjoyed seeing Royal spew and sputter. That's probably the reason Switzer got such a charge out of telling about Royal belching in Kenny King's face during a recruiting visit to Austin in 1976 because King wouldn't confirm that Oklahoma was cheating. King, who now plays for the Raiders, was also being recruited by the Sooners at the time.

When I brought that up in a conversation with Royal before the 1976 season, he seemed more sad than angry. He, of course, denied it. As a young reporter, I had second thoughts at that moment about whether I had chosen the right career. Would I spend the next few decades asking grown men whether they had belched in the faces of teen-agers? But I stuck with it. Royal didn't. He retired after that season.

[PonyTime]

And since the above story barely mentions the University of Texas... here is what they were up to at that time...

The Dallas Morning News

UT BOOSTERS GAVE PLAYERS CASH, GIFTS
Athletes say practice was routine; Akers `surprised’

Laura Miller Copyright 1986, The Dallas Morning News The Dallas Morning News (DAL) + _

Published: March 26, 1986

AUSTIN — University of Texas boosters and sports agents have given Longhorn football players cash, liquor, meals, free dental and legal services, and discounts at apartments and bars — all violations of the National Collegiate Athletic Association extra-benefit rules.

During a two-month investigation of the Texas football program by The Dallas Morning News, former players said that boosters and agents, whom they usually met through coaches, routinely approached players with offers of cash and favors from the day they first walked onto the practice field. In interviews with 28 former Texas players, whose careers spanned the period from 1978 to 1985, 11 said they accepted cash payments — in some cases amounting to more than $10,000 — while they were playing football at Texas.

“My senior year it just got hotter and hotter,’ said Tony Degrate, a standout defensive tackle from 1982 to 1984 and winner of the 1984 Vince Lombardi Award as the nation’s outstanding college lineman.

“From alumni walking up to me in the locker room, to my room, shaking my hand and giving me a bill (money). Then at the end of the year, they’d call me — guys in business suits with briefcases — and I’d say meet me in a restaurant. At 11 o’clock at night. In a restaurant. Not in my room.’

Head football Coach Fred Akers, interviewed Friday in his Austin office, said he was not aware that his players had received any benefits beyond the tuition, room, board and books provided by their athletic scholarships.

“I am really, I am surprised,’ Akers said. "I am surprised, and I intend to turn this over to the NCAA. . . . If I know of something that is true — or suspect that it is — I’ll sure turn it in.’

Jeff Leiding, an All-America linebacker who played at Texas from 1980 to 1983, said he received cash payments from various alumni and boosters throughout his college career.

“It’s use and get used,’ said Leiding. "Once your name isn’t in the newspaper — you’re nobody.’

Darryl Clark, a UT running back for four years before playing two seasons with the Arizona Wranglers of the U.S. Football League, said: "It’s like a dream for a lot of players — they never knew they could live like this.’

However, at least one alumnus — who also is a professional sports agent representing at least two former Texas football players — said some players actively solicit payments and favors.

“I get a call probably once a day from somebody who wants something,’ said Jon Teer, a 27-year-old Texas graduate. "They want to use my credit card for my phone. I’ve had them call for cash. I’m not a money machine. I’m not a bank. I can’t loan people money.

“When I first started helping the guys, knowing the guys, everyone wanted to jump on the bandwagon . . . and you know what the biggest excuse is? "I got my girlfriend in trouble. I need some help.’ I’ve heard that 500 times.’

The News, in Sunday’s editions, reported that 24 of 28 former players interviewed since January routinely sold their complimentary game tickets to boosters at dramatically inflated prices.

Some estimated they made $4,000 per season from the sales; others said they made that much just from the Texas-Oklahoma game, played annually in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

“I don’t know whether I got $1,000 or $10,000 — I really don’t,’ said Terry Orr, a standout Longhorn running back now with the Washington Redskins. "I lived on tickets. I really did.’

Shortly after the article appeared, UT Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds said he had reported the ticket-selling allegations to the NCAA, and announced that he had retained Houston lawyer Knox Nunnally, a former UT football player, to conduct the university’s own in-house investigation.

Of the 11 former Longhorn players who admitted accepting money, seven said they established long-term relationships with boosters — whom they called their "sugar daddies’ or "sweet daddies’ — and received regular installments of cash.

“My guy (booster) had two Picassos in his bathroom,’ said Ed Hickey, a UT linebacker on the 1981 and 1982 teams. "I got money for being on the team, playing and tutoring his nephew.’ Hickey declined to identify the booster.

Maurice McCloney, a wide receiver and a letterman on the 1980 and 1981 Longhorn teams, said he received cash from two boosters, one from Dallas, the other from Beaumont, his hometown. "They gave me real good advice, they had a lot of influence — they were bright, wealthy and they influenced me to be sharp . . . .

“Over three years,’ McCloney said, "I got about $10,000 from them.’

In addition to the former players who told The News they had accepted cash payments from boosters and agents, 17 of the 28 players said they were given meals, beer and liquor, rides back to their hometowns, discounts on apartments or freebies at Austin restaurants and nightclubs.

An Austin dentist, who in 1977 founded a black professionals’ organization to befriend black UT football players, said he and some of his colleagues have provided free legal, medical and dental services to some black football players — many of whom, he said, would have had no other way to pay for it.

“Most of the kids who have fortitude and persistence to play big-league ball come from very humble backgrounds and small towns,’ said Dr. Norman Mason.

“As far as medical care, they haven’t had it. . . . If he comes in here with real pain and needs a tooth pulled or something, I’ll just do it and send him back to school,’ Mason said. "But now a root canal, where I would have to sit down and spend some time, we get an understanding. Maybe he’ll come over to my house and cut the lawn, wash the car.’

Mason said black football players also receive "special favoritism’ at "Phases,’ Austin’s only black nightclub, which is owned by Mason’s two dental partners. "My partners are obviously concerned and, sure, the players very rarely have to pay a cover . . . and a lot of times they (the owners) would give them snacks and make food available to them.’

NCAA rules, however, specifically forbid student-athletes from receiving extra benefits.

According to NCAA legislation, student-athletes who accept extra benefits — which the NCAA has determined constitutes "pay for play’ — lose their eligibility to continue playing that sport.

“The general standard is you can provide what’s available to the normal student body, and anything beyond that would violate the benefits rule,’ said R. Dale Smith, assistant director for NCAA enforcement.

NCAA officials would neither confirm nor deny the existence of an inquiry into the Texas program, and they refused to speculate on possible penalties that might arise from any violations.

Penalties for NCAA rules violations can range from a mild reprimand to sanctions against an athletic program. The most severe NCAA sanctions include loss of scholarships, a team’s being barred from post-season play, and the banning of student-athletes from collegiate sports.

Akers said no college coach can completely control alumni and agents.

“We don’t encourage, and in fact, we don’t allow our exes to take rules into their own hands,’ said Akers, who replaced Darrell Royal as head coach after the 1976 season.

“I mean, if we know about it, we’re going to turn them in. But unfortunately, you can’t watch them all . . . 24 hours a day, and you hope they’re going to do what is right.’

Players said they were sought out by alumni and boosters while at Texas — they were admitted to closed practices, showed up in the dressing rooms after games and flooded the annual "Meet the Players’ barbecue sponsored by boosters in Memorial Stadium.

“The alumni come up to you at practice or in the dressing room with their sons in tow, and I’d say, "Hello, my name is so-and-so,’ ’ said Scott Bagley, who played at Texas in 1982. "And he’d say, "I know.’ I couldn’t believe it — they knew me. In my street clothes. And he’d say, "If there’s anything I can ever do for you, let me know.’ ’

Jeff Leiding, who played two years with the USFL’s San Antonio Gunslingers, said players normally find a "sugar daddy’ in one of two ways: "The first is in recruiting, if there was alumni in your hometown, or when you start to play if you do something like I did with Arkansas — then they’re there.’

The Texas-Arkansas game in 1980 was Leiding’s first — as a member of the kickoff team. He recalled wanting "to do something to let those people know I’m alive.’

Running down the field, Leiding made a spectacular leaping tackle "that hit like an explosion,’ flattening the Arkansas kick returner and separating Leiding’s shoulder.

“After the Arkansas game, everyone wanted to have me over for a beer,’ Leiding said.

And boosters never forgot it; from that game on, Leiding said, the cash flowed readily.

“I really don’t know how much money I got — I really don’t,’ Leiding said. "I got so many handshakes . . . .I remember one night after the Arkansas game my senior year, Mike Luck, Mike Ruether and I — we spent $440 just on liquor for what we got in the locker room that game. We just drank the whole thing.’

The alumni even gave money to Leiding’s girlfriend, now his wife.

“I remember Jeff was on crutches his junior year, and an alumni came up to me and gave me $50,’ Kim Leiding said. "It was Jeff’s birthday, and he said, "Have dinner on me.’ ’

Tony Degrate, who signed recently with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League, said his relationships with alumni didn’t begin in earnest until his senior year, when he was named winner of the Vince Lombardi Award.

“I never pursued a sugar daddy,’ said Degrate. "If I had wanted something, I could have had it. But my senior year I made up for all those years I lost.’

The 1984 football season, Degrate said, was a blur of free dinners, nights on the town, cash handshakes, free clothes and jewelry, and offers from agents that staggered the one-time high school standout from Snyder, in West Texas.

“I had one agent come in and say, "Sign this contract — for $30,000 cash, and it also guarantees you a house and a car,’ ’ Degrate said. "I turned it down. Money wasn’t everything to me.’

But when Degrate did take money from boosters or agents, he said, he knew it was against NCAA rules.

“I put a limit to some of it,’ Degrate said. "The attention I received, I had to be careful. I always felt that same way — that the guy offering me $1,000 could be an NCAA investigator.’

For the most part, Degrate said, he came to rely on Houston agent and longtime UT booster Tony Herry.

Although NCAA rules prohibit a student-athlete from making a written or verbal commitment with a professional agent until after his eligibility is completed, Degrate said he and Herry had an understanding during Degrate’s senior season that Herry would be representing him in the 1985 NFL draft.

“The day after the 1984 (Freedom) bowl game — I gave Tony $500 in cash,’ said Herry. "I had told him I would do that.’

Herry also said he immediately arranged some loans at Austin banks for Degrate, who said he bought, among other things, a Mercedes 500SEL with the money.

But well before Degrate’s eligibility had expired, Herry frequently treated Degrate and his parents to steak dinners in Austin restaurants after home games. And Degrate said there also was a traditional cash handshake between Herry and Degrate after every game. Degrate, asked if there was a $100 bill in those handshakes, replied: "I was worth more than that.’

Herry said he became a professional agent after losing money in the oil-drilling equipment business, said: "I take exception to giving Tony outright cash at each game.

“I did give him money for dinner if there was heat from Fred (Akers). Fred was always watching out to see what the kids were doing. So I would give Tony the money, and he would pay for dinner for all of us — the Degrates and my family — and if he had $45 or $50 left over, well then, that’s OK.’

Degrate said that at one point Akers pulled him aside and told him: "Man, you are not invincible. The same people who buy you drinks are the same people who call me at 3 in the morning telling me you’re out getting drunk.’

Herry and Degrate’s relationship peaked in December 1984, Degrate said, when he was nominated — and subsequently won — the Lombardi Award.

Although NCAA rules stipulate that all travel, lodging and entertainment expenses for an award nominee and his parents must be covered by the award association — and not by the player’s university or boosters — Degrate’s four-day celebration in Houston was orchestrated and largely paid for by Herry and Texas alumni, according to Degrate and Herry.

“During Lombardi week, the alumni spent $6,000 on me,’ Degrate said. "Me and my friends had a limo. We went everywhere. Bar bills were preset. There was a dinner for my friends that cost over $1,000.’

Herry acknowledged paying the expenses for Degrate’s family. "That week was a real high for me because it was worth the money I spent to entertain the Degrates,’ Herry said.

The Houston Breakfast Club, an informal group of Texas boosters and alumni, held a gala in Degrate’s honor at the Houston Racquet Club the night before the award was presented, Herry said.

“After the dinner, we went like a beeline in a limo to Rick’s Cabaret,’ said Herry, referring to himself, Degrate and several of Degrate’s teammates who had come to Houston for the festivities. "I stayed 30 minutes and left. But they had a little trouble because the girls at Rick’s wouldn’t table-dance for blacks.’

Degrate recalled going to a strip bar the next night. "There were three or four alumni there,’ he said. "And they gave us a stack of 100 $1 bills to, you know, give to the girls. I’d never been to one of those places, and I never will again. It was kind of funny.’

In retrospect, Degrate said, the stardom of his senior year at Texas was fleeting. When the pro draft came around in the spring, Degrate was not drafted until the fifth round. Although he signed with the Cincinnati Bengals, he was cut. He tried the Green Bay Packers, but again failed to make the roster.

“My advice to the younger guys is, "Don’t get caught up in all the hoopla.’ It would be foolish to say, "Don’t accept the money,’ but be sure to know who you’re dealing with,’ said Degrate. "Just make sure you don’t get it from run-of-the-mill people. Get a person you can trust . . . so if it ever came up — even if he did it — he wouldn’t be the one to say, "Yeah, I gave him the money.’

“Someone who will keep his mouth shut if the heat comes down.’

Maurice McCloney, who transferred to Texas from Nebraska in 1979, said he was introduced to two boosters shortly after his arrival on campus. He regarded the relationship as personal, and he said he never told his teammates about them — a pact acknowledged by several other former players interviewed by The News.

“Nobody knows who’s getting what and how much,’ McCloney said. "Maybe some guy gets $15 a week and somebody else gets $150 a week. So the $15 dude doesn’t want him to know it. But on the other hand, the $150 guy doesn’t know the other guy’s getting $15.’

McCloney refused to identify the boosters who gave him money. "I don’t think my guys would want me to mention their names,’ he said. "That would be coldblooded . . . .You never know, I may have to call these guys in the future.’

Because boosters helped him while he was on an athletic scholarship, McCloney said, he gave apartment discounts to football players after he became a property manager in Austin upon completion of his football career. "If a regular person had to pay $400, I got it for a player for $200,’ he said, "because I know, as an ex-athlete, how it is in the summertime, having no money.’

Another former Longhorn, Klint Groves, a defensive back on the 1981 and 1982 Texas teams, said booster Lloyd Davis, a former banking executive from his hometown of Lampasas, periodically gave him money.

“It was tough for me,’ Groves said. "My mother could only afford to send me $20 every two weeks, which was pretty bad. So — like some of the athletes in the same situation as me — what alternatives do you have? Accept some money from alumni. Sell your tickets. . . .

“In my case, I had everything I wanted except the money to smuggle women,’ Groves said with a little laugh. "Which I really didn’t need. I was trying to play football and be a star of the bar, too. It’s like, Mr. Davis would say, "Do you need some Coca-Cola money?’ . . . .He’s a real good man. My house in Lampasas was just three blocks from his. He just wanted me to do good.’

Davis denied any involvement with Groves.

“I know nothing about Klint Groves except that he’s a local boy, and he flunked out (of UT),’ Davis said. "That’s all I know. I never gave him any money or bought tickets from him or anything. I’m afraid the boy’s not telling you the truth.’

In 1982, the University of Texas was placed on probation for one year after the NCAA determined that Davis had paid former wide receiver Johnny "Lam’ Jones, also from Lampasas, $700 for 14 complimentary tickets.

“That was just a one-time deal to help a poor kid,’ Davis said in a telephone interview Monday.

The ticket scheme surfaced in a 35-count federal indictment that accused Davis of misapplying funds from People’s National Bank in Lampasas to support UT athletic programs. Davis said he was assessed three years’ probation and a $5,000 fine.

Texas booster Jon Teer, who also is a professional sports agent, acknowledges that he has given players money. "Yeah, I violated NCAA rules, but please don’t put that (in the newspaper),’ said Teer.

“You don’t understand how important football is to this town. It will ruin me in Austin, it really will.’

Teer, who currently represents former UT players Mossy Cade and Fred Acorn in the pros, confirmed that he had helped former player Ray Hutchinson, a member of the 1983 and 1984 Longhorn football teams.

But Hutchinson and Teer — both of whom are from Refugio in the Rio Grande Valley — disagree on just how much help there was.

“I must have spent $15,000 to $20,000 I got from him my two years,’ said Hutchinson. "Everything I got my sister spent. My sister and I shared a checking account, and I’d put it in and she’d spend it. She was living by herself in Refugio, had two kids . . . .She was grateful.’

But Teer said Hutchinson grossly exaggerated the amounts.

“Maybe I’d give him a little money to run down to San Marcos and see a little girl,’ Teer said. "I would say four bus rides home and $10 one day he helped me move. And I gave him some rides home, too. Maybe, we’re talking about $300. One day to his sister, maybe I gave her $30 to get groceries because I saw her kids when I drove Ray home once, and their bellies were swollen because they were hungry. . . . I even gave him and his sister bus money to New Mexico one time because their natural fath er died up there, and Ray thought he ought to go.

“I don’t have the kind of money he’s talking about,’ said Teer. "If I get killed in the paper, what I did for Ray is worth it. I cared about him.’

Acorn, a former Texas defensive back and an All-Southwest Conference performer in 1983, described Teer as a booster who cares about athletes and never pressures them to sign with him.

“Believe me, I’ve played with all these guys,’ Acorn said. "Ray (Hutchinson) is a good boy, but I believe Ray is lying. He came to Texas believing he would get $15,000.’

Another UT booster, Bobby Lackey, a business executive in Weslaco in the Rio Grande Valley, said he gave money and possibly clothes to Tommy Cox, a Longhorn offensive back in 1978 and 1979.

Lackey was a football letterman at Texas from 1957 to 1959, and in 1977 was admitted to the Longhorn Hall of Honor, the university’s highest athletic award.

When Lackey was a high school football star in Weslaco, Cox’s father was a football standout at neighboring LaFeria High School. More than twenty years later, Lackey found himself helping the younger Cox — a LaFeria track and football star who was a high school freshman when his father died.

“I know I did help the boy somewhat in high school because he ended up living with a janitor down there at the school, and I knew his coach very well and his principal very well,’ Lackey said.

“The boy didn’t have any clothes, and he was a junior in high school. . . . and I had no intention that he could ever be good enough to play football at UT, but I was called by his principal and asked if I could give him some help.’

Lackey said he gave money to the janitor to buy food, and might have bought Cox some clothes in high school.

“As a junior, Lackey goes, "Do you have any clothes?’ ’ recalls Cox, who now works at United Bank in Austin. "He said, "Do you have any dress clothes for your graduation? For the prom? I said no. So he said, "Go see this person.’ I remember the suit — a blue suit. I was shocked. I said, "Why are you doing this?’ And he said, "Because you deserve it.’ He said, "You will, when the right time comes, you’ll sign with Texas.’ ’

Lackey, however, said he never pressured Cox to go to Texas.

“I encouraged him to go to the University of Texas because I thought it was a good place for him, and there could be some good benefits for him later on,’ Lackey said.

Cox said Lackey gave him cash whenever he needed it — "a couple hundred dollars in my hand for spending money when he came for games.’

“I bought a couple of his tickets that he had at the time,’ Lackey said. "I might have given him $10 or $20 — maybe $30 — I don’t know. I do my own kids that way. I tell you, it wasn’t a heck of a lot more than that.’

According to the former Texas players interviewed, student-athletes will continue to accept money from boosters and sell their complimentary tickets until the NCAA provides some type of allowance for scholarship athletes.

“I think the NCAA ought to get off the pot and come to 1986 and get in the real world,’ said Jeff Leiding. "This isn’t 1955.

“Unless the NCAA does something, 60 of the top 150 schools will be on probation.’



Copyright 1986 The Dallas Morning News Company

[clemdawg]

I think I have this article still. Shame what happened to SMU then.

Sent from my SPH-L710T using Tapatalk

[Mr Horsepower]

That paragraph in the LA Times article about the "Texas Tech booster in San Antonio" that gave cash & boots made me laugh...that was my Dad.

He told me he played @ Tech b/c SMU (where he wanted to go) was the only school in the SWC that didn't give him a scholarship.

NCAA investigator came to the house, dad & his buddies got the guy so drunk he threw up & Tech got off Scott free...too bad he wasn't on our team!

But yeah, that's what always made me so mad about the DP: I saw,first hand, that it was a total selective enforcement situation. & the conversations I overheard were never about keephing up w/what "SMU" was offering...it was always "Texas."

& the sentiment amongst my friends in the know, to this day, has always been..."y'all would've been okay, if you hadn't beat Texas."

[Dukie]

SMU's next target is Texas. Even if Texas didn't turn in the Mustangs to the NCAA, the Mustangs believe Texas turned them in. No one at SMU is attempting to discourage that feeling among the players, who are fuming. Those clever students are preparing more bumper stickers, these saying, "The Lies of Texas Are Upon You." That could lead to a interesting confrontation on Oct. 26 at Texas Stadium. Down here, they call it a "Texas Death Match."

On October 26, 1985, SMU destroyed Texas 44-14. It was an absolute blast, and deserves to be a LOT higher than #67 on the greatest-moments list:

http://www.smumustangs.com/sports/m-foo ... ts-67.html

[pwnyxpress]

Does anyone have any good theories on why UT was the only other school besides SMU to vote against the DP legislation? It always seemed strange to me that we were the only two on that side.

[Pony Boss]

Does anyone have any good theories on why UT was the only other school besides SMU to vote against the DP legislation? It always seemed strange to me that we were the only two on that side.

They wanted to hurt SMU, not destroy it. UT knew if SMU went down big it would be the beginning of the end for the conference. And UH voted against it too.

[ALEX LIFESON]

Can't believe this thread hasn't blown up.

[smupony94]

[mrydel]

Apparently Dutch Meyer never said he would not help Houston anymore.