SMU Alum letter to Turner
Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2015 9:44 pmInteresting letter sent to worldwide Facebook group for SMU by Bob King:
The text of my letter to President Turner follows. I think it's time SMU alums quit jonesing for a win over TCU and start to worry about the national perception of our degrees.
I love college athletics, and I never thought I would arrive at the conclusion that it is time for SMU to drop D1 athletics. But the reputation of our academic credentials is increasingly at stake.
I don't expect many to agree, and in fact I expect a lot to belittle this opinion. But this point of view must be considered. If the only people who Mr. Turner listens to are the big dollar donors with suites at Ford Stadium or at Moody Coliseum, our sheepskins become less and less valuable.
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Dear President Turner,
This will be as brief as I am capable of being because you have better things to do than to read long letters from alums who are not major donors.
Proud though I am of my SMU degrees, I am beyond weary of the need to defend my alma mater’s reputation. The predominant impression of SMU around the country is not about superior academics. It is that we put athletics first, cannot stop ourselves from cheating, and are nonetheless unsuccessful. After finally becoming athletically relevant in something, this latest fiasco reinforces the idea everywhere that SMU is synonymous with NCAA scandal.
The tempting defense that the NCAA enforces the rules selectively is not helpful. Even if it is true that others have behaved worse yet received lesser punishment (and I believe that is an undeniable fact), such arguments fail to defend the value of my SMU degrees. Falling back on that argument, in fact, devalues it further.
This latest debacle should tell us two things: first, we still can't win at the D1 level without cheating; and second, we are not the kind of program that the NCAA will allow to cheat and get away with it. Rather than cite the injustice and spend decades fighting a losing battle, why don’t we admit that, for whatever reasons, we can’t be competitive in D1 sports with integrity? It’s just a fact that is increasingly obvious to everybody outside of University Park.
I would be prouder of SMU (and probably contribute more to the university) if we withdrew from D1 sports and reinvested all that energy into making SMU academically comparable to Vanderbilt or Tulane or Emory. In 1979 I turned down a full scholarship at TCU to attend SMU with minimal scholarship support. Why? Because SMU was, then, so obviously a better school than TCU. I’m not sure we can say the same thing now.
This is just one alum’s opinion, but I would rather we focus on making SMU a leaps and bounds better academic institution than TCU than spend all that energy trying to beat the Frogs on the playing field. Thirty years of fighting this losing battle is enough.
Sincerely,
Bob King
BA '82, MBA '83
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
The text of my letter to President Turner follows. I think it's time SMU alums quit jonesing for a win over TCU and start to worry about the national perception of our degrees.
I love college athletics, and I never thought I would arrive at the conclusion that it is time for SMU to drop D1 athletics. But the reputation of our academic credentials is increasingly at stake.
I don't expect many to agree, and in fact I expect a lot to belittle this opinion. But this point of view must be considered. If the only people who Mr. Turner listens to are the big dollar donors with suites at Ford Stadium or at Moody Coliseum, our sheepskins become less and less valuable.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Dear President Turner,
This will be as brief as I am capable of being because you have better things to do than to read long letters from alums who are not major donors.
Proud though I am of my SMU degrees, I am beyond weary of the need to defend my alma mater’s reputation. The predominant impression of SMU around the country is not about superior academics. It is that we put athletics first, cannot stop ourselves from cheating, and are nonetheless unsuccessful. After finally becoming athletically relevant in something, this latest fiasco reinforces the idea everywhere that SMU is synonymous with NCAA scandal.
The tempting defense that the NCAA enforces the rules selectively is not helpful. Even if it is true that others have behaved worse yet received lesser punishment (and I believe that is an undeniable fact), such arguments fail to defend the value of my SMU degrees. Falling back on that argument, in fact, devalues it further.
This latest debacle should tell us two things: first, we still can't win at the D1 level without cheating; and second, we are not the kind of program that the NCAA will allow to cheat and get away with it. Rather than cite the injustice and spend decades fighting a losing battle, why don’t we admit that, for whatever reasons, we can’t be competitive in D1 sports with integrity? It’s just a fact that is increasingly obvious to everybody outside of University Park.
I would be prouder of SMU (and probably contribute more to the university) if we withdrew from D1 sports and reinvested all that energy into making SMU academically comparable to Vanderbilt or Tulane or Emory. In 1979 I turned down a full scholarship at TCU to attend SMU with minimal scholarship support. Why? Because SMU was, then, so obviously a better school than TCU. I’m not sure we can say the same thing now.
This is just one alum’s opinion, but I would rather we focus on making SMU a leaps and bounds better academic institution than TCU than spend all that energy trying to beat the Frogs on the playing field. Thirty years of fighting this losing battle is enough.
Sincerely,
Bob King
BA '82, MBA '83
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
