Somewhere Dr Ken Pye is smiling

[lwjr]

I'm not directing this at anyone specifically but too many people believe the history of most subjects began the day they were born and they have no clue why things are what they are.
I have always believed, you have to understand history to know why things are the way they are.

[Charleston Pony]

We lived in Durham when Pye was hired and knew Duke's tennis coach in those years. I remember him telling me "you guys just reinforced the death penalty" when Pye was hired. He and most other coaches at Duke saw Pye as a guy who wanted athletics to be "intramural" and felt he was completely disgusted with what big business college athletics was becoming. Well...it's gotten lot bigger since 1987 and we are at least still fielding a football team...so Pye would not be smiling. I'm sure he would have disapproved of Ford Stadium and our refurbishing Moody

[stc9]

Somewhere Ken Pye is rotting in hell.

[Digetydog]

If I could locate his grave ...

[RGV Pony]

If I could locate his grave ...

It's in Durham

[mrydel]

If I could locate his grave ...

It's in Durham

Bull

[Charleston Pony]

we lived in Durham when they were filming Bull Durham. Those were good years

[Dukie]

We lived in Durham when Pye was hired and knew Duke's tennis coach in those years. I remember him telling me "you guys just reinforced the death penalty" when Pye was hired. He and most other coaches at Duke saw Pye as a guy who wanted athletics to be "intramural" and felt he was completely disgusted with what big business college athletics was becoming. Well...it's gotten lot bigger since 1987 and we are at least still fielding a football team...so Pye would not be smiling. I'm sure he would have disapproved of Ford Stadium and our refurbishing Moody

Yeah, the one and only reason he never assumed leadership of Duke despite his qualifications was that the Board understood the value of top-level college athletics and would not elevate him.

[SoCal_Pony]

The Ken Pye Penalty > the Death Penalty

I agree, but for full disclosure it probably didn't help matters that through his own investigation Pye concluded that the Dave Bliss-run bb team was also cheating.

Oh the shame of it all!!!!

[lwjr]

Bliss left all programs he was HC in trouble. UNM, SMU and Baylor. Talk about someone that was bad news

[mrydel]

NCAA knew also. They just said since they were closing down FB they would leave BB alone.

[RGV Pony]

So we should've given the bball team raises and increased the budget

[Topper]

I'm not directing this at anyone specifically but too many people believe the history of most subjects began the day they were born and they have no clue why things are what they are.
I have always believed, you have to understand history to know why things are the way they are.

You are right. The fallout from the death penalty was mostly self-inflicted and Pye was the hatchet man. The Bd of Trustees was in disarray due to Clement's involvement in the scandal. There was a longstanding and large group of faculty who opposed not only big time sports to a large degree, and the greek system, to a lesser degree. These folks started to fill the vacuum of power that existed at the time resulting in Pye's tenure. Fortunately there were enough supporters of football, including some big time donors, who were able to keep the program on life support although only barely. While we were barely able to function the SWC broke up, we lost our long time association with the big state schools that filled up the seats, and we failed to be proactive like TCU. Unfortunately, teams are judged by their competition to a very large degree and we are not in a top conference. And now this.

[redpony]

One can only hope Pye is roasting in hell along with Jack Pardee.

[Insane_Pony_Posse]

what is amazing is how Wiki describes Ken Pye's role at SMU:

Per Wikipedia: August Kenneth Pye

"Known for:
"Restoring the Southern Methodist University football program to the Southwest Conference and revitalizing the university athletic programs."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Kenneth_Pye