SoCal_Pony wrote:Hambone10 wrote:So-Cal Pony.... one can certainly never say never... but as we've never even been investigated... much less found guilty and punished... yet we apparently have alumni running around bragging about being paid... I'd take the comment with a grain of salt.
Hambone, this was not some random person 'running around bragging about being paid'...he was a close friend of my father, he quarterbacked Rice to a victory over Texas, he is an honest and decent man.
He was not boastful about it at all...he simply looked directly at me and said mater of factly..."I was paid money to play football at Rice".
Do I believe him....YES.
Do I think Rice has ever paid its players to the degree of all other SWC teams....NO.
I never said he was a random person... nor did I imply that he wasn't honorable... but I do note that if this honorable person is telling people he was paid, and it was even remotely common at Rice, we CERTAINLY have had less honorable people get paid... Why haven't THEY come out and said so? I did notice your comment about beating Texas. I believe that puts the guy in 1965 or earlier, as the only other time we beat them was 1994... which was after the death penalty and I doubt Josh is a friend of your fathers... as he is probably closer to your age. SWC football in the 60's was entirely different than in the 80's. IIRC, we didn't even have scholarship limits, so UT and A&M used to put 150 guys on scholarship just to keep them from playing at other schools. He may have been paid because he had a partial academic scholarship and athletics paid him because he wanted to live off campus... What I meant by a grain of salt was the degree to which the "cheating" was occurring. If it wasn't illegal at the time, which I suspect it wasn't in the 60's... then it isn't cheating. Getting paid in the 80's wasn't the same as getting paid in the 60's. Take it with a grain of salt.
The fact that he (if this is a fair assessment of his opinion) is okay with college players being semi-professional (i.e. being paid) has no bearing on what SMU (or any of the other teams who cheated in the 80's) did, was caught for, and penalized for.
Your comment was meant to imply that Rice cheated... to go along with the claim that our AD has no class and is arrogant...
I think you're overstating the facts.
