The Bishops' report...in case anyone's interested

[RGV Pony]

Of course, that is exactly what happened at TCU. Wacker found out-called for a team meeting and demanded to know who had taken payments, They were immediately thrown off team-but the program survived a very messy cheating scandal involving at minimum $48,000 or so and 6-7 players

yeah! Go Frawgs! Woof woof woof!

sidebar..I always liked coach Wacker. Lived in San Marcos when he took SWTSU to the national title game, which they one in McAllen

[CalallenStang]

JT, with all due respect, what difference does it make that Clements was state governor? Would his actions be any less indefensible if he was, say, Mayor of Bedford? CEO of Mobil Oil? Founder of Colonial Bank?

Not trying to argue, just trying to get a definitive answer on why it matters that he was state governor.

Because the reason the payments continued after he told the NCAA they'd be stopped (i.e., payroll to meet) was so he could be re-elected. That a "dropout" can tell the administration of the university to shut up and leave athletics to me and continue illegal payments so a 19 year old kid won't blow the whistle and ruin his political career has to be the textbook definition of lack of institutional control. Couple that with the mulitple violations that he had his hand in, and there you have the governor getting the school the death penalty.

The mayor of Bedford, had he done it, would be no less reprehesible, but the mayor of Bedford has much less to lose than the governor, so maybe he doesn't do it.....

Okay, so in other words you are saying "show me a school where one man becomes more important than the administration" and not "show me a school where the governor was involved."

For the record, I don't give Clements a free pass and I think that SMU most definitely deserved the death penalty. I also think that there have been schools before and since that were also deserving of it. Some got caught by the NCAA and were given lesser penalties; some weren't caught at all.

[Charleston Pony]

there were actually several schools that "technically" qualified for the death penalty in the ensuing years, but after seeing what happened at SMU...none were so bold and "in your face" like SMU had been.

[ALEX LIFESON]

Of course, that is exactly what happened at TCU. Wacker found out-called for a team meeting and demanded to know who had taken payments, They were immediately thrown off team-but the program survived a very messy cheating scandal involving at minimum $48,000 or so and 6-7 players

yeah! Go Frawgs! Woof woof woof!

Give Stallion a break, with the longwhorns stinking to the high heavens this year, we haven't had to listen to his rah rah cheerleading about them.

[jtstang]

JT, with all due respect, what difference does it make that Clements was state governor? Would his actions be any less indefensible if he was, say, Mayor of Bedford? CEO of Mobil Oil? Founder of Colonial Bank?

Not trying to argue, just trying to get a definitive answer on why it matters that he was state governor.

Because the reason the payments continued after he told the NCAA they'd be stopped (i.e., payroll to meet) was so he could be re-elected. That a "dropout" can tell the administration of the university to shut up and leave athletics to me and continue illegal payments so a 19 year old kid won't blow the whistle and ruin his political career has to be the textbook definition of lack of institutional control. Couple that with the mulitple violations that he had his hand in, and there you have the governor getting the school the death penalty.

The mayor of Bedford, had he done it, would be no less reprehesible, but the mayor of Bedford has much less to lose than the governor, so maybe he doesn't do it.....

Okay, so in other words you are saying "show me a school where one man becomes more important than the administration" and not "show me a school where the governor was involved."

For the record, I don't give Clements a free pass and I think that SMU most definitely deserved the death penalty. I also think that there have been schools before and since that were also deserving of it. Some got caught by the NCAA and were given lesser penalties; some weren't caught at all.

Look I know you are too young to have lived through it while it was happening, but if you can't watch Thad's film and see that the fact it was the GOVERNOR running the cover-up gave the NCAA the added incentive to push this program over the edge, then you're a lost cause.
You asked me what difference it made and it obviously made a difference. If you want to bury the fact that Clements was in a gubernatorial campaign in with the minutiae then go ahead.

[ALEX LIFESON]

JT, I'm about to head out to church (yes, i know I need it) but, you better show up at the Special Delivery 'Vard camp on the 30th! BEAT ARMY!!!

[CalallenStang]

Look I know you are too young to have lived through it while it was happening, but if you can't watch Thad's film and see that the fact it was the GOVERNOR running the cover-up gave the NCAA the added incentive to push this program over the edge, then you're a lost cause.
You asked me what difference it made and it obviously made a difference. If you want to bury the fact that Clements was in a gubernatorial campaign in with the minutiae then go ahead.

No, I know what happened (have read "A Payroll to Meet" and Thad's film also cleared certain things up). He was running for Governor which gave him the impetus to continue the payments and throw others under the bus for his own gain.

My thought is that had he been ANY sort of important person, the NCAA would have had all the incentive they needed - especially with how arrogant we were in our dealings with the NCAA and the fact that we openly lied about stopping payments and continued to pay players because we had a payroll to meet.

Further, it is my belief that there were and are other universities out there that had this sort of institutionalized cheating which, for whatever reason, did not get the death penalty or did not even get caught.

I think what you are saying and what I am saying is pretty much the same thing.

[jtstang]

Further, it is my belief that there were and are other universities out there that had this sort of institutionalized cheating which, for whatever reason, did not get the death penalty or did not even get caught.

And I am saying that because their institutionalized cheating did not run all the way to the governor's mansion that is all the difference needed in the eyes to the NCAA to distinguish their cases from SMU's. In other words, the fact that the governor was manipulating the NCAA for his own gain was too much for the NCAA, and gave them that little added incentive they needed to hand down the DP.

Could enybody ever prove that to any kind of legal certainty, no. But if you look at all of the other cases where the DP could have been handed down, the involvement of the governor (by way of the board of trustees) is the most obvious distinguishing characteristic of the SMU case.

[CalallenStang]

And I am saying that because their institutionalized cheating did not run all the way to the governor's mansion that is all the difference needed in the eyes to the NCAA to distinguish their cases from SMU's. In other words, the fact that the governor was manipulating the NCAA for his own gain was too much for the NCAA, and gave them that little added incentive they needed to hand down the DP.

Alright, we're on the same page.

[RednBlue11]

You didn't answer my question, and I have not commented one time on the subject, b/c I wasn't around at the time...

However it is my contention that everyone does this still and my guess is that the Admins know about it more than you think but there is plausable deniability...

And you didn't answer my question @sshole:

Name one school who had the freaking state governor lying to the NCAA for it and then turning around and blessing the payments at the same time he was telling the university president to shut the [deleted] up.

And mind you, all this came out within a couple of weeks of his re-election. He f-cking threw SMU under the bus and all you idiots are willing to forgive him because he threw enough cash at SMU once to get his family name on a building.

let's be fair...he also got the history department named after him, and the center for SW studies.

[RednBlue11]

And I am saying that because their institutionalized cheating did not run all the way to the governor's mansion that is all the difference needed in the eyes to the NCAA to distinguish their cases from SMU's. In other words, the fact that the governor was manipulating the NCAA for his own gain was too much for the NCAA, and gave them that little added incentive they needed to hand down the DP.

Alright, we're on the same page.

I have trouble substantiating that particular angle as the tipping point.

in most cases of vastly complex and interwoven situations there is the desire for there to be a single unifying theme, event, or person that can be the focal point to aid in understanding an otherwise overwhelming amount of information.

I do not believe it to be fair nor accurate to paint Bill Clements as the catalyst for the application of Article 19.

[RednBlue11]

Thad had a very interesting comment in the Q&A after the screening at Lakewood.

to set this up...do y'all recall the fellow who was the author of "A Payroll to Meet" who was shown over and over?

Thad mentioned that when he had gone to check out that book from our own library, since it is out of print, that there had been three (maybe four) other people who had ever checked it out since it had been written.

there are not very many people who know very much more about the history of the death penalty and the circumstances surrounding it than that man.

I am going to go check that book out tomorrow and read it because I don't like the way that so many people on this board have appointed themselves experts just because they have seen this Doc. and have read the Bishops' report.

I've noticed that many of us here like going off half-cocked when things get emotional, including myself, but I think this subject deserves more thorough and careful consideration because this is our legacy.

[EastStang]

I don't think it mattered whether it was the Governor, or Sherwood Blount, we told the NCAA that the payments would stop after 1985 and threw a number of boosters under the bus and then kept on paying the players. That's what got us the death penalty. Yes, it happened because the Governor didn't want to soil his name, but the fact is that we kept it up with the blessings of the Board of Governors after we had promised to stop. And as Stallion said, it was our 5th offense in 10 years. The Governor just made the story more salacious to the press.

[ponyte]

Thad had a very interesting comment in the Q&A after the screening at Lakewood.

to set this up...do y'all recall the fellow who was the author of "A Payroll to Meet" who was shown over and over?

Thad mentioned that when he had gone to check out that book from our own library, since it is out of print, that there had been three (maybe four) other people who had ever checked it out since it had been written.

there are not very many people who know very much more about the history of the death penalty and the circumstances surrounding it than that man.

I am going to go check that book out tomorrow and read it because I don't like the way that so many people on this board have appointed themselves experts just because they have seen this Doc. and have read the Bishops' report.

I've noticed that many of us here like going off half-[deleted] when things get emotional, including myself, but I think this subject deserves more thorough and careful consideration because this is our legacy.

There are some incredible details in the book. However, there are some technical details that are incorrect (during the Meyer era). Though those errors are not material to the overall story, there are enough inaccuracies to make one wonder if other parts of the story are inaccurate.

If Whitford missed some obvious details about the program during Meyer, how much else did he miss?

But as I said, with the Bishop report, one has an additional source to study when trying to understand the activities that eventually lead to the DP.

[NickSMU17]

I can understand what the guys where thinking...if they stopped payments all of those players would have done just what stanley did...so they figured they could push it 2 more year...it wasn't a terrible bet...

Stanley was just too dumb to realize he could have parlayed more money by going back to SMU and threaten to expose....