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SoCal_Pony, Pye basically gave the keys to the athletic department to the faculty senate and what started out as a matter of over zealous booster involvement, administration improprieties and improperly paying football athletes suddenly became a matter of academics and an imposition of rigorous academic requirements for admittance of athletes to the university resulted. Once the authority had been given to the faculty senate, retrieving it became a delicate operation taking many years to accomplish. Mean time the athletic department and more exact, the football program rotted. So although Pye has been gone these many years, he created the monster that tried to destroy the football program at SMU.

BTW, I'm also not happy with what the man did when instead of investing in the civil engineering department to build it up, he shut it down.

I agree with PK, but would add that if the BOT and the successors to Pye had some cojones, they might have taken less than 16 years to fix the "model" issues. We dug ourselves a pit and unfortunately, it took us to now to start digging out. We just need to keep on winning and growing as a program and hopefully, we'll be considered in the future. If not, there are worse places than CUSA.

Those that were around during Pye's administration. and who visited with him about the subject (as I did) KNOW he was the fundamental cause of our football (and basketball) problems.

He threw us in the pit, and because the only thing with slower decision making then the govt is a university - it took a generation to climb out of the pit. Yes - it was Pye with lots of help caused by the institutional guilt prevelant throughout SMU at the time and for 15 yrs thereafter.

The actual death penalty could have been a 4 yr hicup - instead it was 24 yrs due to our own overreaction.