How should SMUs Death Penalty be remembered in NIL era? Eric Dickerson and others reflect

October 20, 2024

It’s been almost 40 years and Eric Dickerson still hears the joke. The idea that he took a pay cut when he left SMU for the NFL.

For decades, Dickerson said he wouldn’t reveal what he got paid at SMU, why he chose the Mustangs or how a gold TransAm came into his possession. That changed earlier this year, when the College and Pro Football Hall of Fame back released “Watch My Smoke,” a biography about his career. In the book, Dickerson said he received $1,000 a month in cash in an envelope at SMU, less than other schools offered. He also said another booster gave him cash and a Corvette.

“Sometimes it was $500 a month,” Dickerson recently told The Athletic. “Most of that money went back to my mother to help her. That’s what you did if you were a good son.”

The first ever picture of myself and “The” Trans Am in 1979.

This was 43 years ago, wow 🤯 pic.twitter.com/MDWDZSqIWz

— Eric Dickerson (@EricDickerson) February 23, 2022

SMU finished in the top 12 in four consecutive seasons from 1981-84 with a record of 41-5-1. Though it fell short in the polls, it claims shared national titles in 1981 and 1982. But those kinds of payments to players led to the NCAA’s “Death Penalty” in 1987, the harshest punishment ever delivered to a college football program, shutting it down for a season and setting the team back for years.

These days, that’s not much money for a star college football player. Not when Alabama coach Nick Saban said quarterback Bryce Young racked up nearly $1 million in name, image and likeness deals last year before starting a game, or when a current high school quarterback recruit has signed an $8 million dollar contract.

It was a scandal at SMU when players received cars in the ’80s. Now? Texas running back Bijan Robinson is asked about his Lamborghini at Big 12 media days and Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud has a Mercedes. It’s legal under state NIL laws and NCAA rules. Dickerson feels it’s long past due — and that he deserved even more back in the day.

“I always thought it was fair for players to get whatever they could get,” Dickerson said. “Everybody was doing it. … I’m really happy it’s finally playing out like it always should have. A couple hundred bucks and a car, it wasn’t life-changing. It was just to survive.”

SMU is now in the NIL space as well, with more than $4.5 million committed to players, including at least $36,000 each to every scholarship football player. With collectives separate from the school, they’re getting deals and money to SMU players in a way that follows the rules this time. Dickerson himself is involved with a collective. The Mustangs are perhaps as well-positioned as anyone in the Group of 5 to succeed in that area.

For a long time, SMU disassociated itself from the players accused of NCAA violations in the 1980s. That’s changed over the past decade, with the players invited back and celebrated more frequently. Perhaps nothing illustrated the acceptance more than a recruiting graphic SMU football tweeted in April, one that featured the coaching staff, the tagline “All Roads Lead To Dallas”… and a gold TransAm.

Don’t blink 👀#PonyUpDallas pic.twitter.com/5QGPo4gukT

— SMU FootbaIl (@SMUFB) April 19, 2022

It doesn’t matter that it was a Texas A&M booster who funded the car for Dickerson, something else he revealed in the book. The TransAm is often associated with SMU because Dickerson joined the Mustangs. SMU isn’t ashamed to give a little wink about it now. The graphic idea came from current assistant coach Craig Naivar, and new head coach Rhett Lashlee has embraced the players of that era. What was once SMU’s greatest shame is now viewed through a bit of a different lens.

Does NIL change the way we look back on the Death Penalty and other rule-breakers? People like Dickerson believe it never should have been a problem. Others involved stand by the punishment.

“You have to put it in the context of the times,” said Dan Beebe, the former NCAA director of enforcement who investigated and handed down SMU’s fate. “Those were the rules, like them, don’t like them, whatever. If those are the rules, you follow the rules. … If you don’t like them, get enough people to change them.”

Thaddeus Matula’s earliest sports memory is Dickerson running down the sideline at Texas Stadium, his SMU jersey half torn off. Matula’s mother was the college football fan, while his dad was a professor at SMU. Matula was 8 years old when the Death Penalty hit, and he couldn’t comprehend it.

“When you’re 8, everything is uniquely yours,” he said. “This thing was taken away from me and they said we were cheaters. I had my heart ripped out. One of my favorite things was taken away from me. To not have that thing for two years was crushing.”

When Matula was 12, he decided he would one day make a movie about what happened to his beloved SMU program. Two decades later, he did just that. “Pony Excess” premiered after the 2010 Heisman Trophy ceremony and became ESPN’s most-watched documentary in its history to that point.

It brought the story to a new generation of fans, many of whom felt college athletes deserved some money. According to the documentary, Ron Meyer, SMU’s head coach from 1976-81, said the same thing to then-Dallas sportswriter Skip Bayless at the time.

“Ron Meyer’s speech to me, which was highly convincing, was, you don’t think that kid deserves to get some money for playing big-time college football and that poor kid from inner-city Houston deserves some money?” Bayless recalled.

Former receiver Reggie Dupard, who received money and a car in the ’80s before becoming a first-round NFL Draft pick, felt he deserved it.

“It helped me, it helped my family,” said Dupard, who now runs a nonprofit that works with children and families in Texas. “I wanted my family to be able to see me if I was playing out of state. That was the dealbreaker for me. If you will fly my parents up to every home game and put them in a hotel, that’s what I wanted. I’m close to my family. Would I have done things a little different? Maybe I wouldn’t have gotten the (Datsun) 300ZX, maybe just give my mom a car because you bring a lot of attention to yourself. I have no regrets as far as getting the money. I played and made the school a lot of money and I produced. As a matter of fact, I think I should have gotten more.”

Lance McIlhenny recalled once seeing a teammate pull an envelope of cash out of a locker. McIlhenny confronted a coach about it. The next day, he found $700 in his shoe after practice. The three-time All-SWC quarterback said that was his only participation in any payment.

“I didn’t really think about it then,” McIlhenny said. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t know about it, but I didn’t really care. I just wanted us to put together some really good teams. I was not very close to it.”

Matula asked everyone in the documentary if players should be allowed to make money. Almost everyone said yes, though it didn’t appear in the final version of the film.

“You weren’t going to find a booster who would tell you what they did was actually wrong,” he said, “and for the most part, their arguments are extremely compelling.”

It wasn’t all charity. The main reason for the payments was the desire to get the best players and win. Boosters in the documentary didn’t hide from that while maintaining they were helping players and their families. In today’s world where some boosters tout their NIL signing of players on social media, it’s out in the open.

“I was disappointed Sherwood Blount didn’t agree to be in the film, because I felt like he would have been vindicated in the court of public opinion,” Matula said of SMU’s top booster at the time.

Messages left for Blount and other disassociated boosters for this story by The Athletic were not returned.

Of course, SMU was not alone in paying players. From 1985 to ’88, seven of the nine Southwest Conference schools were placed on probation in football or men’s basketball. Aside from the TransAm, Dickerson said Texas A&M boosters offered him $50,000 in cash, livestock and an endless supply of beef. Former WFAA sports anchor Dale Hansen, who broke one of the biggest and final stories in the SMU scandal, recounted telling a TV reporter in Austin about potential violations at Texas. He said that reporter told Texas officials, who quickly brushed it under the rug, Hansen said. SMU was in big-city Dallas and didn’t have the friendly local media like some other places.

“If not every school, most of them were paying at least some of their players,” Hansen said.

In “Pony Excess,” former SMU assistant Steve Endicott recalled showing $20,000 to a recruit. The player replied, “Coach, that’s not even close” to what was offered elsewhere.

What made SMU different was the constant breaking of NCAA rules even after getting caught. The Mustangs were placed on probation five times from 1974 to 1985. Attempts to slowly phase out the payments didn’t happen, and knowledge went as high as Texas Governor Bill Clements, who was on the school’s board of governors. They also fought the NCAA tooth and nail in the later years before the Death Penalty, which stemmed from the repeat violator rule.

“SMU didn’t even bother with plausible deniability,” Hansen said. “Ron Meyer would go to schools and put his card up with a $100 bill. The cars, the money, the gambling was all part of it. It was a perverse problem that did extend all the way through the Southwest Conference, but SMU took it to another level, and they did it in a city where reporters weren’t afraid to expose it.”

Added Beebe, who investigated the program for years, “The boosters were just so brazen. It was a ‘we’re not going to be told what to do’ mentality. ‘Catch us if you can.’”

Lest you think Beebe still defends the NCAA’s hardline positions, he doesn’t. Like he said, if you don’t like the rules, change the rules. Last year, those rules changed, beginning with state laws from officials who felt the money had become too big to prevent players from making some of their own.

“The college athletics community probably defended too hard the amateurism model and looked pretty obstinate, resulting in defeats in the legal arena,” said Beebe, who was commissioner of the Big 12 from 2007-11. “I think it’s been overdue for a while.”

SMU, a private school in the upscale community of Highland Park, has always had money. The university announced plans for a $100 million stadium project, along with a $50 million gift, earlier this year. In December, Dickerson and Paul B. Loyd joined others in announcing plans to contribute more than $1 million annually for NIL within the SMU program. Loyd, a former SMU football captain and oil drilling executive, has donated millions to SMU in the past. The school’s all-sports building is named after him, as is a student housing building.

The group later merged with Pony Sports DTX, another NIL collective that started last year. Pony Sports DTX began with some minor deals for players as it worked to grow its donor base last season. Some donors were admittedly hesitant, both unsure what was allowed NIL and perhaps gun-shy from the scars of the Death Penalty.

Then head coach Sonny Dykes left for rival TCU.

“Sonny leaving definitely spurred things,” said one managing member of Pony Sports DTX, who asked not to be named. “By that point, we were around the $100,000 mark. Then early this year, it was eight times that. It really galvanized everybody. We broke the $1 million mark and have tried to push beyond that for 2023 and beyond.”

SMU has gone 25-10 over the past three years, its best stretch since the 1980s. (Katie Stratman / USA Today)

Pony Sports DTX has partnered with more than 35 football players, facilitating NIL deals and creating exclusive content for donors, such as live events. One meeting in June had more than 100 people show up, along with 10 players. The value of deals ranges from $2,500 to $100,000 at the moment, the managing member said. It’s likely some players now earn more than players in the 1980s did — only legally. In the 1980s, SMU’s reported slush fund was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

On Monday, the Boulevard Collective announced plans to commit $3.5 million to every football and men’s basketball player, averaging out around $36,000 per player. That’s higher than the $25,000 recently committed to Texas Tech players by their own collective.

“Of course you can’t compete with somebody signing $9 million, but it’s a great start,” Dickerson said of SMU’s collectives. “Let’s say you stay in school for three or four years and go professional and don’t make it or you get hurt, but you got maybe $2 million in NIL. You got a start.”

SMU cannot be directly involved with collectives, but the athletic department launched a program called Big Opportunities Live in Dallas (BOLD) to help athletes navigate the NIL space.

“Our students have the ability to leverage everything Dallas has to offer with NIL and a number are already doing that,” athletic director Rick Hart said.

There still is a general concern about NIL in college athletics. Hansen, Matula and McIlhenny all expressed uneasy feelings about its impact on the sport and the road to professionalism, while also admitting players deserved something from the billion-dollar industry.

Where would SMU be now if players could make money legally in the 1980s? It’s not hard to imagine Dickerson signing a deal for athletics goggles. How about Pony Express-themed toy horses? Some people around the program think the sheer number of alumni at places like Texas and Texas A&M would have outspent SMU. Others think SMU’s money would have kept the Mustangs hanging around the top five.

SMU also might still be in a power conference, which had been the case until the SWC dissolved in 1996. That’s the focus of university leadership right now as the Pac-12’s future is up in the air amid conference realignment. The school has worked to promote itself and what it has to offer Power 5 conferences, including financial investment, success on the field and academics. Dickerson, who lives in California, said he’ll do whatever it takes.

“That’s one of the main things, they need to get to a major conference,” Dickerson said. “This goes way back to when I played. Texas, Texas A&M — those schools were jealous of us because we were a smaller school kicking their ass.”

Twelve years after its release, “Pony Excess” remains one of the most popular “30 for 30” documentaries. It’s the quintessential college football story: the rise and fall of a powerhouse, the century-old argument about amateurism and the strong feelings of the people involved. SMU has worked hard to define itself as more than the Death Penalty program. Part of that has become embracing the success of those years, the program’s most successful era since the 1930s and ’40s. Over the years, SMU has done that more and more.

“For so long, they ran from it,” Matula said. “It was tough when I was wanting to do the documentary because nobody wanted to mention the words ‘Death Penalty.’ It does suck that SMU is doing well and a national broadcast will mention the Death Penalty. But you’re not accepting and owning the scars as well as the glory. That’s why I loved the use of the TransAm (graphic).”

It’s a new world of college football. What’s legal by NCAA rules today isn’t even totally clear, as the organization’s lack of investigative might has led many boosters to push for as much as they get away with. The Death Penalty at SMU cratered the program, but it didn’t take away those winning memories. Finally on solid footing as a program, reaching as high as the top 20 in each of the past three years, SMU is again looking to compete in the money world, within the rules.

The changing of the times has led many to reconsider how they look back on the days of the Pony Express and celebrate the success of that era, while for others, rules are rules.

“I do feel sorry that the kids in the ’80s from SMU were labeled as cheaters for doing exactly what the kids in 2022 are doing,” Hansen said. “Society changes. Sports change. I like to think you play by the rules, whatever they are. The speed limits are higher than those tickets I paid back in the ’70s. Nobody’s offered me a refund.”

(Top photo of Eric Dickerson: Peter Read Miller via AP)

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