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Massmino tries to clear his
name in latest UNLV scandal
The Sporting News
The controversy involving Nevada-
Las Vegas Coach Rollie Massimino
and his once-secret supplementary con-
tract continues to percolate. Among
the most recent developments:
Despite calls for his resignation by
Board of Regents member Lonnie
Hammargren, Massimino says he will
not quit. Instead, Massimino says he
intends to fulfill the remainder of his
original contract, which runs through
the 1996-97 season and includes a pro-
vision for three more years at
Massimino's option.
Massimino, who earns a Regents-
approved $511,000 per year, says he
will not sue the university for the bal-
ance of the supplementary deal, which
adds another $375,000 annually to the
package.
Interim UNLV President Kenny
Guinn has hired Morton Galane, a
prominent Las Vegas lawyer, to over-
see the internal investigation into the
details of Massimino's contracts and
also advise the school on its legal and
financial obligations. Guinn says the
secret supplemental contract violated
state law, thus rendering the deal null
and void.
In other words: UNLV isn't paying
a dime if it doesn't have to.
Reserve forward Brian Hocevar and
junior-college transfer Dennis Jordan
have decided not to enroll for the up-
coming semester. Jordan was consid-
ered by the UNLV coaches to be a
player to watch.
NCAA legislative officials say that
a preliminary look at the contract re-
vealed no violation of NCAA rules.
According to the NCAA, the con-
tract was a "state disclosure issue."
Translation: UNLV's own people -
specifically former school president
Robert Maxson, former legal counsel
Brad Booke and Athletic Director Jim
Weaver - knew about the contract
from the start.
This is good news for Massimino,
who could have been canned if he
violated NCAArules during his watch.
It isn't such good news for Guinn, who
was exploring the possibility of doing
something about Massimino's bor
money deal.
The aftershocks of the secret con-
tract have left scars on Massimino.,
Friends of Massimino say the whole
incident has deeply hurt him, to the
point that he fears for his reputation.
"I'm just disappointed because I
think I've worked hard and my name is
the most important thing to me,"
Massimino told the Las Vegas Re-
view-Journal. "Honoring the na
given to me by my father and mothe
the most important thing to me."
Massimino maintains he did
nothing illegal or improper and that
if the deal is sour, it's because of the
failings of Maxson, Booke and
Weaver, who engineered the pack-
age in the first place. Nonetheless,
Massimino says he won't go to court
if Guinn refuses to pay.
"I'm just excited about what wd*
doing," Massimino says. "If I don't
have a choice, then I don't have a
choice."
SMU football still recovering from
Major
Leagu eH
America's favorite
team is back. The
original cast returns
for a hilarious.
new season!
Starring Charlie Sheen,
Tom Berenger, Corbin
Bernsen, Bob Uecker,
Randy Quaid and
David Keith.,
Rated PG-3-Comedy
©1994 Warner Home Video
@1994 Morgan Creek Productions, Inc.
NCAA's first and only
U
- HOM 1NE VIDEO
Los Angeles Times
Like Hester Prynne's scarlet letter,
it's always there. S for Southern
Methodist,S for scandal.
No school's football program had
been given the death penalty by the
NCAA before SMU got it in 1987.
None has since.
The guilty are gone now and play-
ers are no longer given cars and cash.
But the legacy remains.
"We try to put it behind us," said
Tom Rossley, who became coach three
seasons ago. "We try not to make men-
tion of it too much, but it's obvious that
a lot of people want to talk about it."
It's as much a part of the school's
history as Don Meredith and Doak
Walker.
"It's difficult because, on the one
hand, you want to put the past behind
you," said Charles Howard, SMU's
compliance officer. "But on the other
hand, you want to learn from it so you
don't repeat your mistakes."
The lessons are part of the legacy,
and also part of the reason for dimin-
ished expectations. SMU is 11-45-2
since resuming football with a 1989
team that included 74 freshmen and
lost to Houston, 95-21.
Even today's seniors, recruited two
years into the new era and largely un-
wanted by other programs, became
cannon-fodderby necessity. There sim-
ply wasn't anybody else.
"It was tough for me because I was
one of those guys who didn't get a
chance to be redshirted," said Erwin
Wilburn, a wide receiver. "I got thrown
into the fire early."
In the second quarter of the first
game of his freshman season, Wilburn
became an instant starter when Brian
Berry was injured. Arkansas won that
game, 17-6, in a season in which SMU
beat only Tulane.
Tulane was the only other school
that recruited Erwin Wilburn.
The Mustangs lost their season
opener to Arkansas last week, 34-14,
and areheavy underdogs against UCLA
tomorrow in the Rose Bowl.
Even the innocent are scrutinized
because of the lingering thought: Could
it happen again?It's the reason Howard
feels a stab of fear every time he sees a
player driving a car, and it's one of the
causes of the lack of football talent at
the university.
The NCAA requires at least a 700
score on the Scholastic Assessment
Test. SMU requires a 900, with special
cases under that referred to a review
committee.
"As a small, private school and
because of our academic standards, it
makes it real difficult for us to get
junior college players, which is the
thing you'd think you'd want to do to
help allow younger players to mature
and still get us back on a competitive
level," Rossley said.
After a 2-7-2 season in 1993, SMU
could use a few.
"Some people think we go too far in
our admission standards," Howard said.
"Theoretically, there's nothing wrong
with that, but some people think there
is."
One is Craig James, with Eric
Dickerson part of the "Pony Backfield"
that brought Southwest Conference
championships to SMU in the early
1980s. James, a memberofthe board of
directors of the Mustang Club, a group
of boosters, is an ESPN commentator.
"Yes, we did go too far the other
way, but did we have to?" he said. "I
think the academic side of the institu-
tion was so worried about the reputa-
tion of the school that (the late) Ken-
neth Pye, the president at the time,
knew he had to implement a very tough
standard for the athletes. We were try-
ing to be the Harvard of the South.
"SMU is an excellent academic
school, but it's not Harvard and it's not
Stanford. The kids we have to recruit, if
they are qualified to go to SMU and
they are that talented at football, they'd
go to Stanford before they'd go to
SMU. They'd go to Notre Dame or one
of the high-powered schools that is a
great academic institution too. So we're
not being realistic with ourselves, in
my opinion."
He cites the case ofBam Morris, the
Doak Walker Award winner as the
nation's top running back last season at
Texas Tech. His cousin, Ron Morris,
played at SMU in the good -or bad-
old days.
"BamMorriscried when he couldn't
go to SMU," James said. "It wasn't that
he was illiterate or anything. He scored
something like 750 or 800 on the SAT,
so he couldn't qualify for SMU and he
wanted to come here."
Instead, he qualified to rush for 222
yards in Texas Tech's 41-24 victory
over SMU last season.
Games like that make it tough for
Steve Wilensky, executive director of
the Mustang Club, to raise money for
athletics. Donations had risen to $1.6
million in SMU's heyday, then fell to
$400,000 when football was felled.
The Mustang Club was back up to
$1.4 million two years ago when the
word came down from the board of
trustees, through Pye, that the club had
eath penalty
to raise $1.6 million a year to keep
football at the Division I-A level. Three
weeks after this year's fund drive be-
gan, the Southwest Conference an-
nounced it was breaking up. The haves
- Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech
and Baylor-would join the Big Eight.
The have-nots would have to fend for
themselves.
That's how SMU wound up in
Western Athletic Conference.
"We're going to try to convince
recruits that trips to Hawaii and San
Diego are a lot nicer than going to
Ames, Iowa, or Manhattan, Kansas,"
Rossley said.
It may be a tough sell in Texas.
When Texas A&M and other schools
followed SMU down the sanctions trail
- though the others were left bre4b
ing after the investigations ended -
athletes left the state in droves. Those
who stayed were lured by the tradition
of Texas A&M and Texas.
"In the old days, we could recruit
with A&M, Texas, anybody," James
said. "I'm not aware that we are out-
recruiting anybody now."
Said Wilensky: "Well, we're get-
ting some from Texas Tech and Bay'
But we've got to go some to get the
away from Texas and A&M."
The question is whether SMU is
willing to go some, or should. Days
when money grew on recruiting trees
and high school seniors would accept a
Trans-Am from one school and drive it
to another are vivid in the memories of
those who went through them.
So is the resentment.
"Everybody looks atSMU like th*
guys are driving Lincoln Continentals
and all," James said. "Well, we were
guilty of what we did, but I played (in
the NFL) with players from every uni-
versity in America and the cheating
was all over. ... It just happened that
SMU got selected and got hammered."
And now it's up to Rossley, who
takes what he is given and tries to win
with it. He has an 8-24-2 record@
three-plus seasons and in August was
given a four-year contract extension
because he had met goals in graduation
rates and his team was perceived as on
the way up.
"We're on a mission," he said. "I
think we've grown to the point in the
program where there are more people
with their eyes on us and they're think-
ing,'Maybe this team is about ready fo
take a giant step.' "
If so, it's the thinking that's changed.
The eyes of Texas -and the NCAA -
have been on SMU for a long time.
That scarlet S stands out.
Chasers
It was supposed to be an ordinary
prisoner transfer. But this was no
ordinary prisoner.
Starring Tom Berenger, Erika Eleniak,
William McNamara, Gary Busey,
Marilu Henner, Dean Stockwell,
and Dennis Hopper. Directed
bDenn is Hopper.
Rated R-Action Comedy
@1994 Warner Home Video
@1994 Morgan Creek Productions, Inc.
I
A:
WVNER ~tHOME VIDEO
College coaches watching a lot of
their own teams, but not others
I
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The Baltimore Sun
You have to wonder if maybe the
college coaches aren't watching a tad
too much game film. In their USA
Today/CNN poll, they voted Florida
(football) Conference undefeated for
nearly three seasons, Miami dropped a
close one to West Virginia, 17-14, last
year and many assumed the Hurricanes'
were on the way down. "Anyone who
Pluto. With the Tribe's great season
interrupted by the strike, Pluto is think-
ing about a name change to "The Curse
of Fehr and Ravitch."
BE VEWY VEWY QUITE:So ex-Presi-
dent Bush's George Jr., Texas guber-
r"" MEIJER COUPON 1
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