If you think the emerging scandal at Miami is the worst college football has ever endured, you might not remember SMU.
Even now, what happened at Southern Methodist University in the 1980s casts a shadow over the Miami case, the most startling to come from college football’s assembly line of embarrassments in recent years.
A former University of Miami booster and convicted Ponzi scheme artist says he provided Hurricanes players with cash, prostitutes, cars and other gifts from 2002 to 2010, and that several coaches knew and even participated as improper benefits were handed out.
The Yahoo Sports story about Nevin Shapiro’s self-described misdeeds has many fans asking whether Miami — if the allegations are found to be true — could be in danger of having its football program shut down by the NCAA. The so-called death penalty has only been handed down once, to SMU.
SMU players had been getting paid with funds provided by boosters for years, and top school officials — not just coaches — were involved.
“In the nine years I served on the (NCAA) committee on infractions I never saw another one that was even close to what occurred in the SMU case,” said University of Oklahoma law professor David
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