SMU’s Signing of Stopperich Was Crucial in NCAA Decision

The signing of an high school all-American football player by Southern Methodist University boosters may have been the crucial factor in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.’s decision to slap SMU with the harshest penalty in NCAA history, the Dallas Times Herald said Sunday.

Sean Stopperich, a former All-American offensive tackle at Canon-McMillan High in Cannonsburg, Pa., and his family told the NCAA they were given $11,020 in cash by an SMU booster or boosters in 1984, the Times Herald said, quoting a source close to the case.

The NCAA has placed SMU on probation for three years, and the school cannot give any scholarships next season, and barred the Mustangs from bowl appearances after the 1985 and 1986 seasons.

NCAA officials described SMU’s worst recruiting violation as a “representative of the university’s athletic interests visiting a recruit and the recruit’s family at a hotel near the recruit’s home on Feb. 5, 1984,” four days before the recruit’s signing date.

The Times Hearld reported that the recruit was Stopperich. A source told the newspaper that a move to Dallas by Stopperich and his family was what the NCAA publicly called “violations in the recruitment and subsequent enrollment of Prospect No. 1.”

During the February visit, NCAA officials said a SMU representative gave at least $5,000 cash, a promise to help the recruit’s father find a job in the Dallas area, a rent-free apartment near the job and a $300 monthly cash allowance in exchange for the family’s signatures on a postdated letter of intent.

The violations were documented by the NCAA, said the source.