SMU Allegedly Provided Sex for Recruits

Boosters paid sorority women to have sex with Southern Methodist football recruits and hired other students to take tests for athletes, KLIF radio reported here Monday.

Broadcaster Norm Hitzges quoted unidentified sources as saying two sorority members initially were paid $400 a weekend to have sex with football prospects.

Those reports are the latest in the pay-for-players scandal that resulted in the NCAA banning football at SMU for 1987.

The number of women grew to “another 6, 8, 10 girls involved” over a period of years, Hitzges said on his morning sports show.

The women allegedly lured the athletes with the promise of more sex if they signed at SMU, and tried to get information about what other schools were offering them, Hitzges said.

The organizer of the sex-for-athletes scheme has “long since left school,” Hitzges said, and now works for a Dallas law firm. But Hitzges said the sexual favors plan, which started in 1979-80, resumed in 1982 with more women involved.

Hitzges said his information came from one key source and that the story was verified by other sources, whom he did not name.

In addition to the money, Hitzges said, the women received extra gifts, including a Mercedes-Benz car, the use of a fur coat for one year and a booster’s credit card.

He said other students were recruited by boosters and paid to take tests, steal exams and write papers for athletes.

The broadcaster also alleged that secretaries in various professors’ offices were paid to change the grades of football players before they were sent to the registrar’s office, and that most professors were not aware of the grade-fixing changes.

Reports of grade-cheating and payments to women for sex with athletes surfaced last week when SMU officials acknowledged they were investigating rumors from an anonymous tipster.

Hitzges said sex-for-players and the grade-fixing became known to Texas Gov. Bill Clements and other members of the SMU board of governors, which Clements chaired before stepping down in January, just before his inauguration.

Last Friday, Clements said: “I categorically deny any knowledge whatsoever of such practices. I abhor the idea of these kinds of activities if they exist.”

Contacted again Monday, Clements said: “It is absolutely untrue.”

Hitzges said the sex-for-players and grade-fixing schemes were discussed in 1985 at Clements’ house at the same time Clements and some board members made the decision to continue illicit payments to athletes.

KLIF also quoted sources as saying that former Athletic Director Bob Hitch was paid $500,000 and former Coach Bobby Collins was paid $375,000 when they resigned last December. They stepped down in the wake of the NCAA investigation.

A family member at Collins’ home said he was not available for comment.