SMU Is Alive, Kickin’, Losing and Planning for the Long Term

Dirt flies, a gravestone shakes and a cartoon Mustang snarls as it bolts from the earth on the front of Malcolm Borlenghi’s T-shirt.

“SMU Football” is emblazoned across the front, and on back it reads, “Alive and Kickin’.”

The Southern Methodist University Mustangs, who play host to the University of Connecticut on Saturday night at Ownby Stadium, are kickin’ once again after serving their penance under the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s “death penalty.” The football program was shut down for two years after repeated rules violations, the most notorious being a booster-sponsored play-for-pay scam.

Borlenghi, a sophomore free safety, and his T-shirt say a lot about today’s SMU football program. Borlenghi, a high school honors student, is an economics major; there are 11 honors students among the new recruiting class. Borlenghi is one 84 underclassmen playing for Coach Forrest Gregg, who starts 15 freshmen. Borlenghi’s T-shirt, which he designed and is beginning to market, is testament to a re-emergence of spirit.

And you can bet your pointy-toed boots SMU officials checked with their friends at the NCAA to make sure that Borlenghi’s enterpreneurial scheme fell in line with letter of the law.

-0-

In the posh Highland Park section of Dallas, SMU is a private, academically-strong school with a peak enrollment of 8,000. Where the average Southwest Conference student is cutoffs and sneakers, the SMU student is pleated shorts and boat shoes.

But the religion of football in this region is blind. At SMU, the football stadium is 13 years older than the library. Recruiting competitions, intense pressure to win and overzealous boosters have led to probation for seven of nine schools in the SWC over the last decade.

“Death,” was associated with just one program. Thirty years of off-and-on scandal culminated in the NCAA handing SMU the first-ever “death penalty” in 1987. The news rocked the city and reverberated through the conference.

Today, SMU is not out simply to rebuild its football program. The aim is to restore integrity, something that has been missing since the glory years of Doak Walker and Kyle Rote in the ‘50s.

Enter A. Kenneth Pye, a former law school professor, hired in August 1987, as the ninth president in SMU’s 74-year history. He came from the Duke University chancellorship. He has said he will shut the program down if ever another scandal arises.

Enter Doug Single, hired in October as the new athletic director. Single, a rugby All-America from Stanford whose torso still vees downward to his waist. His last job was as AD at Northwestern, another institution of impeccable reputation and scholarship. He said, “You’re not going to get fired at SMU for losing. You’re going to get fired for cheating or bending the rules or compromising your integrity.”

Enter Gregg, SMU ‘59, former All-SWC lineman, Green Bay Packer All-Pro and Super Bowl champion, 11-year National Football League coach and Hall-of-Famer.

“The No. 1 reason I took the job was because it was SMU,” said Gregg, who came on in January. “I went to school here. I had a very positive experience here. Both our children went to school here. I saw this as an opportunity to accept probably the greatest challenge I’ve ever had as a coach and as a person, to put this program back together.”

The three share a vision that SMU can carve its own place -- athletically and scholastically -- next to the Stanfords and Dukes of the land.

“This is one of the unique challenges in athletics today,” said Single, whose first order of business was to ban the bad-apple boosters and corral the rest for more constructive (and legal) means. To bring the game back to campus, Single saw through an ambitious project to refurbish Ownby Stadium ($1.5 million). The Mustangs probably will never again call Texas Stadium home and will only hope for one annual visit to the Cotton Bowl. They’ll make it there when, and if, they win the conference.

That could be a ways off.

“We’re trying to win with kids who get a degree and do so in a curriculum that isn’t manufactured for them,” Single said. “Now, we all know you don’t compare transcripts on the 50-yard line. If we did, we might win a lot of games this year.

“But, still, we have so many advantages (in recruiting) that we can use: this vibrant city, the conference, tradition, Forrest Gregg ... “

Gregg has had to start from scratch. His main selling point was a chance for his recruits to play right away. “This place is about opportunity, with a capital ‘O”’ said freshman tackle Kyle Carroll. “Coach Gregg likes to say that.”

There is also the fact that a degree from SMU is well-received in Dallas. Recruits would have to understand they would be batted about pretty good for a couple of years -- in the New Era opener two weeks ago, Rice broke an 18-game losing streak with a 35-6 victory over Gregg’s youngsters -- but the appeal was a chance to build a new tradition at a school steeped in football lore.

Then there’s Gregg, the native son from tiny Sulphur Springs, Texas, and football legend. Said Carroll: “When I visited, I was sitting in the office talking to (another coach), and in walks Coach Gregg, much bigger than I ever imagined. I looked up and said, “Goll-lly.

“He’s the main reason I came here. It’s such a good atmosphere; he’s real laid back. But he’s been known to get intense, too. I really like watching Coach get excited. In a game, he’ll grab your shirt and jerk you around and tell you all these things to do. All that wisdom comes shootin’ out at you.”

Gregg’s plan is to weather the freshmen for a couple years, take lumps, build experience, then win. Gregg hopes it will perpetuate thereafter.

“There is no reason to believe why SMU won’t be a winning team within the next 10 years,” said Gregg, who likes to think of the possibility of nailing down two SWC crowns by 1995. “There’s no reason at all we can’t win, as long as SMU has the same thing to offer from this day forward, the same things we had to offer 10 years ago. And I’m not talking money.”

Will scandal ever again visit SMU?

“If there is cheating, it has been told to me that the program is done for, and that may encompass all athletics here as we know it, across the board,” Single said. “There’s a certain sense of responsibility about the way we manage things as a result of that.

“You don’t want to be the guy that dismantled the British Empire.”