95 Ways to Ruin a University’s Image

There was a time when I actually felt sorry for the University of Houston.

I honestly used to think: Now here’s a school that deserves to get a break.

For one thing, I never saw a better basketball team not win a national championship than the Phi Slama Jama fraternity led by Clyde Drexler and Akeem Olajuwon, which lost to North Carolina State in the title game at Albuquerque in 1983.

I felt so sorry for those guys, I could have cried into Coach Guy V. Lewis’ ever-present towel.

Another year, I felt for Houston’s Cougars when stories started surfacing about the athletic department’s low graduation rate, which in turn led to a lot of nasty cracks about the typical Houston student’s mentality and general human quality.

Before a bowl game one year, Houston’s football players demanded and received an apology after somebody joked publicly that Houston’s athletes could all be found at the local 7-Eleven--half of them eating dinner there and the other half robbing it.

I remember wondering: What did Houston people ever do to anybody to deserve this kind of treatment?

The poor Coogs.

Even when they were about to have their finest hour in college football--at the 1979 Cotton Bowl--somebody sprung the trapdoor. Joe Montana led Notre Dame to a 23-point fourth quarter, including a touchdown pass to Kris Haines with no time remaining, for a 35-34 victory, after Houston had been ahead by 22 points.

North of Texas, everybody seemed to cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame. Houston ended up ranked No. 5 in the nation that season. It has not been in the top 10 since.

Even this season, my sympathies were with the Cougars--the key word here being were.

They have an outstanding, once-beaten football team with an outstanding, possibly Heisman-worthy quarterback, Andre Ware. But they also happen to be forbidden from all postseason bowl play because a previous coaching regime had landed the school in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.’s doghouse. Houston was on probation.

So, once again I felt sorry for the University of Houston.

Until last Saturday.

That’s when they played a game against their Dallas rivals from Southern Methodist, and that’s when they played one of the dirtiest tricks on an opponent since Georgia Tech covered the spread against Cumberland by more than 200 points.

Houston defeated SMU, as expected. What wasn’t expected was the final score: 95-21.

That’s right, 95 points. The Houston team that had Drexler and Olajuwon had trouble scoring 95 points, let alone a Houston football team. The Cougars piled up 1,021 yards, an NCAA record. They threw 10 touchdown passes. They rubbed SMU’s faces into the paydirt.

Don’t be surprised to hear rumors this week that have the Houston players parking in handicapped-only parking spaces, throwing rocks at birds, kicking canes away from little old ladies, hiding eyeglasses from nearsighted classmates and taking rubber balls from children to play keep-away.

SMU, devastated by a probation of its own, has just started playing football again. Seventeen of its 22 starting players are freshmen. They are not yet very good.

Houston led them at halftime, 59-14, and proceeded to go out and score 36 more points. What a bunch of swell guys these Cougars are.

The winners said they couldn’t help themselves. Ware, Mr. Sympathy himself, called it just another day at the office. Coach Jack Pardee said his substitutes had to do their very best, and that Houston’s offensive system is “almost uncontrollable” once it gets going.

I am reminded of an old joke about the Elephants playing football against the Fleas. Late in the game, a Flea breaks loose on a long run. He makes it to the 20, the 15, the 10, the 5. . . . Then an Elephant steps on the Flea and squashes him.

When the other Fleas gather around to complain, the Elephant says, “Gee, fellas, I was only trying to trip him.”

It turns out this is not the first time Houston has pulled this sort of thing. Twenty years ago, a Houston team took apart Tulsa, 100-6. One year ago, Houston beat that same school, Tulsa, 82-28.

Now, Houston has done it to Southern Methodist, and is probably out trying to schedule Northern Methodist.

“I hope they really feel proud of their accomplishments,” SMU Coach Forrest Gregg practically spat out.

Said one SMU player, Michael Bowen: “Someday we’re going to be the powerhouse and we’ll remember every team that did this to us.”

SMU is scheduled to play No. 1-ranked Notre Dame later this season. Nov. 11, in fact.

Are the Irish licking their lips? Are the coaches drooling at the thought of scoring 100 points, maybe 150?

No, they are not. Notre Dame officials have contacted Southern Methodist and volunteered to call off the game. The SMU people thanked them for their consideration and declined.

Boy, am I glad now that Joe Montana beat those Houston clowns in that Cotton Bowl.