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VOLUME 97, ISSUE 39

FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES 50 CENTS

SMUDAILYCAMPUS.COM

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2011

NATIONAL

‘Pony Excess’ proves athletic programs can recover

Courtesy of SMU

Eric Dickerson and Craig James remain two of SMU’s most accomplished college athletes. Collectively referred to as the “Pony Express,” Dickerson and James started playing Mustang football in 1979.

By MEREDITH CARLTON News Editor mcarlton@smu.edu

The controversy surrounding Pennsylvania State University’s former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky has gotten people talking about collegiate athletics and the law. Sandusky, who is accused of sexually abusing young boys, has affected the Penn State football program in a number of ways — from the program’s reputation to its future. Although Penn State’s case is a criminal one, athletic scandals come in a variety of forms, and 24

years ago, SMU athletics experienced a scandal of their own. “The Death Penalty,” which bans NCAA schools from competing in a sport for at least one season, halted the Mustang’s football program in 1987 and 1988, straining the spirit of SMU and the Dallas community. A few years prior, SMU’s football team was one of the top teams in the country. Although many football teams were involved with illegal recruitment, SMU was the first to make headlines. The SMU Sports and Entertainment Law Association

hosted two speakers on Friday that brought light to the “paying to play” topic, something that is at the forefront of ethical and legal issues in college athletics. Kyle Conder, senior associate athletic director for compliance, joined Thaddeus Matula, director of “Pony Excess,” sharing both the legal and creative sides of the issue. According to Matula, the Southwest Conference was the most penalized conference in the country, most of those infractions coming from SMU. “It was a very dirty conference,” he said. “But, in that era, everything

Associated Press

Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky reaches out to defensive back Brandon Scott after the Dec. 28, 1999 game against Texas A&M in the Alamo Bowl, in San Antonio, Texas.

started ramping up in the 1970s.” He stated that in the ‘30s and ‘40s, it wasn’t illegal to provide players with benefits. “This was obviously before Dallas had the Cowboys,” Matula said. “SMU was Dallas’ team.” Dallas was busting with money in the late ‘70s to early ‘80s when the scandal came to fruition. “SMU decided it was time to play with the big boys,” he said. “And it got out of hand.” However, SMU was not the only school that was doing this. “SMU has the unfortunate distinction of being caught and

CAMPUS

not being able to distance itself institutionally from the violations,” Conder said. According to Conder, institutional decisions are a big part of what dictates a school’s future after scandals. “The institution made the decision we have to stop these payments, but we are going to try to control them,” he said when describing SMU’s scandal in the late 1980s. Conder then went on to explain how SMU did not permit recruits to make campus visits after “The Death Penalty” until they had been

admitted or they were clear qualifiers by the NCAA. The importance of institutional decisions can translate to Penn State today. “If Penn States’ attitude is look we are going to clean house with the coaching staff but otherwise it’s business as usual here, in terms of recruiting activities and the amount of resources we provide for the program, it [their recruiting] may not change very much,” Conder said. Just as SMU got through its’ scandal, Penn State will too. It’s just a matter of time.

TOUR

Annual event seeks to end Students, police check sexual, domestic violence lighting on campus By JAN ANDERSON

By LARA MIRGOROD

Contributing Writer jnanderson@smu.edu

Contributing Writer lmirgorod@smu.edu

Members of the Southern Methodist University community gathered for SMU’s annual Take Back the Night event on Monday in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center. According to the Take Back the Night Foundation’s Facebook page, the event “seeks to end sexual violence in all of its forms including sexual assault, sexual abuse, dating violence and domestic violence.” The evening began with a march around the Boulevard that included chants like “One, two, three, four, we won’t take it anymore. Five, six, seven, eight, No more violence, no more hate” and “We have the power, we have the right, the streets are ours, take back the night.” The march was followed by a candlelight ceremony on the Clements Hall lawn. During the ceremony, the leaders first asked participants to blow out their candles if they had any friends who were victims of sexual violence, and all but a few blew their candles out. The leaders then asked the crowd if they had a relative who had been a victim, an immediate family member who had been a victim and if they had been a victim of sexual violence. Each time fewer candles were blown out. The final segment of the event

KATHLEEN STRAUSS/The Daily Campus

Oscar Cetina holds a candle in honor of “Take Back the Night” on Nov. 14. The annual event is hosted by the Women’s Center.

was the “Speak Out,” which occurred back in the Hughes-Trigg Varsity. Back in the Varsity, event cochairs Melissa Maguire and Sammy Partida invited members of the audience to share how their lives had been impacted by sexual violence.

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Audience members shared how they and/or those close to them had been impacted. One speaker shared that she was a domestic violence survivor, a

See MARCH page 3

The annual Lighting Survey Check took place on Tuesday night as student organizations, SMU police and the Facility Maintenance and Sustainability joined together to check areas on campus that may require additional lighting. “We would like different perspectives and want to get the community to come together to enhance public safety on campus,” Operations Manager Jim Scarnati said. Participants were split into four groups and walked to different parts of the campus to record the number of each pole that was missing a light. “We do this in four groups because the campus is split into four separate zones which include residential life and student housing, the SMU Boulevard, the Athletic and Engineering Zone and the law quad,” Zone Manager John Majors said. According to Sergeant Winn, there are 88 blue lights and approximately 300 pole lights on campus. “There is an emergency phone at every blue light and when you call, the dispatcher knows exactly where you are,”

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SPENCER J EGGERS/The Daily Campus

The University-sponsored Lighting Tour helps educate campus community members about the best after-dark travel paths, as well as to look for lighting deficiencies on campus.

Scarnati said. For people who are walking late at night, it is important that a blue light can be seen where ever they are on campus. Areas with dim lighting have to be changed because it is hard for students to see walking back from the library to dormitories. “It is important to make sure that the campus is adequately lit at night and it is my job to see if any lights are burned out or if there are areas that shouldn’t be lit,” Winn said. Police Chief Rick Shafer believes that students are the

best sources for this kind of task because they are the ones that are on campus the most. “They may know a lot more than we do and we can value their opinion to make the job go faster,” Shafer said. During this year’s walk, participants found several poles that were either dim or burned out on the SMU Boulevard. It is also important to make sure that the flags are lit with lights, and that none are out. “If a flag is up at night, it needs to be lit because it is a federal law,” Shafer said.

WEATHER WEDNESDAY High 67, Low 41 THURSDAY High 62, Low 44


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