[The New York Times]
Southern Methodist University’s decision the other day to scrap its football team for a second season in 1988 is only the latest piece of continuing fallout from the ignominy that shook the school this winter.
Among a host of other effects, donations to the university are running as much as 10 percent below last year’s pace, a decline attributed in part to the disclosure of illicit payments to Mustang players. The administration, which in three weeks will have received final responses from students it has accepted for fall enrollment, is also concerned about the likelihood of slippage in both the numbers and the quality of those who decide on S.M.U.
Given that backdrop, the scandal’s impact on homecoming day will seem a trivial matter. Still, to the boosters who thought they were doing their school a favor by providing the cash that went to highly coveted players, it must come as a bitter irony that the athletic centerpiece next fall on what used to be the most glorious afternoon of the football season will be a distinctly scaled-down event: On Nov. 7, S.M.U. plays Texas Christian in a game of soccer.
Instead of Texas Stadium, which the football team shared with the Dallas Cowboys, the site of the soccer game will be on-campus Ownby Stadium. Ownby is a 61-year-old, single-level concrete relic so structurally weak that the upper half of its bleachers is closed to spectators. School officials aren’t worried about it. Whereas last year’s homecoming game, against Texas A & M, drew 58,125 fans, Ownby’s current 7,000-seat capacity is expected to be more than big enough for soccer, whose crowds at S.M.U. usually number fewer than 1,000. This for a squad that was strong enough last season to make it all the way to the national semifinals.
To be sure, the university is putting a happy face on the proceedings, an easy task for the legions who feel that its athletic role needed re-defining anyway. As Trevor Pearlman, president of the student body, said: ”The exciting thing is rooting for your school. I believe we can do that with any sport.”