SMU's $350 million gamble

SMU had good timing in luring Copeland from Virginia. He was experiencing the seven-year itch, a not unfamiliar phenomenon to those whose business it is to recruit top talent. After seven years, a successful athletic program is beginning to coast. The initial praise and excitement will have died down. Most important, the head of the program starts to be taken for granted. According to Bob Beaudine, Frank's colleague and son, "Athletic directors want to feel wanted." Even big guys want to be loved.

The minute he sniffed Copeland's possible interest, Gerald Ford ordered up his Gulfstream private jet. With interim AD Bill Lively in tow, he flew to Charlottesville. Lively, who has been with SMU for 25 years, represented the history and enthusiasm of the university. Ford represented the commitment of the Dallas community. They had lunch at Copeland's house. Copeland's wife, Susie, cooked. Ford and Lively made Copeland feel wanted.

Ford had already laid the groundwork. As they chatted amiably over the dining room table, Ford became convinced that Copeland would be the perfect capstone of his several-year effort to restore SMU's athletic fortunes. Little did he know how expensive the effort would turn out to be.

The effort had begun under Pye, who at Duke had seen the benefits a strong athletic program could bring. SMU's program had been devastated by the NCAA's 1987 "death penalty" sanctions. With the Southwest Conference fading into the history books, Pye and Ford took it as their first priority to find the program a Division I-A home and set their sights on the WAC. Visibly sick with the treatment of his first cancer, Pye boarded Ford's plane for stops in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, where they campaigned for SMU's entry into the conference. Pye's reputation and Ford's salesmanship paid off.

"The WAC was the best choice," says Ford. "Realistically, it was the only choice. And frankly, we had to really work to get in there. We shaped that by moving around and convincing people that SMU could provide good representation."

The WAC has been SMU's new affiliation since 1996, and SMU seems to be a perfect fit. The Mustangs are not only competing, they're winning. The football team under head coach Mike Cavan had its first winning season in a decade and even shared the lead in the Mountain Division during the season. And a strong recruitment promises a successful season for coach Mike Dement's basketball team, too. SMU is winning again, which makes students proud and alumni generous. Athletics, after all, is the primary link between graduates and their alma mater.

Of course, there are other sports besides football and basketball, but those two are the "revenue sports." Those are where television contracts are and corporate sponsors like to be. "Basketball and football drive the budget and drive the perception of the school," says Copeland. That's simply the way it is.

Which is particularly unfortunate for SMU, because performance in other sports is exceptionally strong and has been for years. Both men's and women's soccer teams are consistently ranked nationally. The track and field program has had numerous Olympic competitors, as have swimming and diving. In 1996-97, SMU placed 45th out of all United States colleges and universities and third among WAC schools in the final Sears Directors' Cup standings, an evaluation of athletic programs based on post-season appearances in select sports.