A Payroll to Meet

"David Whitford does a fine job of detailing a decade of sordid events leading to SMU's banishment from football." - F. E. Halpert, The Nation "Exhibiting admirable sympathy for innocent fans and boosters ... [Whitford] makes engrossing, even suspenseful the story of recruiting violations and cover-ups that led to the 1987 termination of Southern Methodist University's football program by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Combining the histories of Dallas, college football, SMU (chartered in 1911), and the NCAA, Whitford explains how athletics became attached to institutions of higher learning--from the 1830s, when English sports entered the curriculum, to present-day America, where sports coaches often earn higher salaries than college presidents." - Library Journal "[Whitford's] well-documented expose is impressive." - Publishers Weekly "Should be required reading for every college president." - Frederick C. Klein, Wall Street Journal "[Mr. Whitford] has put the entire narrative [of the SMU scandal] together so that it reads a bit like an athletic version of Jimmy Breslin's novel The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight." - New York Times Book Review