themselves, and giving players loads of cash to play for their school. I heard the outlandish stories about the cars and jewelry, livestock and houses, that these men, known as the Naughty Nine, bought for players and their families. Coach shook his head and said things about SMU such as “They’re the best team money can buy” and “They have no shame.”
Then, just three days after my seventh birthday, on February 25, 1987, the hammer fell. I was home sick from school, or at least I was pretending to be sick so I could watch the televised press conference. David Berst, the director of enforcement of the NCAA, announced that SMU was guilty under the “repeat violator” provision and would get the most severe punishment allowed. The death penalty. No scholarships, no practice, no games for a whole year. The entire program shut down. Even though everyone knew they were guilty as hell, it was still shocking. So shocking that Berst himself fainted right on television.
Later that night, I heard Coach Carr tell my dad, who was in town visiting me, “We shouldn’t be so surprised. Everyone knows … we do execute people in this state. If you ask me, it’s a lot easier to follow the rules.” My dad, of course, replied something along the lines of “Yeah. If you’re going to cheat, you better be damn good at it.”
Now fast-forward twenty-six years, and Walker was in possible trouble. Not of the SMU magnitude, but trouble nonetheless. And in an unsettling twist of fate, I was no longer watching it on television. Rather, it was my job to report it. My job to write a story that could, potentially, damage Walker football. I told myself that it would all be fine. Because Coach Carr was still the good man he’d always been.
That evening, after talking to J.J. and Galli, I went over to Ryan’s and told him about the NCAA story Smiley was making me write.
“Do you think there is any truth to it?” I asked him, after filling him in on everything.
“Probably,” Ryan said, hitting a golf ball across a putting green in his basement. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, taken aback by his answer.
“I mean … if you’re consistently winning at this level, you’re probably cheating along the line somewhere,” Ryan said. “And even if you’re losing, and you’re trying to win, you’re probably still cheating. At least on the margins.”
“Coach Carr does not cheat,” I said. A statement of absolute fact.
Ryan gave me an infuriating smirk, then knocked the ball into the hole. “Okay, then.”
“He doesn’t,” I said, a little pissed off.
He shrugged, then squared his shoulders for another shot. “I know you think he’s the second coming of Christ, but the man isn’t perfect. He may not be bankrolling his players, but I’m pretty sure he looks the other way now and then. He has to.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Sure he does! He’s the CEO of a major corporation and his employees are a bunch of dumb kids. He has to look the other way. It’s a matter of survival.”
“Give me one example,” I said. “Of Coach looking the other way.”
“Okay. Do you remember Cedric Washington’s Cadillac Escalade?” Ryan asked.
“Yes. No. Not really. But whatever. Go on,” I said. Cedric had been a wide receiver during our era, a year behind Ryan, and almost as heralded, leaving school a year early to enter the draft.
“Ever wonder how he got a truck that nice? With tinted windows, spinning rims, that booming bass sound system playing Dr. Dre all over town?”
“No,” I said. “Never gave it a thought.”
“Well, you’re the only one … There’s no way Cedric could afford a truck like that. C’mon. He was from the projects.”
“Okay,” I said, giving Ryan a blank stare.
“Okay? Well. Someone gave him that thing. And it wasn’t anyone in his family. And guess what? Coach looked the other way. He ignored it. Willed it to go away. And it did.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that. That’s what winners do. They make things go down like they want them to go down.”
“Is that what you do, Ryan?” I said. I was pissed and felt myself start to lash out at him. “You’re a big-time quarterback. Do you cheat?”
He leaned his putter against the wall and cracked his knuckles. “No. I don’t, actually.”
“So if you could steal another team’s signals and not get caught …?”
“You mean like Tom Brady filming the Jets?”
“Yeah. Like that.”
“Or Greg