Killing the Devil's Escort - Preface: Death Penalty

Special thanks to Sam for punctual corrections, grammar modifications and diction enhancement.

It was an overpriced piece of “Modern Shit,” and the latest substantial gift from SWMU boosters somberly praying to evoke an undefeatable spirit. Desperate to hear that once familiar soothing victory chant, “Stallions are the champs,” replaying in their heads, alumni ardently attempted to cast monetary clout with a brand spanking new investment. As one player puts it, “It’s the most kick ass scoreboard ever,” towering over the Stallions’ end zone. This Booster Club raised enough funds to feed Africa but somehow only managed to conjure a state of the art 1992 scoreboard.

No wins in seven years would make a once spendthrift dominant collegiate football team sink so desperately low that money boosters would resort to brazen budget bubbles in order to gain respect. Have it flaunt it, right? Forgive me. I am not a good narrator. A little back story is due here so let me elaborate.

SWMU, South Western Masonic University, became the first and only recipient of the Collegiate Athletic Associations’ death penalty. The defining rule passed down by a committee made South Western Masonic University’s football team ineligible for competition. SWMU’s football team was banned from any form of competition in the league for four years and placed on probation two years preceding their re-entrance to conference play. The team would be subjected to a bureaucraticly imposed probation resulting in the loss of fifty five scholarship positions over the course of four years.

The Death Penalty was swiftly dealt out as a way to show what would happen to repeat offenders. They get the literal bureaucratic homicide. The NCAA condemned this, “Ivy of the South,” with their harshest blow. The board felt SWMU extensively shattered every rule to sway top ranked graduating high school seniors into their athletics program. Recruiting rumors jumped across campuses until amazingly cultivated tales of white nose-numbing devil powder and big city strippers clashed with the moralizing mentality of 1980 suburbia. Nothing was sacred in, potentially, the worst display of power by money hungry Institutional cowboys desperate to create a legacy. These men relied on signing major high-school athletes to join a universities’ athletics department for purely selfish reasons. The players were worth major bread and it was the first time they knew exactly how much.

Stallion players participated in cultish orgies with thousand dollar drug tabs. Extravagant X-rated stories broke like fine china against ears of these prenatal NFL stars. Free exotic cars and all-expense paid trips to gentlemen’s clubs were given out to eighteen year old “Blue Chips” man-boys. These poor guys had the look of yearning for independence and big city lights with a woman that might be the one. Quickly they learn to accept people willing to give and do anything for a win. There is no compromise in winning, just a vending machine dumping out expensive and sometimes sinful goodies for your exemplarity talent. High school seniors suddenly realize how everything works and that it is time to earn their keep.

Four years prior to the obnoxious constructing of team facilities that left teachers asking, “Where is the school?” every building was dwarfed by the massive stadium taking up every inch of its available space. There was a barrage of complaints to the NCAA followed by a handful of anonymous tips. The best part were the leaked office budgets clearly documenting the amount of several thousands going to one players new Mercedes Benz. All of it was true. The rumors were not audaciously fabricated. The “We are God” Boosters spent more than a quarter of a million dollars on dumb, full of cum, eighteen year old star high school football players.

News paper accounts of the controversy spread extensively until testimonies of former players ratting out coaches and coaches ratting out their superiors bled through the national sports media. The only thing that had to be done was a revamping of the entire football coaching staff to save the schools image and appease the public. That is, almost all of them. The only person spared was Doc, the teams’ veteran sports therapist.

Recruits were forced to testify in court and be publicly acknowledged as eye witnesses to the carnal delights in which they partook. The presence of parents and press made these public acknowledgements compounded the humiliation. Parents and players sat in the witness stand spilling the beans and absolutely admitting to every charge they were accused of in an attempt to save their jobs and reputations. The standing evidence states that SWMU boosters and recruiting coaches went to great lengths to accommodate every star player’s financial needs to the ninth degree these man-boys found that their signature brought physical pleasures and financial stability for life. That alone is enough to convince a player considering multiple college offers to join SWMU’s Stallions.

When a team goes undefeated for several years running, people wonder how the winning machine was created. The answer is money; deceptively simple money that transforms anything into everything as the testimonies of former players and coaches proved. After all it was the evil eighties and America was well aware, “Greed is good.”