• The KillerFrogs

TCU - NCAA Sanctions 1986

MAcFroggy

Active Member
Saw a random comment on Reddit about TCU sanctions in 1986. I have some familiarity with the issue thanks to reading some old article, but it got me wondering who the boosters actually were. It said we were forced to disassociate with 6 boosters. At the time it was assumed one of them was Dick Lowe. My question is... did the names of the other 5 people ever come out?

Article for reference: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-05-10-sp-5021-story.html
 

BrewingFrog

Was I supposed to type something here?
IIRC (Those files have been... damaged) the Boosters in question were forced to disassociate for a period of years. Suspended, in effect.
 

OmniscienceFrog

Full Member
I remember Dick Lowe as being the "ringleader" but I do not remember the rest. The owner of Mama's Pizza was also named I believe...

Deep? You know everything...
The first poster after your initial post answered one of them. Chris Farkas, aka Whitewolf on this forum, and the then owner of Mama's Pizza was one of the other five. Of course, he passed away quite a few years ago now.
 

westoverhillbilly

Active Member
From what I remember, Farkas (rest his soul) was the coordinator of sorts for some of the wealthier guys.. The genesis allegedly was at a dinner at the old Carriage House on Camp Bowie and Merrick with F.A. Dry and a wealthy alum in 1980 or early 1981 and the subject of SMU's sudden rise came up. Coach Dry stated that to compete in the SWC, a team had to pay to play, which unfortunately and realistically was true. I'll never forget watching the news on signing day in February 1981 when TCU miraculously signed 5 of the super 14 Texas recruits (including Kenneth Davis and Gary Spann)..

TCU was new to this level of cheating and not particularly good at it like Arkansas and Texas.. When Wacker came in 1983 and thought he was cleaning it up, he self reported our violations (after Davis admitted his continuing to receive payments as did others). In September of 1985, we suspended 7 studs and got drilled the remainder of the year. In retrospect, TCU should have lawyered up like any smart defendant would do and not hope for fairness.. The NCAA's contention that punishment would have been worse had we not self reported is utter hogwash- the punishment couldn't have gotten any more severe.

SMU was way less smart than was TCU and totally unapologetic. A&M was also pretty stupid as one would expect.

College football is and for a century has a sleazy underside to it. There's just too much at stake to keep it clean and the enforcers don't provide the resources to contain it- Alabama, LSU and Ohio State (and the other powers) have never demanded a cleanup nor will they ever and it will remain as it has. I applaud CGP for never getting us into trouble.
 

Westsider

Full Member
Lowe and Farkas were not very discreet about their involvement, but the other 5 or six were mostly under the radar. I knew one very well and he never admitted his role to me, despite my incessant badgering.
 

Billy Clyde

Active Member
Lowe and Farkas were not very discreet about their involvement, but the other 5 or six were mostly under the radar. I knew one very well and he never admitted his role to me, despite my incessant badgering.

Ha, one of our best running backs of the 80's was a classmate of mine and I tried to get him to crack, he would only ever just laugh and shake his head. That was post-NCAA sanctions, so the takeaway for me was we didn't stop, just learned to shut up about it.
 

Eight

Member
the money was primarily funneled into south dallas though players outside the area got paid (i.e, kenneth davis and i heard rumors about another running back from east texas who had a younger brother who ended up at smu)/

back at that time duncanville was still mainly whtie, desoto and cedar hill were country towns, carter was just starting to become a power program and soc had the athletes.

frogs first signed marcus gilbert, west brooks, and stanley washington from soc and along with them came tyrone wilson who i believe was an equipment manager. tyrone ended up bascially being the courier to south dallas,

next class frogs signed three more from soc in offensive lineman joe young and defensive backs john preston and reggie cottingham.

i believe anthony gulley was in the same class as kenneth but i could be wrong. ronzell brewer from dallas madison (de/te) fell somewhere in all of that.

they also picked up a defensive back from houston kashmere name marvin foster, a big dfensive lineman and i think another d-back from houston.

gary spann actually signed originally with smu, but something kept him for getting admission to smu and he ended up at tcu.

the two biggest names aside from kenneth davis were actually gerald taylor and egypt allen both from soc and i think the last two players tcu signed from soc during this time.

both were high school aa's and egypt was rated the top defensive back prospect in the country. someone may know all the details but i have heard different versions of a story where the two had committed to tcu and then turn up missing. no one can find them and apparetly smu coaches had hide them out in a hotel somewhere in south dallas.

long before the days of cell phones, internet etc.. one of the two called tyrone, told them where they were and the story goes two tcu assistants drove over and liberated so to speak the two future frogs. don't know how true it is but a good story over all.

i think the player that really put it over the edge though wasn't from dallas, but actually ft worth. i think it was the recruitment of jeff atkins of eastern hills that really got things exposed
 

PO Frog

Active Member
Lowe and Farkas were not very discreet about their involvement, but the other 5 or six were mostly under the radar. I knew one very well and he never admitted his role to me, despite my incessant badgering.
I barely knew/know either Lowe or Farkas and both openly talked about their involvement to me. Lowe paid the penalty and is obviously a big part of the current facilities upgrades and such. He had great stories about getting GP hired. Apparently we were real close to hiring Watson Brown on the basis of him being related to Mack and all. We’d still be in the wilderness...
 

PurpleBlood87

Active Member
the money was primarily funneled into south dallas though players outside the area got paid (i.e, kenneth davis and i heard rumors about another running back from east texas who had a younger brother who ended up at smu)

J.C. Morris was the running back who actually hid out his brother Ron Morris. a WR, away from TCU and for SMU on the night before national signing day.
 

Leap Frog

Full Member
Maybe if TCU had hired Hayden Fry in 1977 things would have been different--- maybe!
Fry applied for the job, but the direction the boosters took had already been set by the good men.
I say good men because they were, but heart sick at losing while the big schools were getting their way.
That does not excuse the poor judgment they used, but a hard lesson we learned to do things right.
 

westoverhillbilly

Active Member
Despite TCU's payoffs of players in those days (a friend of mine's dad was one of those sugar daddy's in the article Purple Blood posted and told me about it), we weren't really committed to success in football- we were hovering somewhere just above Rice while SMU was spending huge and Baylor was getting great recruits too (doing what was necessary at the time- i.e. payoffs).

Despite Hayden Fry being a great coach, I'm not sure he would have done well here at that time- there was a systemic lack of focus on athletics.. When the SWC folded, TCU woke up and the other private schools (Baylor included) didn't. Plus, making the super hire of Fran and Patterson was paramount..
 

Big Frog II

Active Member
Despite TCU's payoffs of players in those days (a friend of mine's dad was one of those sugar daddy's in the article Purple Blood posted and told me about it), we weren't really committed to success in football- we were hovering somewhere just above Rice while SMU was spending huge and Baylor was getting great recruits too (doing what was necessary at the time- i.e. payoffs).

Despite Hayden Fry being a great coach, I'm not sure he would have done well here at that time- there was a systemic lack of focus on athletics.. When the SWC folded, TCU woke up and the other private schools (Baylor included) didn't. Plus, making the super hire of Fran and Patterson was paramount..
You are correct, back then we were just giving lip service to athletics. It didn't really matter who we hired.
 
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