The Pony Trap: Escaping the 1987 SMU Football Death Penalty

Forget everything you think you know about SMU Football and the infamous Death Penalty. Previous accounts told the story from the perspective of the NCAA or of the news media and hyped the scandal for personal gain. The story as they told it, was one of corruption and of the under resourced NCAA struggling mightily to clean up rampant cheating within the college ranks. In The Pony Trap, former SMU football player and member of the Death Penalty team Dave Blewett, backs into the motivation to find out what really happened. His daughter innocently asks, "Daddy, did you do anything wrong when you played football for SMU?" Blewett embarks on a journey of remembrance and discovery. Along the way he decides to get back in football playing shape and pushes the NCAA to reinstate his eligibility to play his last year of football at age 45. He reestablishes old friendships and engages with the current athletic department at SMU for the first time. It's a story of football, it's a story of...