'exas A&M
Battalion
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ol. 88 No. 86 USPS 045360 14 pages
College Station, Texas
Monday, January 30,1989
Investigation of Sherrill
produces no evidence
of wrongdoing by A&M
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By Stephen Masters
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
“I’m not worried about the foot
ball program here at Texas A&M.
You can just look at the guys here
and see that Coach Sherrill is build
ing a program here like nowhere
else in the country. The future here
looks great. ”
George Smith, Texas A&M fullback,
The Battalion, October 20, 1983.
The future looks even better now.
Texas A&M officials confirmed
Friday that former Head Football
Coach Jackie Sherrill gave money to
a former player, but the investiga
tion did not support allegations of
“hush money,” a University News
Service release said.
George Smith, the former Aggie
fullback, confused the A&M com
munity when a Dallas Morning News
story quoted him accusing Sherrill of
paying him for silence about past
NCAA violations, then by telling a
state-wide audience that he lied. The
University promptly began an inter
nal investigation conducted by Rob
ert Smith, vice president for finance
and operations, and “a team of audi
tors, attorneys and outside investiga
tors.” A&M released the findings of
the report to the NCAA last week.
University President William
Mobley was optimistic about the
findings and said he hoped the
NCAA would be also.
“Although the matter is now
strictly in the hands of NCAA offi
cials, on the basis of our findings and
the actions we have taken to date, we
do not anticipate that the NCAA will
feel a need to reopen its investiga
tion, nor do we expect further sanc
tions,” he said in the statement.
A&M was placed on a two-year
probation in September after the
NCAA found the Aggies’ football
program guilty of more than 20 vio
lations. The program also was
banned from post-season play after
the 1988 season.
David Berst, NCAA assistant ex
ecutive director for enforcement,
has been quoted as saying A&M’s
sanctions would have been more
strict if it had not been for Mobley’s
actions to “clean up” the program.
According to the NCAA’s “Death
Penalty” rule, any violation by any
sport at the offending school could
result in the suspension of that sport
for at least one year. A&M could re
ceive this sanction for any violation
before September 1993.
Some of the steps~ taken since
Mobley took office Aug. 1 include:
• Creating a checks and balances
system by separating the athletic di
rector and head football coach posi
tions and assigning athletic compli
ance monitoring to Robert Smith.
• Hiring Larry Dixon as director
of athletic compliance. Dixon has ac
cess to all Athletic Department re
cords and reports to Smith.
• Supporting Head Coach R.C.
Slocum and Athletic Director John
David Crow in several personnel
changes in the Athletic Department,
a probable reference to the release
of assistant football coaches George
Pugh and Joe Avezzano, Sports In
formation Director John Keith and
assistant SID Colin Killian.
In the release, Robert Smith con
firmed that between November
1986 and September 1988, five over
night letters were sent to George
Smith. Robert Smith said Sherrill re
ported three of the five contained
$500.
He said the investigation revealed
no proof of the “hush money” alle
gations because “money given to Mr.
(George) Smith coincided with peri
ods in which the former player en
countered considerable need and
distress.
FDA reprimands blood bank;
orders destruction of shipment
Head ’em up, move ’em out...
Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack
The Parsons Mounted Cavalry participated in
the “Go Texan” Parade as it traveled down
Texas Ave. Saturday morning. The parade
was sponsored by the Brazos County “Go
Texan” Committee in association with the
Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
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Humanities courses take
back seat at many schools
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Intense interest in revamp
ing and expanding college humanities requirements has
translated into little success in the past five years,
according to a study released Sunday.
The study sponsored by the National Endowment
for the Humanities found that students are only slightly
more likely to have to take such courses in order to
graduate, and it is possible to bypass many significant
fields of knowledge en route to a degree.
General requirements in the humanities area rose an
average of 1.5 hours from 1983-84 to 1988-89 — a 6.2
percent increase, according to the study of course re
quirements at 496 colleges and universities.
Average increases in requirements for English and
American literature, foreign languages and literature,
history and philosophy all totaled .2 credit hours or less
Orator predicts
racism’s end,
new generation
By Richard Tijerina
STAFF WRITER
A new day is dawning for those
blacks who feel they have been dis
criminated against long enough, At
lanta lawyer and orator Patricia Rus-
sell-McCloud said Friday.
McCloud, who was a guest
speaker at the closing banquet of the
Southwest Black Student Leadership
Conference hosted by the Texas
A&M Multicultural Services Center,
said that day — what she called Mon
day— is coming.
“I would like to focus on the real
ity that Monday is coming,” Mc
Cloud said. “Monday is a new begin
ning to start up and to start out.
Monday is the time when new fiscal
ideas may come forward. A lot of
things happen on Monday, diets
start on Monday and we have to be
able to start freshly and move
ahead.”
McCloud said it is possible to end
racial discrimination and prejudice.
However, she said it is necessary for
people first to realize what their ob
jectives are, especially students.
“We have to have a sense of know
ing what we want to accomplish, be-
See McCloud/Page 5
over the five-year period.
Lynne Cheney, endowment chairman, said the one
bright spot in the survey is that the number of schools
letting students choose from a virtually unlimited list of
courses has decreased. Only 13 percent of schools allow
students to choose from unlimited course offerings,
down from 19 percent five years ago.
Currently, Cheney said, it is possible to earn a bache
lor’s degree from 38 percent of colleges and universities
without taking any course in history; 45 percent with
out taking a course in English or American literature;
62 percent without taking a philosophy course; and 77
percent without studying a foreign language.
The NEH study found that requirements in math
and the sciences were increased by a greater number of
hours than those for humanities.
HOUSTON (AP) — A blood bank
that supplies area kidney dialysis
centers has been cem+sred for ship
ping blood from two donors who
tested positive for AIDS antibodies
and hepatitis B.
Last September, the Food and
Drug Administration ordered the
for-profit blood bank, Houston
Apheresis Inc., to recall two units of
blood.
One was drawn from a donor who
had previously tested positive for an
tibodies to the AIDS virus and the
other from a donor who had tested
positive for hepatitis B, the Houston
Chronicle reported in a copyright
story Sunday.
By the time of the recall, red
blood cells taken from each donor
already had been given to patients.
The plasma was recovered and de
stroyed by Houston Apheresis.
The blood units themselves tested
negative in the blood bank’s labo
ratory, but interviewers at the blood
hank apparently did not check a fail
safe list that identifies donors who
had previously tested positive.
After the recall, the FDA sent the
blood bank a strongly worded regu
latory letter demanding corrections
of what District Director Gerald
Vince called “serious violations of
the federal Food, Drug and Cos
metic Act.” A regulatory letter is one
step short of license suspension.
But the blood bank’s chief exec
utive and owner, Dr. Gregory Re-
imer, says his bank does a good job.
“1 think we are singled out by the
FDA, 1 think we are picked on to
some degree,” he said.
FDA spokesman Brad Stone den
ies Reimer’s complaint. He says the
agency has stepped-up scrutiny of all
blood banks in response to AIDS.
The FDA issued 44 regulatory let
ters in 1988 and forced 101 recalls of
blood products.
Official says Cubans
expected invasion in ’62
MOSCOW (AP) — A Cuban offi
cial says 270,000 Soviet and Cuban
troops were ready to go to war with
the United States during the Cuban
missile crisis and that 100,000 cas
ualties were expected, a former U.S.
official said Sunday.
. A Soviet general also has con
firmed for the first time that some of
his country’s nuclear warheads, ca
pable of striking the United States,
were in Cuba at the time of the crisis
in October 1962.
The revelations came during a re
view of the Cuban missile crisis at a
conference over the weekend at a
trade union center in southwest
Moscow.
Soviets and Americans have met
before to discuss the Soviet deploy
ment of nuclear missiles in Cuba and
the U.S. response: a blockade of the
island and a demand for the rockets’
removal.
But this was the first joint meeting
with Cuban officials who guided
their country through the crisis. Pre
mier Nikita S. Khrushchev even
tually withdrew the missiles in ex
change for President Kennedy’s
. See Cuba/Page 4
Sociologist: Racism flourishes in athletics
1756
By Richard Tijerina
STAFF WRITER
Racial discrimination and exploi
tation is alive and well in college and
professional athletics, sports socio
logist and professor Harry Edwards
said Friday.
Edwards was a guest speaker for
the Southwest Black Student Lead-
erhip Conference on campus Friday.
The conference, hosted by the
Texas A&M Multicultural Services
Center, was intended to create a link
between black student leaders across
the country.
Edwards said if the path of racial
discrimination and exploitation con
tinues unchecked, future genera
tions will have a harder time trying
to survive.
Edwards, a professor at the Uni
versity of California-Berkeley,
lashed out at an entrance require
ment that was recently approved by
the National Collegiate Athletic As
sociation. The legislation, known as
Proposition 42, expands on an exist
ing rule called Proposition 48.
Proposition 48 requires’ an athlete
to score a minimum of 700 on the
Scholastic Aptitude Test or a mini
mum of 15 on the American College
Test, and have an average of 70 in
several high school core courses, in
cluding English, mathematics, physi
cal sciences and social sciences.
Athletes not complying with all
the requirements were still able to at
tend college on a scholarship, but
lost their first year of eligibility.
However, Proposition 42 states if a
student does not meet all require
ments of Proposition 48, he or she
cannot attend a Division I school on
an athletic scholarship.
Although Edwards supports
Proposition 48, he said Proposition
42 is nothing more than a means for
colleges to exploit athletes for their
abilities.
“Under Rule 48 if you were a par
tial compiler, you could still get a
scholarship but lost a year of eligibi
lity,” he said. “But at least you were
on the campus. What this is telling
kids now is, Tf we can’t exploit you
athletically, we don’t even want you
on the campus.’ ”
Not only does Proposition 42 dis
criminate against black students be
cause it makes it harder for them to
obtain an education, Edwards said, it
also encourages corruption in the
college athletic programs.
“If you are honest and poor, you
can’t go to school,” Edwards said. ‘‘If
you are dishonest, you can still go to
school because you can go out and
find some alumnus who is willing to
give you the money to pay your own
way despite Rule 42. So on one hand
it’s a start for more corruption in
student athletics.”
Edwards said he considered the
NCAA racist because the organiza
tion’s leaders don’t want to listen to
other views from people outside the
group.
“In the NCAA, what you have is a
group of middle and upper-middle
class elitist white men sitting around
a room talking to each other,” he
said. “Go to the NCAA convention
and you’ll see that. You might as well
be going to a Ku Klux Klan cavern
when you look at it. Every now and
then you will find a black individual
in some kind of (decision-making)
position. But they don’t work to
gether. They don’t want to invite
him in; there’s no feedback no dis.-
course, no dialogue and exchanges.
“The result of these people not
talking to each other, with no input
of any kind, is the boneheaded, idi
otic rule (Proposition 42) out of the
organization where it is necessary
for boneheaded, idiotic rules. Rule
42 essentially states, ‘You can’t even
get a scholarship,’ Eighty to 90 per
cent of those w ho are going to be af
fected are going to be black.’’
Edwards, who played collegiate
football in the 1960s, said it would
have been impossible to play then if
Proposition 42 were in effect.
“I do not know 7 a single individual
that I played with or played against
as a scholarship athlete, that could
have gone to school under Rule 42,”
Edwards said. “These are people
who are now lawyers, doctors and
college professors, even myself.
“It is the most elitist, racist piece
of legislation ever to come out of the
NCAA, and this is one that we sim
ply cannot allow to be implemen
ted.”
Edwards said student leaders have
both the capability and the responsi
bility to reverse Proposition 42. In
order to accomplish this, he said,
they must spread the word in the
black community and on campus,
write letters to the NCAA protesting
the legislation, and find out how 7 in
dividual school presidents voted on
the rule.
Edwards called for possible boy
cotts of all NCAA events if Proposi
tion 42 is not repealed.
“If they do implement it, I for one
will do all I can to see that there are
boycotts of all NCAA events — in
cluding basketball championships
and tournaments,” he said. “I am
also for picketing those tournaments
because what we essentially have is a
group of old white men making de
cisions basically for themselves.
We’ve got to fight that kind of non
sense.”
Edwards said the problem of ex
ploitation and racial discrimination
goes far beyond the sports arena,
See Edwards/Page 5
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