SMU Athletics have come a long way from their early years to entering the Big East in 2013.
SMU’s history includes many famous Mustangs and winning teams, tough times and one of the most important NCAA decisions in the 20th century with the Death Penalty falling on the football program.
Long before the Heisman Trophy season of Doak Walker and his three years of being an All-American at SMU on the football team, the team had a historic 146-3 loss to the Rice Owls in 1916 before joining the Southwest Conference and staying until it was disbanded in 1996. The team did win SMU’s lone national championship in football in 1935 under first-year coach Matty Bell after a 12- win season.
SMU’s golf program topped out at number 16 in the rankings during the 2006 season. SMU’s Colt Knost was named Conference-USA’s player of the year after the 2007 season and went on to set the EDS Byron Nelson Championship record for an amateur by shooting a 64.
One of SMU’s most famous alumni is Payne Stewart, who died in a tragic plane crash in 1999 while he was in the top 10 of world rankings and had won three majors during his career.
Stewart was a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at SMU and was flying to Dallas to discuss building a new home course for the Mustangs when his plane crashed.
Men’s soccer began in in 1916 at SMU and has been one of the top programs on campus and achieved a number one ranking in the NCAA during the 2006 season for four consecutive weeks, before finishing number two in the season. The Mustangs went on to win the Conference-USA title that year, but fell in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament.
Women’s soccer took off in the 1990s with Lisa Cole becoming the first All-American in women’s soccer at SMU. During the 1995 season, the team reached the NCAA Final Four and finished third in the rankings for the season. The team continues to be a bright spot in the athletic program at SMU.
The SMU Mustang men’s basketball team won 13 conference titles from 1935 to 1972, but has won just two since then as the program has fallen into mediocrity.
With the hire of a new coach, which sources are reporting will be Hall of Famer Larry Brown, the team will have high expectations for the coming years even with the move into the basketball powerhouse conference, the Big East.
The women’s basketball program, which has been in competition since the university’s founding, has also fallen on tough times in recent years and is also looking for improvement with the move to the Big East, which boasts traditional powerhouse Connecticut.
SMU has had numerous Olympians throughout the years including 19 in the 1992 games, but followed that up with an even more impressive showing with 23 in the 1996 Atlanta games.
In 1995, Katie Swords earned SMU’s first individual NCAA title by winning the 10,000 meters. SMU used to have a nine-hole golf course on-campus for the team to play on in its early days. SMU also played football at Ownby Stadium on campus as well as the old Cowboys Stadium and the Cotton Bowl, which was dubbed “The House that Doak Built,” before Ford Stadium took over as the home for Mustang football.
Throughout the years, Mustang athletics have been through its fair share of ups and downs, but when the move to the Big East was announced earlier this year, the teams have such a bright future it will be tough to keep out of the spotlight moving forward.
SMU being based in Dallas makes this a destination university and athletes come here knowing that they represent the entire SMU community as well as themselves when they compete.
