$10M in pledges over five years from (so far) 20 donors:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...r.2bbe111.html
Big donors help pave the way for SMU
Orsini pulls needed cash together with the Circle of Champions
11:52 PM CST on Tuesday, January 8, 2008
by KATE HAIROPOULOS / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]
UNIVERSITY PARK – Athletic director Steve Orsini said he had to convince "just about everybody" at SMU that the school would have to commit to paying its new football coach Top 25 money to make the progress it desires.
SMU on Monday gave June Jones a five-year deal worth just under $2 million a year, according to Leigh Steinberg, Jones' agent. SMU is a private ins ution and won't confirm the figures.
But Orsini admits that the deal is "a huge leap forward," far more than the $500,000 it annually paid former coach Phil Bennett. Orsini said he gives most credit to SMU president R. Gerald Turner.
"His response wasn't ' , no,' because obviously I wouldn't be doing it," Orsini said Tuesday. "His response was, 'you just have to raise it yourself.'"
Enter a new fundraising group SMU has named the Circle of Champions.
Membership isn't cheap. Individuals or groups of donors have to commit to paying $500,000 over five years to join. Orsini said SMU currently has 20 "units" in the Circle, which adds up to $10 million.
"Top 25 in everything we do – that sets the bar," Orsini said. "Everything we do is based on that. We know there's more things than not that aren't there yet. Football salaries were one of them."
SMU billionaire booster Gerald J. Ford wasn't hard to convince that SMU had to pony up for the new coach, Orsini said. But Orsini said Ford didn't want to do it himself.
"Not for him as much as, 'I want to show this next coach this isn't a one-donor show,'" Orsini said.
Orsini said it took him only three weeks after firing Bennett on Oct. 28 to raise the money. Ford, Orsini said, didn't recognize some of the donors, who are largely from Texas, and located around the state – East Texas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston and, of course, Dallas.
Orsini said some of the donors haven't given since SMU returned from the NCAA-mandated death penalty in 1989.
The money is budgeted as a personnel "transitioning budget."
It will pay not only for Jones and his staff, but for fulfilling the contracts of Bennett and his staff. Bennett's contract ends at the end of the year, his assistants at the end of May.
Orsini said the Circle of Champions, won't be capped at 20 units and the concept will be applied toward SMU's other athletic programs.
Bob Sharp, assistant director of The Mustang Club, has been named the director of the Circle of Champions. It doesn't eliminate other fundraising groups.
"It's adding to," Orsini said. "It's the bridge that's getting us to a next level."
I had heard that on the OSU Insider Board a couple days ago, but wasn't completely sure it was true.
SMU's boosters are legendary. Remember, they are the ones that got the school the Death Penalty.
Who would have thought last year that this year's Baylor and SMU coaches would be getting 1.8 mil and 2.0 mil respectively?
Anyone have a guess as to who the other boosters are?
Nobody really knows; SMU is a private school, therefore does not have to release that info. You can bet with the problems they have had in the past it will stay that way. The way I have heard it (and again, I didn't believe it all at 1st but everything said has been correct so far) that a good many of the donors that were involved with the Death Penalty were alienated from the school and haven't had any dealings with them since. After the AD hires Matt Doherty and then fires Bennett in October, he starts immediately reaching out to these old donors to tell them SMU needs you now. He supposedly has had the money committment for a while now, just waiting on a coach to give it to.
What's amazing, is that since getting the job a day or two ago, E$PN has already tabbed SMU as, "most improved team of 2008" and CBS Sportsline says the SMU QB is, "one of college football’s most productive quarterbacks." Better get on the bandwagon fast. I wouldn't be suprised to see them get votes in the 1st Top 25 poll.
I wonder what percentage of the Circle of Champions fund pays their players.
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