"Numerous and Major."

"There is a firm feeling that we have turned the corner when it comes to major violations. We are getting on top of this integrity issue. . . . Ninety-nine percent of everything that is going on in intercollegiate athletics today is exceptionally positive." Such was the summation of NCAA executive director Dick Schultz at the 1988 national convention of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). But given the sequence of events that unfolded in Norman, Oklahoma, in January 1989, it became difficult to credit Schultz's confident assertion. The University of Oklahoma finished atop the polls following the 1985 season, thus winning the mythical national championship, and narrowly missed winning another crown in 1987 when they lost the 1988 Orange Bowl to the University of Miami, 20–16 on New Year's Day. The winningest college football program in the 1950s and the 1970s, the Sooners of the 1980s were a brash...