FORT WORTH, Texas — It took decades but the best football player in SMU's history is in a good place with his alma mater, as evidenced by Eric Dickerson's feelings about the Mustangs' previous football coach leaving for a rival across town.
"I'll say this, I don't know coach [Sonny] Dykes well, but to me that shows a lot about the character of a person," Dickerson said in a phone interview this week when asked about Dykes' leaving SMU to accept the TCU head coaching job.
Dickerson, 61, has a new book out, Watch My Smoke, in which he does not hold back on any topic, from his infamous days at SMU to his time with the Los Angeles Rams and Indianapolis Colts.
When Dickerson played for the Mustangs from 1979 to 1982, they dominated TCU.
During a 30-minute interview with Dickerson, I casually tossed out what he thought about SMU's coach leaving Dallas for Fort Worth.
"He might be a nice guy but that's just classless," he said. "It's like, to me, I'm going to marry my brother's ex-wife? I'm not going to date my best friend's ex-wife. We love each other, but you don't do that.
"Let's say you [are looking at TCU.] You tell them, 'I'm going to take the TCU job, because I want to be in the Big 12 or whatever. That's why I want it.' I get that. That's different. The way he did it was really, really messed up."
While both Texas Tech and TCU were potentially interested in Dykes, SMU offered a contract extension to keep him that included a substantial pay raise for both he and his coaching staff, as well as a promise for facility upgrades.
"I talked to [prominent SMU booster] Bill Armstrong and he told me, 'I had a conversation with [Dykes] and we had a deal [for a contract extension].' That's the part that is really messed up," Dickerson said.
"When TCU fires him, and they will fire him after a while, you get what you deserve. I had a big TCU alum tell me, 'I didn't know he was coming back here to be the head coach. We don't want his ass back here anyways."
Dykes formally left SMU after fours seasons to become TCU's head coach on Nov. 29.
Dickerson is scheduled to participate in a Q&A with longtime local sports journalist Jean-Jacques Taylor beginning at 7 p.m. on Jan. 20 at the Texas Theatre in Dallas.
Dickerson is seldom not entertaining, and his book often reads more like a homework assignment from a counselor than some cash grab from an ex-athlete.
"There were parts in there where I was crying because it was stuff I had not thought about in a long time, like my dad," he said. "My dad died in 1977, and he and I were so close. A lot of that stuff I had to think about again. It's still hard to think about."
For much of his Hall of Fame career, Dickerson was the best running back in the NFL. He stood 6-foot-3, but he could move like he was 5-foot-3.
As evidenced by this book, Dickerson is not unlike most pro athletes, or people; this is a sensitive guy who does not forget anything.
He always pushed to be treated better, by the Rams. By the Colts. By the Raiders. By the NFL. By SMU.
For a long time SMU did everything it could to distance itself from Dickerson.
Because he was the highest-profile player from SMU's best teams from the late '70s and '80s, he became the face of a program that was renowned for violating NCAA rules, and compensating players under the table.
Although Dickerson's college career ended in 1982, when SMU was handed the "Death Penalty" by the NCAA after the 1986 season, he was the one who was most often linked to the scandal that changed the future of the entire university.
"The part that really bothered me was I felt like they were blaming me for all of that," he said. "With SMU, I'm good now. What I really wanted more than anything else was to be proud of my school.
"I wanted my school to standout, and to beat the University of Texas. To beat Texas A&M. When we got the Death Penalty, that should never have happened."
Dickerson is not unlike a lot of his former SMU teammates, and every player from that era who played for the Mustangs. Most of them can't believe the Horned Frogs have jumped ahead of the Mustangs in the hierarchy of college football.
With TCU in the Big 12 and SMU in the American Athletic Conference, there is no debate what program is more prominent. It's why Sonny Dykes ultimately left Dallas for Fort Worth.
As a proud former Mustang, Eric Dickerson wasn't too happy about it, and he's not shy about sharing his feelings about that topic, or anything else.
