Senate candidate can't escape sports scandals

AUSTIN, Texas — In the sports world, Craig James was a star football player for Southern Methodist University and the New England Patriots. He later became a household name in Texas as a television analyst for ESPN.

Now that he's running for the Senate, James can't separate his Republican politics from football, which accounts for nearly all of his name recognition. But drawing attention to his athletic exploits also means revisiting a pair of well-known scandals going back to the 1980s.

So instead of fielding public-policy questions, he must constantly fend off comments about how he took improper payments at SMU and played a role in firing a popular Texas Tech coach.

"I'm ready to move on," James, now 51, said last week in an interview at an Austin restaurant. It won't be easy in a state where football inspires almost religious devotion, and fans cling to long memories.

James, who has never run for office, says his years as a small-town rancher, businessman and dad make him an ideal candidate to bring common sense to Washington. His rookie campaign sticks to broad conservative talking points: attacking President Barack Obama on the federal health care law, protecting the Constitution, cutting off illegal immigration and easing regulations on business.

Recent polls have shown him far behind his rivals, and his negative ratings among Texans are twice as high as his positives.

"The negatives are coming at him from multiple sources," said Austin political consultant Bill Miller. "This is the deal with scandal: If it comes out early and you can get it behind you, you can survive. If it always stays in front of you, it's a killer. He's got to get it in a rearview mirror. We'll see if he's got the wherewithal to make it happen."

James played at SMU from 1979 to 1982 and was a major part of the record-setting "Pony Express" backfield with Eric Dickerson. The Mustangs won Southwest Conference championships in 1981 and 1982, but the team was also embroiled in several NCAA investigations.

In 1987, the NCAA hit SMU with the so-called "death penalty" for repeated infractions, shutting down the program for a year after concluding that the school continued to pay players, even after a 1985 promise to stop. SMU also chose not to play in 1988.