Noncompliance to the Graham Plan

North Carolina State football program for game against Duke, 1935

With these rules stated in the Graham Plan, Southern Conference schools could not attract good players from far away with monetary aid.  Like today, if a program wanted to excel nationally, the coaches needed to maintain big-time players with big-time athletic skills. 

Generally, alumni wanted to see their schools succeed in intercollegiate athletics.  For this reason, alumni often became the “pressure groups” of the football program, voicing their opinions for the program’s route to success, behind the scenes. 

Newspaper publicity of college football programs also became a player in increasing the popularization of coaches and teams among the general public.  Ultimately, college alumni and newspaper articles, directed in opposition to the Graham Plan, contributed to the greater commercialization of college football because of the centrality of the money issue.