Governor of Texas Criticized by NCAA Official

Gov. Bill Clements of Texas was cited Saturday as an example of the dark side of college athletics by the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.’s enforcement chief.

“If he’s typical of people who are in charge at the highest level, then there really isn’t any hope for integrity in collegiate athletics,” David Berst said. “I’m optimistic enough to believe the SMU situation is not typical. But it certainly is most discouraging.”

SMU, the most-penalized school in intercollegiate history, was the first to receive the so-called “death penalty” as a repeat violator.

Clements earlier this week acknowledged that when he headed the SMU Board of Governors, he and some members of the board were aware of illicit payments to football players and had authorized the payments to be continued after assuring the NCAA the practice had stopped.

Meanwhile, a bishop of the United Methodist Church said the church gradually lost control over SMU beginning in 1968 when it allowed the board of trustees to choose its own members.

“We let it happen,” Bishop Walter Underwood of Baton Rouge, La., told the Dallas Morning News. “And when it did, we were as meek as lambs. We all rolled over and played dead.”

Underwood said a 1968 change in the church’s bylaws “took the selection of trustees out of the hands of the church.”