Gov. Clements Apologizes for Role in SMU Payments

Gov. Bill Clements apologized today for his role in continuing illegal payments to athletes at Southern Methodist University, a day after students protested the football scandal’s effect on academic integrity.

Cash payments to football players were the result of flaws in a system that needs to be overhauled, the school’s Board of Governors decided Monday.

While the board met, SMU students protested the way school officials handled the football scandal that prompted the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. to cancel SMU’s 1987 football season and to levy other sanctions expected to cripple the team for years.

In Austin today, Clements referred to the scandal as “agony.”

“I am sorry,” the Republican governor said at a news conference. “In hindsight, it is clear we were wrong. SMU is the victim of a system we should have stopped immediately.”

Clements said he and other members of the Board of Governors, whom he declined to name, erred in deciding to “phase out” the payments rather then stopping them immediately.

The governor has acknowledged he knew the payments were being made while SMU was on NCAA probation for previous violations.

Clements, who resigned as chairman of the SMU board before being sworn in as governor in January, said he was unaware of the payments when he rejoined the board in 1983.

“The cancer was widespread when our investigators uncovered its full extent in 1984. When we discovered the payments, we decided to phase the system out,” he said.

Clements said he never personally made payments, and he also insisted that other members of the school’s Board of Governors knew of and approved the continued payments.

SMU donations drop, Part III, Page 7.