Payoff, Hike!

By Ed Magnuson

Shortly before Bill Clements took office as Governor of Texas in January, he named a Dallas clergyman as his staff adviser on matters of morality. The appointment was unusual but not all that surprising: Clements has talked a lot about morality.

A wealthy Republican businessman who served as Governor from 1979 to 1983, Clements regained the office last November from Democrat Mark White, partly by accusing him of duplicity. As chairman of the board of governors of Southern Methodist University, a post he gave up when he took office in Austin, Clements assailed the S.M.U. system for permitting wealthy boosters to pay football players to perform for the Dallas school. Such practices brought the school seven citations from the National Collegiate Athletic Association for violating its rules.

"The whole system" of shady recruiting "is wrong," Clements declared in October 1985, two months after S.M.U. was placed on probation by the N.C.A.A. for the sixth time. When yet another scandal was unfolding at the school in November, Clements growled, "I'm tired of all this Mickey Mouse business going on in our athletic department." Two weeks ago, when S.M.U. was completely banned from football this year and limited to just seven road games next year, Clements was asked whether, while serving on the university's board, he had ever approved payoffs to athletes. His reply: "Hell, no. Absolutely not."

His response should have been "Well, yes." At the end of a routine press conference last week, Clements admitted that he and other unnamed S.M.U. governors had actually decided to let payments to some players continue despite the N.C.A.A. punishments. His self-contradictory explanation: "We -- with a capital we -- we made a considered-judgment decision over several months that the commitments had been made and in the interest of the institution, the boys, their families and to comply with the N.C.A.A., that the program would be phased out and that we would comply in a full sense of integrity to all the rules and regulations."

Even in a football-crazy state, where a beefy nose guard can develop as big a following as any politician, Clements' confession proved startling. After a meeting of 17 S.M.U. governors, the new chairman reported that none had admitted knowing of any agreement merely to "phase out" the cash instead of cutting it off. The board voted that any member who had such knowledge must resign.

Students paraded into a meeting of the faculty senate chanting, "No more lying, no more cheating." The faculty called for a probe of the board of governors by the university's 71-member board of trustees, which has ultimate control over campus affairs. The accreditation board of the United Methodist Church, which owns S.M.U., began a study of whether to sever the church's ties with the school, which date back to its founding in 1911.

Finally, a former member of the S.M.U. board stepped forward to confirm that in 1985 Clements had said "it would take some unwinding" before the cheating could be stopped. Apparently a small group of the governors had agreed informally, without a full meeting or written record, that those players already getting cash should continue to do so but that no future players should be paid.

"Phasing out those payments is kind of like phasing out the robbery of a 7-Eleven," chortled ex-Governor White. Democrats hope to exploit the issue in the difficult budget battles that face the recession-plagued state by charging that Clements has proposed a freeze on educationfunding while appearing to care more about helping football players.

As the storm created by his own confession buffeted Clements, he had good cause to wonder about the merits of S.M.U.'s motto: "The truth shall make you free."

With reporting by Richard Woodbury/Dallas