Former Gov. Bill Clements, Jr. - Makes My Blood Boil!

[MrMustang1965]

How is it that SMU still allows him to be around here after the incidents involving the DP? It makes my blood boil to see his name mentioned in connection with SMU!

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 4e1d3.html

[EastStang]

Hey if Clements wants to give us a million bucks to enhance our New Mexico campus, that's great. Sure, he helped put us in this mess, but he wasn't alone in it. And quite frankly, Dr. Wendorf's project out there is a pretty good lab for archaeology students.

[gostangs]

You want to blame someone ? - blame "the nine" or whatever they were called who were banned - they are the pathetic jock snifffers that got us in this mess, Clemments displayed really bad judgement in trying to wind it down instead of just shutting it down, but it was the guys handing over the cash that are at fault.

[Sam I Am]

Maybe SMU should have done what A&M did and stonewalled the NCAA investigation while winding down. Once the players got paid, there was the danger of blackmail by those who got cut-off, so Clements tried to ease off the payola without destroying the school. His intetn was good but it was the wrong plan. TCU confessed, but got off easier only because they did not have SMU's long record of previous probations. Clements was never a good diplomat or he might have helped talk SMU out of the DP. The fault was truly systemic and involved the admistration, rabid boosters, and Coaches Myers & Collins. I appreciate that he wants to atone for what went wrong, but maybe he should have made an anonymous donation.

[jtstang]

"Mr. Clements, former chairman of the SMU board of governors, has given more than $3.5 million toward SMU-in-Taos and a total of more than $17 million to his alma mater."

I assume those figures do not include under the table donations to athletic department employees.

[BUS]

What would have happened if SMU and it's lawyer base would have filed suit against the NCAA as many wanted.
Things are not equal and now they are worse.
I am not a lawyer but one of the suspect PE majors so I do not know the merits of the almost lawsuit. Might have really worked?

[jtstang]

What would have happened if SMU and it's lawyer base would have filed suit against the NCAA as many wanted.
Things are not equal and now they are worse.
I am not a lawyer but one of the suspect PE majors so I do not know the merits of the almost lawsuit. Might have really worked?

What kind of lawsuit are you talking about? We broke the rules and received one of the designated sanctions for the violation. Bottom line, the NCAA is a private organization--you agree to play by their rules and submit to their jurisdiction for compliance issue adjudication. That's part of the deal for membership, and the remedy if you don't like it is not to be a member. Was the punishment harsh? Definitely. Unfair? Considering the history, probably not. Any legal recourse? Highly doubtful.

[No Cal Pony]

jtstang is correct. SMU is part of the joke that is the ncaa, so we have to live with what they do and choose to do. And remember who runs the ncaa.

Clements is very much to blame along with some others. His actions and inactions helped destroy the progam we, as Mustang fans and loyalists, love and remember. What he did prior, during, and after, well, I not going to get started. Makes me see red.

Sam, the danger of blackmail existed all during the '82 to '87 era. Dave Stanley was a cancer that finally spread enough to kill. It also didn't help that we were in a pool (ncaa) swimming with sharks (ut, a$m) ready to kill at any moment. Stanley was not the only one though, just the absolute worst. I know because I was there. Made me crazy then, makes me really crazy now.

If Clements and the others really gave a damn, they would be bending over backwards now to set the programs back on a proper, and winning course.

Go Ponies!

[MrMustang1965]

Hey if Clements wants to give us a million bucks to enhance our New Mexico campus, that's great. Sure, he helped put us in this mess, but he wasn't alone in it. And quite frankly, Dr. Wendorf's project out there is a pretty good lab for archaeology students.

I was on the SMU-in-Taos campus a week before the dedication of the new library. I have no argument with its merits. It's a fine facility and well worth the trip to see. However, former Gov. Clements' involvement in ANYTHING further involving SMU still makes me mad as hell!

[davish75]

So, why didn't the other programs get backmailed?

[OC Mustang]

We are far enough removed from this, and enough people have passed away, that I do not feel particularly uncomfortable about saying this, even if I am still uncomfortable about saying how I came into the information.

Clements has never stopped giving to the University, even during the death penalty. At one point, along with the Hughes-Triggs, he helped fund the operational budget of SMU-In-Taos out of his pocket, as well as gave $10 million to the History dept. (which is public).

The story goes after Hansen blew the story into the open, Bob Dedman showed up early one morning at the doorstep of Clements' place, and called him to breakfast and a handful of morning cocktails (in true SMU fashion). He chewed his a**, and the two of them agreed that they should support whatever measures that Ruth Altschuler, Laura Lee Blanton, and Ray Hunt would come up with to a) restore academic credibility, b) help the financial situation, already beset by oil and real estate investment woes, and c) protect enough of the old Board of Governors' members that they could keep the university large donor base intact.

SMU-In-Taos became a way that the good former governor could help.

A lot of stuff went on between 1987-1992 that truly saved the school from financial ruin (and we are talking about a non-profit entity, so it was most definitely a going concern). And Stallion can get on me about being dramatic, but people, it was bad like you don't know. Along with this came a shelving of football and basketball as priorities. Right, wrong, or indifferent as to the past, we don't live there anymore.

So relax about Gov. Clements, and for that matter Sherwood Blount. It's about Turner, Copeland, and whoever comprises the current BOT now. Our next two challenges as a university should be to place uber-competitive sports teams into public view, and to secure the Bush Presidential Library (2000 election, 9/11, Iraq, 2002 congressional elections, Cloning debate, Enron...talk about some great material in Poli-Sci, History, business, and ethics classes).

Seeing as how we are the President and First Lady's largest philanthropy as well, methinks that Gov. Clements gets a pass today.

[Ponymon]

I wholeheartedly agree. Clements has done a great job of continuing to back SMU when he could have just walked away from it. Good Post!

[MrMustang1965]

Sorry, OC & Ponymom...I don't agree. There's a word called INTEGRITY and I don't see it in association with our former governor. The same goes for Sherwood Blount.

[OC Mustang]

And there is something called being penitent, allowing institutional forgiveness, and just plain common sense when it comes to something we all love, whether it is 1987, now, or 2050.

Do you think that the bishops on the commission who wrote up the report on the scandal, its damage, and the new model for the Board didn't know of his willingness to be a part of the solution (seeing as how he was part of the problem)? I think as they were on the razor's edge of institutional ethics as a scholarly discipline, they were acutely attuned to the issues of integrity. I KNOW that Pye was attuned both personally and professionally to integrity, institutional or otherwise. He would not have pushed the issues with Larry Johnson and Dave Bliss if that had not been the case. I think that was a big risk on the side of integrity, and he spent a considerable amount of his very little alumni capital to stand on that principle.

Yet would it surprise you to know that Pye knew and approved of the good Governor's involvement, and not just because of his money, but because he knew the guy was serious about helping SMU, come hell or high water or horse manure? Clements agreed to be the scapegoat to some degree...but I am not going to tread any more into that conversation, because some things should remain dead and buried. However, I want to be clear. It wasn't just Clements and the likes of Sherwood Blount that participated in the pay-for-play, and if we had indeed tossed the baby out with the bathwater, the University and its students, employees, and the community would have suffered far beyond what the NCAA or anyone else who had an ethical stake at the table would have wanted.

So...again...relax. Clements certainly isn't Will Tate. But he has his place in our University, as do other people who ostensibly hurt the university, Pye among them for his antipathy for modern Division I-A football and its excesses, as well as Sherwood Blount for his affection for the same.

[VarsityShop]

re:Bottom line, the NCAA is a private organization--you agree to play by their rules and submit to their jurisdiction for compliance issue adjudication. That's part of the deal for membership, and the remedy if you don't like it is not to be a member.

Yeah go try that logic on employees that work for a "private organization" and sue that private organization for all kinds of unfair practices.

Same thing with Home Owners Associations.

I do not know if SMU would have had a valid court case or not, but your logic is flawed by implying SMU could not have sued because they were a member of a private organization and the only choice is "love it or leave it".