 Payments ranged from $50 to $725 per month, and started only a month after SMU went on its original probation (though it later emerged that a slush fund had been maintained in one form or another since the mid-1970s).Also, SMU officials lied to NCAA officials about when the payments stopped.While the school had assured the NCAA that players were no longer being paid, the school's board of governors, led by chairman Bill Clements, decided that the school had to honor previous commitments made to the players.