Sherwood Blount Jr., a developer and sports agent who was banned from booster activity at SMU two years ago, was the unidentified source of payments for student athletes cited in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.'s probation report this week, the Dallas Times Herald reported.

The newspaper quoted persons close to the SMU athletic department as saying that Blount provided $61,000 in cash payments.

Blount was one of nine boosters barred from SMU athletics in August 1985, when the NCAA put the school on three years' probation.