Baylor fails to learn from past coach’s misdeeds

As school is gripped by another scandal, former Bears, UNM coach reflects on his own fall from grace

Dave Bliss, formerly the head basketball coach at The University of New Mexico, is his own reclamation project.

He has tried to pull himself from the scrap heap of disgrace by telling ugly truths about his tactics as a coach. Bliss admits he failed his players, his profession and his family.

Now, at age 72, Bliss is again coaching college ball, though not in a glamorous program. He is at a small school, Southwestern Christian University, in Bethany, Okla. It’s a long way from The Pit at UNM and other giant, pressure-packed arenas where he won games but lost his way.

Bliss lied and cheated after he left UNM in 1999 to coach at Baylor in the more prestigious Big 12 Conference. He says he wanted success too much.

“I got my head turned around and compromised some of my principles,” he said in a phone interview last week as yet another scandal at Baylor was unfolding, this one involving the football program and its cover-up of campus rape cases.

The latest trouble at Baylor has placed renewed attention on Bliss. As Baylor’s basketball coach 13 years ago, Bliss was neck-deep in a scandal that he started and then escalated by defaming a player who had been murdered.

Bliss had personally paid the tuition

of the fallen Baylor player, Patrick Dennehy, a violation of rules of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Tragedy followed. Dennehy died at the hands of a teammate named Carlton Dotson, who shot Dennehy twice in the head.

Bliss, desperate to keep his job and his standing as one of Division I college basketball’s winningest coaches, wanted his players to lie to investigators about Dennehy. They were to say that Dennehy had paid his tuition bill by dealing drugs. An assistant coach secretly recorded Bliss as he outlined the scheme to save himself.

With the tape’s release, Bliss knew he was finished as a Division I head coach. He resigned to avoid a certain firing.

Bliss paid Dennehy’s tuition because he was out of scholarships and wanted to keep a promising player. It was a greedy maneuver, not an evil one. “From that decision, I made worse decisions,” Bliss said. “For me to try to cover up the payments was worse.”

Dotson went to prison for Dennehy’s murder, receiving a sentence of 35 years. Bliss found work coaching a developmental team for the NBA that was based in Bismarck, N.D. Then, despite loud objections, he landed a job coaching at Allen Academy, a high school in Bryan, Texas.

Bliss returned to the college level last season. His team at Southwestern Christian University started 2-7 but finished 19-15. More important, Bliss said, he was again contributing to the development of college students off the court.

“I am able to do what God intended for me to do in life,” he said.

Bliss seems repentant, and he remains as likable as when he was talking to parents, closing the deal to land a big-time recruit. If he means what he says, his story may help others.

He will return to New Mexico in July to speak to high school coaches. Part of his message is that coaching at any level is a privilege, and that a good mentor can make all the difference.

After his ouster at Baylor, Bliss said, “I didn’t miss the salary, the dealer cars or my TV show. I missed my team.”

Skipping to the present, he said he still loves Baylor. Another scandal at the school led to the firing last week of football coach Art Briles. An investigation authorized by Baylor found that the university valued football more than honesty in campus rape investigations.

“Baylor failed to take appropriate action to respond to reports of sexual assault and dating violence reportedly committed by football players,” says the report of the school’s investigation. “The choices made by football staff and athletics leadership, in some instances, posed a risk to campus safety and the integrity of the university. In certain instances, including reports of a sexual assault by multiple football players, athletics and football personnel affirmatively chose not to report sexual violence and dating violence to an appropriate administrator outside of athletics.”

In plainer language, Briles and Baylor sometimes gave scholarships to bad people who were good football players. Baylor, the largest Baptist university in the world, had learned nothing from Bliss’ renegade behavior.

As for Bliss, he says this of college athletics: “I’d like to be part of the solution, but it’s like runaway inflation. It seems there’s no way out.”

Universities have the sense to fire a corrupt coach who gets caught. They also routinely fire dedicated coaches who run clean programs but don’t win enough games. This formula means none of us should be surprised in a year or two when another university has a scandal on par with the ones at Baylor and Penn State.

Ringside Seat is a column about New Mexico’s people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at 505-986-3080 or msimonich@sfnewmexican.com.