Posted on 08/23/2003 1:19:38 PM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
Baylor University player Patrick Dennehy was slain after he decided to expose improprieties in the school's basketball program, says a lawsuit filed here Friday by his biological father.
Athletic department officials and university officials not associated directly with the athletic program would not listen to his concerns, the suit said.
"Patrick determined it would be up to him to expose the improprieties ... to stop what was going on," said the state district court suit filed by Patrick Dennehy Sr., 44, of Seattle.
"Shortly after making that decision, Patrick became the target of violent threats against his person and soon became fearful for his life."
Dennehy, 21, grew up with his mother, Valerie, and his stepfather, Brian Brabazon, of Carson City, Nev., but reunited with his biological father four years ago, said Daniel Cartwright, an attorney representing Dennehy Sr.
"They rekindled that father and son relationship," Cartwright said. "It had been going quite well and they had been very much connected."
The suit asks for compensatory and exemplary damages in excess of $50,000.
Richard Laminack, another attorney for Dennehy Sr., declined to say to whom his son brought the allegations or how much involvement, if any, officials may have had in Dennehy's death.
"We do know there was a lot of sordid activity going on in and around the basketball program," Laminack said. "We know that Patrick voiced concern and was threatened to the point he took steps to protect his life and took steps to enlist the help of university personnel."
A university spokeswoman said Baylor officials had not been served with the suit and had no comment.
The suit names the university, President Robert Sloan, Astros owner and Baylor regents chairman Drayton McLane Jr., former athletic director Tom Stanton, former head basketball coach Dave Bliss, assistant basketball coaches Dough Ash and Rodney Belcher, assistant compliance director Paul Bradshaw and basketball financial supporter William F. Stevens.
Bliss, who resigned Aug. 8, is accused of trying to shift the blame for Baylor's NCAA violations to Dennehy by enlisting other players in a scheme to falsely portray him as a drug dealer.
"Coach Bliss's very presence at Baylor created an unsafe atmosphere for the student athletes and ultimately led to the murder of Patrick Dennehy Jr.," the suit said.
Laminack said the suit was filed in Houston rather than Waco because Baylor is such a powerful presence in Waco, where the school is located.
"Given the nature of the lawsuit and the emotions that will be evoked, it's just not a proper place to do it," Laminack said.
The 6-foot-10 Dennehy disappeared June 12 and his body was found in a field near Waco July 25. He had been shot twice in the head.
Former teammate Carlton Dotson, 21, has been charged with murdering Dennehy. Dotson was arrested in Chestertown, Md., where he is in jail awaiting extradition to Texas.
Sure the coach did wrong. So did Dennehy who accepted the perks knowing full well he shouldn't have. His family knew it also. But this is a different issue.
Every time a student is raped or murdered, the college will be sued? There was a case at U of Michigan where the daughter of a reporter got so drunk she ended up dead. Naturally, the father did not sue whoever gave alcohol to his daugher. He sued the U. of Michingan and kept after the school until he was paid off. Then thata disguisting father wrote a book about it.
Dennehy got his money from the coach, which was clearly illegal.
Cannot think of a more corrupt coach than Bliss.
I hope he rots in jail.
Dennehy got his money from the coach, which was clearly illegal.
I agree with both of you. But the allegation I heard today on the radio went beyond any of this. They said Bliss himself physically switched urine samples as part of his attempt to smear Dennehy and save his own skin. I've been around Bliss -- butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, and he was always full of appropriate religious platitudes, a real pillar of the community and terrific motivational speaker. This guy pulled the wool over everybody's eyes. We've probably heard only the tip of the iceberg. The Waco DA is supposedly investigating criminal charges.
And my part as well deJaz. If Bliss is trying to cover up one thing what else is he trying to hide.
And I will hold by tongue for now regarding this sleeze of a biological father that crawled from underneath the rock when he thought his son might be in the $$$$ and now wants to reap the $$$$ from his biological son's death when he was not there through the majority of his son's life. Amazing, simply amazing.
Who is the real Bliss?
09:33 PM CDT on Saturday, August 23, 2003
By BRAD TOWNSEND / The Dallas Morning News
Certainly, their grief cannot begin to compare with that of Patrick Dennehy's loved ones, but friends of disgraced former Baylor University basketball coach Dave Bliss are also coping with a sense of loss.
There's the shock of watching his 34-year college coaching career vaporize – poof! – in a furnace of scandal in the weeks after Mr. Dennehy's slaying.
There's the distress of seeing a man they've long known, or thought they knew, become a pariah, the new undisputed, nationally vilified example of all that is wrong with college athletics.
Suddenly, the only Bliss portrait the public ever saw has been torn down and replaced by a bizarre rendering that depicts two faces, two personalities, two men in one.
"I've talked to mutual acquaintances of ours in the last couple of days who have suggested to me that I just didn't know the real Dave Bliss," said longtime Cowboys radio voice Brad Sham, a friend of Mr. Bliss' since the mid-1980s, when he broadcast Southern Methodist University games during the coach's SMU tenure.
Depending on which friends, former associates and players you believe, Mr. Bliss is magnetically charming, loyal, honorable and even self-deprecating. Or he is a vindictive, verbally abusive egomaniac who "scared the pooky" out of his Baylor secretary, Laura Collins-Hays.
It has been 16 days since Mr. Bliss resigned, nine days since he admitted orchestrating a cover-up in which he attempted to depict Mr. Dennehy as a drug dealer.
For many of Mr. Bliss' friends, reports of the coach banging on the door of a former player while toting a tape recorder, and his subsequent silence, have heightened concerns about his well-being.
"I know Dave is a strong-willed individual," said John Underwood, a Big 12 Conference assistant commissioner who was an assistant under Mr. Bliss at the University of Oklahoma (1976-80) and SMU (1980-87). "But I've just prayed for him every day."
According to neighbors, Mr. Bliss and his wife, Claudia, continue to come and go from their $170,000 zero-lot Waco home, occasionally pausing to chat or receive sympathetic hugs. But some of the Blisses' friends have been unable to reach them by phone.
That has left them to wonder: Who is giving Mr. Bliss advice? To whom is he reaching out, if anyone? Did he find himself in a desperately bad predicament and simply snap?
"Yeah, actually, that is what I think," Mr. Sham said. "It's probably been six weeks since I spoke to him, maybe a little more. The guy I knew, or thought I knew, wouldn't have done some of the things that he's admitted to doing. So, yes, I'm worried about him."
A career in question
As if the murder and athletic department investigations weren't worrisome enough, the tragic details of the last two months have invited intense scrutiny of Mr. Bliss' career and 59-year life. His detractors, practically indiscernible over the last three decades, are popping out of the woodwork. His yellow-bricked career path is being retraced and inspected for suspicious potholes.
"It's a reminder to me that a lifetime of good decisions – not that he always made good decisions – can be ruined in a moment," says Brad Thomas, who was SMU's sports promotions director from 1978 to 1983. "It's frightening. I've been worried about him."
History's view of Mr. Bliss will be colored by the Baylor scandal, which has resulted in a coaching change, a likely mass exodus of players and a self-imposed two-year probation for the basketball program.
The mystery, in hindsight, is how he could have been so admired, yet apparently disliked, for all these years while being generally respected by peers, fans and the media.
But Rob Robbins, who played for Mr. Bliss at the University of New Mexico from 1988 to '91, said he's not surprised by his former coach's fall.
"He's a liar, for one, a used-car salesman," said Mr. Robbins, who graduated as the school's second-leading scorer. "He'll promise you one thing and give you another. Everything he said or did was just a means to make him richer and more powerful and to feed his ego.
"I'm sorry for Dennehy's family. It's unfortunate and a tragedy that a kid had to die in order for the truth to come out."
Attempts to reach Mr. Bliss for comment were unsuccessful.
Even Mr. Bliss' saddened friends conclude – some publicly, others privately – that his actions of recent weeks are reprehensible, and that he needs to be accountable and deserves to bear consequences.
But some also wonder if Mr. Bliss is somewhat of a victim. Certainly not in the sense that Mr. Dennehy and his loved ones are victims, but rather that Mr. Bliss could be a victim of his profession.
You don't amass more than 500 Division I-A victories without being something of a Type A personality. You don't turn around programs at Oklahoma and SMU and take New Mexico to unprecedented heights without stepping on toes and ruffling egos along the way.
Or, perhaps, bending NCAA rules.
Since the Baylor scandal came to light, it has been revealed that illicit booster payments were made to SMU players during Mr. Bliss' tenure, including to All-America center Jon Koncak.
And Thursday, the Albuquerque Journal quoted former New Mexico Athletic Director Gary Ness as saying Mr. Bliss "always played it dangerously close" during Mr. Ness' 1988-92 tenure.
Mr. Ness said, among other things, that Mr. Bliss bent over backward to make ineligible players eligible and had no accounting system for players' per-diem money for road trips. Mr. Ness noted that summer camp revenue gave Mr. Bliss and his assistants an untraceable money pool that could be used arbitrarily.
Given the SMU and New Mexico revelations, perhaps it isn't surprising that Mr. Bliss and some of his staff have been accused of ignoring or covering up players' positive drug tests and spying on opponents' practices, and that Baylor officials acknowledge that illicit payments were made to players.
But when Mr. Bliss was caught trying to cover his tracks, on audio recordings by assistant Abar Rouse, he instantly became despised.
"I'm sure he just felt that everything was caving in on him," Mr. Koncak said. "There was nothing at SMU through his coaching habits or personality that you could have predicted something like this."
Competitive nature
Hard-nosed, intensely competitive, exceptionally shrewd. Mr. Bliss' friends and enemies alike agree on those descriptions. You don't get an undergraduate degree (1965) and MBA (1967) from Cornell University without being bright.
You don't serve six years as an assistant under Bob Knight – first at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (1967-69), then Indiana University (1972-75) – without sharing some of Mr. Knight's obsession for coaching.
Mr. Knight once called Mr. Bliss the smartest assistant he ever had, no small compliment, considering Duke University coach Mike Krzyzewski also served under Mr. Knight.
Mr. Knight, like other former Bliss associates, has been conspicuously quiet during the Baylor saga. It's uncertain whether Mr. Knight had contacted Mr. Bliss, or vice versa. A Texas Tech spokesman said last week that Mr. Knight was out of town and unavailable for comment.
"I think early in his career, he was cut from the Bobby Knight cloth as far as the discipline and intensity level and all that kind of stuff," Mr. Koncak said. "I don't feel he took it as far as Coach Knight did as far as degrading players verbally, but it was tough. He was hard on you."
Mr. Bliss admired Mr. Knight, even naming his first child Robert after his former mentor. But as friends in Mr. Bliss' upstate New York hometown of Binghamton attest, Mr. Bliss was competitive long before meeting Mr. Knight.
Bob Carr played basketball and baseball with Mr. Bliss from the seventh grade through high school. He said he often spent time in the Bliss home with Dave, the four Bliss sisters and their parents, Paul and Jan. The family, Mr. Carr said, was active at Trinity Memorial Church.
"Dave was very competitive, always, and I think we all were," Mr. Carr said. But he called Mr. Bliss' recent actions "totally out of character."
Mr. Carr, who owns a printing business in the Binghamton area, said he hadn't spoken to Mr. Bliss in several years. He said that Mr. Bliss' father died several years ago but that his mother still lives in the area.
"There hasn't been one negative from anyone in the community," he said. "They're sad that he's in a situation like this. The Dave Bliss they know has done more than enough to deserve better than this."
Different looks
During Mr. Bliss' 34 years in coaching, no player has publicly accused him of physical abuse. As far as can be ascertained, he never threw a chair across the court during a game, as Mr. Knight once did. Publicly, unlike Mr. Knight, Mr. Bliss had a good relationship with the media and went out of his way to charm fans and boosters.
As Mr. Bliss, a father of three, told The Dallas Morning News in a 1988 interview after leaving SMU for New Mexico: "When you have kids of your own, you think a lot differently on how to deal with other people's kids."
In another News story in 1987, Claudia said she had watched Dave mellow over the years. Claudia had met Dave when he was an Indiana assistant trying to recruit her brother, Jeff Fosnes.
Claudia was so impressed with another recruiter, Oklahoma head coach John MacLeod, that it played a part in her decision to enroll there in 1974. A year later, 31-year-old Mr. Bliss replaced Mr. MacLeod and ran into Claudia at a Norman restaurant.
"He was around so many coaches and saw so many others suffer, maybe he decided to keep himself a little more rounded," Claudia said in the 1987 interview.
Oh, there have been temper explosions along the way, but most chalked them up to Mr. Bliss' competitiveness and the pressures of winning at the Division I level.
There was the game in the mid-1980s when, legend has it, Mr. Bliss punched SMU media relations director Larry White because the hospitality room was locked too early.
Mr. White, now associate athletic director at Alabama, said he will neither confirm nor deny that version of events. "I would only characterize it as he was interested in marking his territory and we had a heated discussion," he said.
Asked what he thought about recent assertions by Mr. Bliss' former secretary, Ms. Collin-Hays, that Mr. Bliss was frequently verbally abusive, Mr. White said: "I would just characterize it by saying that I was not surprised."
Any suggestion that Mr. Bliss mellowed after moving from Dallas to Albuquerque draws a scoffing laugh from Mr. Robbins, the former New Mexico player.
In 1988, Mr. Robbins was one of eight players Mr. Bliss inherited from the regime of previous coach Gary Colson.
New Mexico was coming off a 22-14 season but had not earned an NCAA Tournament berth in 10 years. Whereas Mr. Colson's laid-back approach was well-received by players, Mr. Bliss' regimented practices and sometimes abrasive personality did not sit well.
"That's his personality," Mr. Robbins said, emphasizing that he never saw Mr. Bliss physically abuse a player. "He's got short man's complex, a little Napoleon in him. He's just a bully."
Mr. Robbins said that while Mr. Bliss was charming boosters, he was treating players like "garbage."
"He's a hell of a businessman, I'll give him that," Mr. Robbins said. "He's a marketing machine. He's probably the smartest man I've ever met."
Even the New Mexico boosters, however, weren't charmed for long, even as Mr. Bliss guided the Lobos to 11 NCAA Tournament appearances in 11 seasons.
New Mexico Athletic Director Rudy Davalos said that unlike football coach Dennis Franchione, who is now at Texas A&M University, Mr. Bliss did not seem to enjoy being in a town that was so focused on Lobos athletics.
"As far as the community, Franchione was very popular out there," Mr. Davalos said. "Dave was the opposite.
"A lot of people when he left were not bothered. A lot of people didn't care."
'Real friendly people'
Baylor reportedly paid Mr. Bliss twice what he was making at New Mexico, with some estimates putting his package at $600,000 annually.
Now the Bears have a new basketball coach, Scott Drew, but also a stain that isn't likely to disappear anytime soon.
Meanwhile, neighbors say it appears Dave and Claudia Bliss are preparing to move, although it could be to their property just outside of town.
It will take a long time, and probably a lot more distance, before they can truly move on with their lives.
"I've never had no complaint with them," said neighbor Edith Benner. "They're real friendly people.
"Everybody I hear saying anything says they're shocked."
Staff writer Barry Horn contributed to this report.
Dennehy St., who seems at best ethically challenged and his lawyer are hoping for a nice settlement. They are not even going after the alleged killer!
As Joseph Wambaugh said, we have terrorists in our midst who have made extortion acceptable and are wrecking our economy and threatening freedom of speech -- the trail lawyers and their greedy clients.
If true, he will be coaching prison basketball--from the inside.
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