Dave Bliss repeats charge that murdered Baylor basketball player was a drug dealer

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Former Baylor basketball coach Dave Bliss, in a documentary about the 2003 murder of Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy that premiered Sunday in Austin and will air later this month on Showtime, says he believes Dennehy was a drug dealer and described him as "the worst."

Bliss' comments, which he repeated Sunday in a separate interview, are a significant element of the film "Disgraced," which will air March 31 on Showtime. The documentary is directed by Elkins High School graduate Patrick Kondelis and produced by Bat Bridge Entertainment in Austin.

"Disgraced," which had its premiere at the South by Southwest festival, details Dennehy's 2003 murder by Baylor teammate Carlton Dotson and Bliss' subsequent efforts to cover up the fact that he was paying for Dennehy's scholarship, which was a NCAA rules violation.

It was long believed that Bliss fabricated the story, which he coached players to share with investigators, that Dennehy was a drug dealer.

Sunday, however, Bliss repeated his words from the film that the story was true.

Baylor basketball coach Dave Bliss speaks during a news conference Monday, July 28, 2003, in Waco, Texas. Bliss defended his staff's handling of the problems of players Patrick Dennehy and Carlton Dotson. A body found Friday night in a rural area about five miles south of Waco, not too far from gravel pits where authorities searched last week following the arrest of Dotson, was positively identified Sunday as Dennehy. (AP Photo/Waco Tribune-Herald, Duane A. Laverty) HOUCHRON CAPTION (08/03/2003): Bliss. less Baylor basketball coach Dave Bliss speaks during a news conference Monday, July 28, 2003, in Waco, Texas. Bliss defended his staff's handling of the problems of players Patrick Dennehy and Carlton Dotson. A ... more Photo: DUANE A. LAVERTY, AP Photo: DUANE A. LAVERTY, AP Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Dave Bliss repeats charge that murdered Baylor basketball player was a drug dealer 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

"He failed numerous drug tests," Bliss said in a phone interview. "I let his parents know when he failed those tests. Things escalated from there. All I did was repeat what players told me. I stand by what I said."

The film, however, includes comments by Waco police and others that there was no evidence that Dennehy was a drug dealer.

The 115-minute film includes several interview segments with Bliss, who is now coaching at Southwest Christian University in Bethany, Okla., but none more eye-catching than the segment he repeats his assertions about Dennehy.

"He (Dennehy) was selling drugs. He sold to all the white guys on campus," Bliss said. "... He was the worst."

As he repeated his comments about Dennehy, Bliss said, "You'll never be able to use this," and got out of his chair to continue talking with his face out of camera range but with his voice still audible.

Bliss, who resigned at Baylor in August 2003, acknowledged that he glommed onto the plan to smear Dennehy in an attempt to save his job.

"I got that from the investigative committee," he said. "The fact that I used their thoughts was reprehensible, but I didn't come up with the idea. I used the idea that the committee was pursuing."

In the film, he said, "I'm trying to grovel for higher ground. I got in the mud with the pigs, and I paid the price, and the pigs liked it."

Asked if he was aware that the camera was rolling when he made his comments to Kondelis, Bliss said Sunday, "I'm a little disappointed that he used it, but the reality is the truth."

"Now the real story is out there," he added. "Everybody thought that I made it up. When I agreed to speak for the documentary, I did so because I thought the story had been misrepresented for all these years. I feel badly that the whole thing occurred, and it was reprehensible, but everything I shared is the truth."

The Dennehy case has been largely forgotten in the wake of subsequent athletic successes at Baylor and, in recent months, a new controversy concerning Baylor officials allegedly turning a blind eye to a series of sexual assaults committed by students, including football players recruited by former coach Art Briles.

"Disgraced," however, drives home the point that the Dennehy case may be the most notorious college sports scandal in Texas history, even overshadowing the SMU pay-for-play scandal of the 1980s that resulted in the only imposition of the NCAA's "death penalty."

"To call it a college sports scandal is to minimize it," Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Danny Robbins, a former Chronicle reporter who covered the Dennehy-Dotson case for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, said in the film. "An innocent person (Dennehy) lost their life."

Bliss' attempt to coach his players to tell investigators that Dennehy was a drug dealer was exposed by Baylor assistant coach Abar Rouse, who taped his conversations with Bliss and gave the tapes to the NCAA and to Robbins. The tapes are heard for the first time publicly in "Disgraced."

Rouse, who attended the Sunday premiere in Austin, said "I think it's pretty sad that here we are. 14 years later, and he is continuing to besmirch Patrick's name. ... I think the camera caught Dave being Dave."

Rouse, who was unable to find another job in coaching after compiling evidence against Bliss, said he is disturbed that Bliss remains in coaching.

"What will the parents of those young men think when they see this?" Rouse said. "If this film reveals to them what he really is, then that is a blessing in disguise for those families."

The film also suggests that Dotson may have been mentally unfit to enter a guilty plea to Dennehy's murder. He was sentenced to 35 years, which was more than Dotson's family said he expected but lighter than prosecutors believe that he deserved.

John Segrest, the McLennan County district attorney at the time, told Kondelis that Dotson's court-appointed attorney, Abel Reyna, said he wanted to change Dotson's plea to guilty because a trial would make Baylor University look bad in the public eye.

Others interviewed in the film question Dotson's mental stability and his ability to comprehend the charges against him. Kondelis also details reports that Dennehy and Dotson had been threatened prior to the shooting incident by another Baylor basketball player and by the player's cousin.

Bliss, based on his comments in the film, still believes himself to be the primary casualty of the Dennehy-Dotson matter, the director said.

"I feel he blames Dennehy for what happened to him," Kondelis said. "He sees himself as a victim."

While the film does not refer directly to the current controversy involving Briles, who was fired after an investigation conducted by a Philadelphia law firm, and former Baylor president Kenneth Starr, who was demoted and later resigned, it does include an oblique reference to the potential for more trouble in comments by Grady Irvin Jr., Dotson's former attorney.

"If Baylor doesn't respond to requests as to what was going on, the cancer is always going to be there," Irvin said, referring to the Dennehy case and what he thought was the unwillingness of some Baylor officials to face the issue. "And it will resurface if you don't get it all. It will come back."