Photo: Otto Gruele/ Getty

Southwestern Christian University men’s basketball coach Dave Bliss announced his resignation this evening just a few days after Showtime premiered a documentary on the murder of former Baylor player Patrick Dennehy by then-teammate Carlton Dotson in 2003. Bliss was the Bears’ coach at the time, and his handling of the scandal is a major part of the documentary.




Bliss agreed to be interviewed for the documentary, even though it would inevitably reflect harshly on his time in charge of Baylor. After Dennehy was killed, Bliss repeatedly claimed that he had paid his tuition at Baylor by selling drugs. In fact, Bliss had violated NCAA rules by paying Dennehy’s tuition himself after Dennehy transferred from New Mexico. The NCAA was closing in on Bliss, and he cooked up the drug dealing story (which Waco PD say there is no evidence for) to shake investigators.


In the documentary, he repeated his claim, saying, “He was selling drugs. He sold to all the white guys on campus ... He was the worst.” Despite the apparent fabrication, Bliss defended his comments after they were revealed last month.

“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 only surprising thing about Bliss’s resignation is that he held a job for this long.

If you have a Showtime login, you can watch “Disgraced” over at their site.