DRUG WARRIOR OF THE YEAR: DAVE BLISS

Drug Warrior of the Year: Dave Bliss

Earlier this summer the local and national media reported the
mysterious disappearance of Patrick Dennehy, a member of the Baylor
basketball team who had grown up in Richmond. Dennehy's body was found
in late July; it had been ditched outside the Waco city limits. Soon
thereafter a teammate, Carlton Dotson, was arrested and charged with
murder. Dotson was a troubled young man whom Dennehy had invited to
room with him, thinking he could be of help.

Investigators were informed by Patrick Dennehy, Sr., that his son had
been paid under-the-table by Baylor coach Dave Bliss. (Young Dennehy
wasn't paid much, given the coach's $300,000 salary and the revenue
athletes generate for the university.)

In late July Bliss tried to orchestrate a posthumous frame-up of
Dennehy. Telling several players that he knew they used marijuana, he
suggested that they mislead the investigators "to create the
perception... that Pat may have been a dealer." If Dennehy had an
illicit source of funds, Bliss and Baylor's basketball program would
be in the clear.

A newly hired assistant coach named Abar Rouse, a black man, was told
he'd lose his coveted job if he didn't help Bliss. Rouse, 28, had the
savvy to secretly tape his boss pursuing the vile scheme. Rouse then
gave the tapes to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which broke the story
and posted the transcripts on its website.

The first tape is of a July 30 meeting between Bliss and
Rouse.

Bliss: I just spent some time with the lawyers... Reasonable doubt is
there's nobody right now that can say that we paid Pat Dennehy. Rouse: I
understand. Bliss: Because he's dead. Rouse: I understand. Bliss: So what
we have to do is create the reasonable doubt... What we've got to create
here is drugs.

Bliss hopes he can involve three players who are identified on the
tape as Players 1, 2, and 3. Player 1 had previously acknowledged
getting marijuana from Dennehy (but said that Dennehy had given it
away for free). Player 2 is a power forward who'd gotten into an
altercation with Dennehy and reportedly had threatened him. Player 3
is a Caucasian whose dad had expressed support for Bliss when rumors
about illegal payments first surfaced.

On the July 30 tape, Bliss suggests that Rouse urge Player 1 to "tell
stories to Underwood" (Baylor law school professor Bill Underwood, a
key member of the university committee investigating the basketball
program). He then weighs whether the three should tell the same story
or variations.

Bliss: We have to decide whether we want Player 3 and Player 1 to go
together or if we want them to say the same thing and maybe Player 2 say
something different... We don't have to do anything until tomorrow. Rouse:
Okay. Bliss: What we want to do is they tell the story, "We've been going
to Dennehy's apartment. And what we've done out there in Dennehy's
apartment, you know, we'll go up there and smoke some weed and drink some
stuff and have some ladies up there. And then there's one time I went out
there. And this was like the middle of May. And we're up there and we're
getting ready to do some s--- and Pat walks in with a tray. All of a sudden
on this tray, I notice some new s---. There's pills, there's whatever. It
was like all kinds of wild s---." What's a mushroom? Rouse: It's a drug,
obviously, but... Bliss: I mean, it's not a regular mushroom... Rouse: I
really don't know. Bliss: I'm asking the wrong... Rouse: I don't know about
that. I mean... Bliss: Okay, but you get my drift. Rouse: Yeah. Bliss:
.And when they put the tray down, Patrick said something like, "We're
gonna have some fun tonight and we're gonna let the other guys pay for it."
And he brings out his roll of $100 bills. Rouse: I'm with you... Bliss: And
so what happens is, the perception that he's doing other s--- at the same
time... So that's where he gets money.

Coach Bliss then concocts a story for Player 2:

Bliss: What he does, he goes out with them, and all of a sudden,
they're driving around, dropping s--- off. And he -that's when he gets
mad. And he stresses, says, "Listen you f-----, get me out of this car."
Rouse: Okay. Bliss: Or "Take me back. I'm not gonna get involved with this
s---." Rouse: ... That sounds believable because all the people are talking
about threats, and that leads back to the threats. Bliss... Yeah, I mean,
that's kind of where I get it from...

Rouse asks if Player 2 is "on board." Bliss replies, "F---, yeah. He's
the best. That f---- will lie when the truth is easier."

Then they discuss Player 1. Rouse says he told him not to worry about
his own marijuana use, he'd get off "scot free." Bliss says he wants
Player 1 to add a "kicker" to his story when he talks to
investigators. "In other words, he tells the story kind of like I told
you just now, And then we have him talk about the fact that he
(Dennehy) brought out the roll of money."

Rouse asks Bliss if Player 3 is "all right?" Bliss says, "He was
solid... He's the one actually that kind of told me a lot of this
stuff... He'd go up there [to Dennehy's apartment] five or six times.
And really it was only those guys [Dennehy and Dotson]."

That last image -the two tall young men, alone in their room-is worth
bearing in mind as Bliss repeats his fantasies of drug-fueled parties.

In his contempt for the athletes, Bliss repeats that he doesn't want
to overburden them with things to remember. "All they have to remember
is they can tell the story, 'We went up there and everything. And all
of a sudden, he walked out with that tray and it had everything on it
that you can imagine. And I knew something different was up. And then
he pulled out his roll of bills. And when he pulled out that roll of
bills, it scared us and we never went back... The kicker is the
smorgasbord and then the roll of bills."

Bliss says that he asked Athletic Director Tom Stanton if the Baylor
lawyer -presumably Kirk Watson, who is directing the internal
investigation-believes his story. Stanton reportedly replied, " 'He
believes you. And he believes that you wouldn't do anything like this.
And he also believes that with a dead man, he doesn't have to come up
with the same type of proof."

On July 31, Rouse taped Bliss's session with Player
1:

Bliss: ... Player 3 thinks he might have seen Pat with some more money than
(inaudible). He also knew that Pat had that dark side to him, that he hung
with some people that were different... did you ever hear anything about
them doing anything with those guys down in Houston? Player 1: Houston?
Bliss: I think that's where they were getting a lot of their stuff. When
you guys did s---, where did you get it? Player 1: Local (inaudible)... You
can just go down Sixth Street, dude walking down the street, can come to
your car.

Bliss effectively threatens the player with exposure, citing comments
by Dotson's ex-wife.

Bliss: But I refuted that. She got mad at me. She tried to say that you and
Dotty and Dennehy and guys would smoke dope before practice. But I told
her... I made her take that off the table. I told her, 'There's no way,
because I know Player1 was over at study table.' So she didn't dare say
that to anybody... Nobody is ever gonna know anything about the fact that
you might have smoked weed with the guys. I think the thing we want to do,
and you think about this, if there's any way that we can even create the
perception of the fact that Pat may have been a dealer... Bob Fuller [a
Waco police detective who had investigated Dennehy's disappearance] thinks
he got the money from dealing drugs, that he was a supplier for the people
here in town, that they would go around and maybe go down... A guy from
Houston would drop it off here or they'd go up to the methamphetamine thing
up there in Leroy or whatever that is. And he said they were dealing with
some high-powered drugs and that Dennehy, you know... Again, you think
about this. He was doing some exotic s---, doing some different stuff."
Player 1: I think he wouldn't do it around me.. He'll probably just smoke
we'd around us because we smoke weed. But something else, I'd get away from
that. There's a line I draw. I just don't go past weed. Bliss: See, when I
was growing up, that was beer. I drank a beer or smoething like that, and I
do that just to relax. That's all part of being a college student and doing
that s---. Did you ever think he had like a different set of friends?
Player 1: ... I didn't hang around him unless we were smoking. Because he
was practing at first, but then he hurt his knee. Bliss: ... You can say,
"When Pat hurt his knee, all of a sudden, he wasn't at practice the same
amount of time. And he wasn't around us as much. And I noticed he started
having some different friends."

Player 1 doesn't take the hint. He repeats that Pat always had
marijuana.

Bliss (undeterred): Perfect. Stuff like that accounts for everything.
And then what we can do, we can say -and again, not to put words in
your mouth-but if you just said this single statement I think it
would help: "One time I was over there doing it and Pat brought out a
lot of stuff. Mushrooms and all this stuff." And then you can say, "I
know that the guy, Pat, was doing some wild s---."

The session ends with Bliss telling Player 1, "Honest to goodness, I
think what we can do here is save Baylor. Like I did here, I
embellished, okay, but the essence of what is there is there, and all
I did was add a little bit..."

The transcript of the Aug. 1 session contains less dialog and more
summary, as if the Star-Telegram transcriber was wearying of the task.
It begins with Bliss telling Player 3 "Underwood really likes you. The
lawyer. You met him at church or saw him at church the other day?" To
which Player 3, the son of a respected Texas Baptist, replies, "Yeah."

Bliss shows him something that Player 1 allegedly "put together" and
asks if "that" -presumably Dennehy's smorgasbord of drugs and roll of
bills-indeed happened. Player 3 says he hasn't seen "Pat doing this,
but I know it can happen."

Bliss: As much of the truth as you can say, say the truth, because you can
always remember the truth. And then the only thing I would do at the end is
just say, "Pat would get people knocking on the door all the time. He would
get phone calls. And he'd take people in the back room and he had a wad of
money..."

Player 1 arrives, invited, Bliss explains, so that "You guys can get
the same story. Wouldn't that be helpful?" They reminisce about
smoking weed at Dennehy's apartment. When Bliss hears that a certain
player was there on occasion, he says "(the player) is one of those
guys that's trying to get us... What we can do is discredit him."

Bliss, relentlessly pitching his scenario, asks at what point in time
Dennehy got more "involved in drugs?" According to the summary,
"Player 1 says more after Pat hurt his knee, apparently referring to a
mid-October injury... Bliss suggests that both talk into a tape
recorder to get comfortable with their stories. Player 1, apparently
talking into a tape recorder, said he would go to Pat's house to
'chill out and smoke.' He said people would come over there, and that
he saw Pat once with a wad of money... Player 3 then talks into
recorder with a similar story. He would go over to Pat's and smoke.
Pat would get a phone call. Later, somebody would come over. They'd go
back to Pat's room. Pat would come out with a big wad of money.

"Bliss then seems to role play, relating back the players' stories as
he wants to hear them. How they'd go to Pat's to smoke some marijuana.
How it would help them relax. That they didn't do it much, but when
they did, Pat was 'the guy' because he never charged, and always had
marijuana. That Pat had hurt his knee in the fall and wasn't around
the team as much. That there were different guys in the apartment, not
just players, but people from different walks of life, and that phones
were ringing. And in May, Pat started 'changing... They had different
stuff... Guys were asking about pills, all kinds of different stuff.'
And how they saw Pat come out of his bedroom with 'a wad of bills in
his pocket.' That Pat was 'going down the wrong road.'"

Bliss had jotted down and made copies of a list of six points for the
players to bear in mind when talking to Baylor or McLennan County
investigators. "You guys are going to do super on this!" he told them.
Point three explains his constant probing about Pat's "different" friends.

1. How long has he been doing this -buying and selling? Started about
time he huyrt knee. Got worse in spring. 2. Not potheads -have girls
now. 3. Who was there? Mexicans -strange people 4. Stopped going in
May. 5. Your life is going in diff direction than Pat & Carlton. 6. No
doubt that he was selling -wad of bills in pocket .

Baylor officials have accepted Bliss's resignation and are now
"distancing" from him, but the president of the university, Robert
Sloan, reportedly retailed the story about Dennehy being a dealer in a
conference call with the regents. And how could Sloan not have known
how the basketball program operated? (Baylor is the world's largest
Baptist university and Coach Bliss's first words as he faced the media
after resigning were, "I am a Christian...") In his defense we note
that Coach Bliss is being crucified for doing what certain
hard-charging law enforcement officers do on a daily basis as they
fight war on drugs: suborn false testimony, conflate marijuana with
dangerous drugs, portray users as dealers, etc. etc.

Gwen Knapp of the Chronicle wrote a lite-fact column Aug.19 wondering
how Bliss might be punished. "A prosecutor might have to be a little
creative to go after Bliss, but the coach's behavior has been so
repugnant that even the most meekly (sic) D.A. should be inspired to
handle this case as if he or she were Magic Johnson at crunch time."
(How do those sportswriters come up with those colorful similes?)

This case should not be handled by McLennan County district Attorney
John Segrest, a graduate of Baylor and its law school whose top aide
is the wife of the law school dean. Also on Segrest's staff is the
university president's daughter, Cherissa Sloan. Segrest should
recuse himself and the office. This is a jury-tampering case for the
U.S. Attorney. The federal statute applies to anyone who "knowingly
uses intimidation, threatens or corruptly persuades another person, or
attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another
person with intent to influence delay or prevent the testimony of any
person in an official proceeding." And it carries a 10-year sentence.

To date the FBI has not requested the tapes made by courageous Abar
Rouse. The tapes have been forwarded to the NCAA, while Baylor lawyers
and the McLennan County D.A. await dubs.

An alternative punishment might involve extraditing Coach Bliss to
Richmond, California, and placing him upright in a modern-day "stock"
for a period of time -say, over Labor Day weekend-in a playground,
with a basket strapped to his chest, so that he can be used as a human
backboard. You ask, What would Jesus say to such a plan? "Let he who
has never framed an innocent, defenseless man take the first shot..."
Or maybe just, "Gimme the ball."