Dave Bliss: Worthless. You will not believe this breaking news.....

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Report: Taped Bliss conversations show cover-up

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ESPN.com news services


Dave Bliss is no longer the Baylor basketball coach. But the shockwaves keep coming.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in its Saturday edition that Bliss directed a cover-up during the recent investigation into his program, and that his comments were caught on a hidden tape recorder by one of his assistant coaches.

According to the paper, Bliss wanted his players to provide false information concerning slain teammate Patrick Dennehy. The Baylor coaching staff had been accused of arranging payments for Dennehy's tuition, but Bliss asked his players to say Dennehy dealt drugs in order to pay for his tuition.

"What we've got to create here is drugs," Bliss said during one of those conversations, the Star-Telegram reported.

Bliss met with the Baylor investigating committee for more than two hours Friday night, the paper reported. Earlier in the day, assistant coach Abar Rouse, who taped the conversations, met with the committee.

After his meeting, Bliss told the newspaper that he was trying to "share some of the stories that I had heard, and I was completely wrong in what I did. But the bizarre circumstances painted me into a corner and I chose the wrong way to react. As of last Friday [Aug. 8], however, those days are over and I have co-operated completely and will continue to do so because I know I have disappointed a lot of people."

Baylor president Robert Sloan issued a statement Friday night saying he felt "betrayed by this attempt by our former basketball coach to suppress and conceal the truth. This further validates the work of our investigative attorneys, who in less than three weeks uncovered major violations, resulting in the resignation of Coach Bliss.

"I want to say to every member of the Baylor family that we will get to the bottom of this and will continue to communicate our findings in as open and transparent fashion as possible."

Rouse, a Baylor graduate who joined the Bears staff on June 1 as director of basketball operations, told the newspaper that he began recording his conversations because Bliss told him his job would be lost if he failed to cooperate. Rouse told Bliss he was reluctant to play along, but then received a copy of Bliss' contract in which the head coach had authority to hire and fire assistants.

The tapes also uncovered more attempts by Bliss to hide the truth during the allegations coming to light following Dennehy's death and the subsequent murder charge of former teammate Carlton Dotson.

Bliss, the tapes showed, knew that some players smoked marijuana and that Baylor coaches were not upfront about threats against Dennehy allegedly made by junior-college recruit Henry Thomas. Rouse made the tapes available to the Star-Telegram before meeting with the committee.

The counsel for Baylor's investigating committee, Kirk Watson, couldn't believe what he was hearing on the tapes.

"These tapes are evidence of a desperate person trying to cover up his activities. It is shocking. But the good news is it failed," Watson said. "Clearly, he was encouraging embellishment ... to try to cover himself. He used a lot of language to tell these young people that they would be all right if they embellished their stories."

Bliss resigned on Aug. 8, with Sloan declaring that the basketball program had committed "major" rules violations involving tuition and drug problems. Sloan has put the program on probation.

In the tapes, reports the Star-Telegram, Bliss said a perception could be made that Dennehy sold drugs to pay for his tuition. The tapes also revealed a conversation with Bliss and two players. Those players said they smoked marijuana with Dennehy, but neither ever saw him use or sell more potent drugs.

"First of all, nobody is ever going to know about the fact you might have smoked weed with the guys," Bliss told one player. "I think the thing we want to do -- and you think about this -- if there's a way we can create the perception that Pat may have been a dealer. Even if we had to kind of make some things look a little better than they are, that can save us."

The paper reported that during the same conversation, Bliss was hopeful the plan could work because Dennehy was not alive to refute it.

"You don't even have to tell me about Dotson because he's still alive," Bliss said. "But Dennehy is never going to refute what we say. "I've got some things to say about him, because he came in and tried to get me to help him with something, and I told him, `I can't help you.' Now I know that ticked him off, but he knows that's the truth. And now he's dead, so he isn't going to argue with me at all."

Dennehy's stepfather, Brian Brabazon, was angry when learning about the conversations on the tapes.

"You know what? Somebody is going down, because that is bull talking like that, especially trying to besmirch my son's name when he is dead," Brabazon told the newspaper.