At the 2003 press conference introducing him as the new Baylor University head men’s basketball coach, Scott Drew said his goal was to lead the school to a national championship. Many in attendance held their breath to keep from chuckling at the lofty goal. The statement in itself was not absurd; every collegiate coach in the country has the same aspiration.

For Baylor, however, the dreams of a title seemed exceedingly far-fetched as the school had recently endured tragedy and was ensconced in the one of the worst scandals in collegiate athletic history. The chances of the Bears ever cutting down the nets seemed only a fantasy.

Scott Drew walked into a disaster when he accepted the Baylor job, perhaps the biggest mess any collegiate coach has ever inherited. The program was in shambles involving many of the typical wrongdoings such as recruiting violations, illegal payments, and lying to investigators. It was set apart from others, however, with the inclusion of the ultimate crime.

Baylor player Patrick Dennehy had recently been murdered by a teammate. Following the killing, the despicable actions of Drew’s predecessor, Dave Bliss, came to light.

Eighteen years later, in April 2021, Baylor, led by Coach Drew, won the NCAA championship in impressive fashion, trouncing previously undefeated Gonzaga in the title game. Some believe the title deserves an asterisk, partially because of the special circumstances necessitated by the COVID-plagued season. Most, however, believe if an asterisk is placed next to Baylor, it should signify a most amazing accomplishment in coming from rock bottom to the top of the mountain.

Patrick Dennehy

After playing his freshman and sophomore seasons at the University of New Mexico, Patrick Dennehy transferred to Baylor.

Ironically, New Mexico played Baylor in the 2001 NIT tournament during Dennehy’s freshman season.

 

Originally A Lobo

Baylor head coach Dave Bliss, had, also ironically, previously coached at New Mexico.

Dave Bliss 

Baylor Head Men’s Basketball Coach

NCAA rules required Dennehy to redshirt (sit out) the 2002-03 season. He was preparing for the upcoming 2003-04 season when he would resume his basketball career as a Baylor Bear.

Dennehy practiced, but never played a game in the green and gold.

Dennehy Transfers To Baylor

On June 19, 2003, Patrick’s mother and stepfather, Valerie and Brian Babazon, reported their son as missing.

Though Patrick was last seen on June 12, his friend in California, Daniel Okopnyi, says he spoke on the phone with him on June 14. Patrick, Daniel says, was agitated, saying he and Carlton Dotson, his closest friend on the Baylor basketball team, had been threatened by two other teammates. The duo were so concerned for their safety that they had purchased two pistols and a rifle.

Patrick was last seen on the afternoon of June 12, in the company of Dotson, practicing shooting the guns at a farm north of Waco. Thirteen days later, and four days after his parents filed the missing person’s report, Patrick’s Chevrolet Tahoe was found 1,400 miles away in a Virginia Beach, Virginia, shopping mall parking lot. Its license plates had been removed.

The locale was not far from where Dotson had grown up in rural Maryland.

Carlton Dotson and Patrick Dennehy

Dotson had returned home to Maryland and told his cousin he had shot Patrick to death following an argument at the Waco shooting range. The nature of the argument is unclear.

Six weeks later, on July 21, Carlton Dotson was charged with the murder of Patrick Dennehy, even though the latter’s body had not been found.

Dotson Is Arrested

Four days later, on July 25, a decomposed body was found in a gravel pit near Waco. Medical examiners identified it as that of Patrick Dennehy and confirmed he had been killed by multiple gunshot wounds to the head.

Although Patrick’s head and body were found in different locations and early news reports stated he had been decapitated, authorities believe the separation resulted from scavenging desert animals.

Patrick’s Body Is Found

Carlton Dotson was declared incompetent to stand trial In August 2004, but the ruling was reversed in February 2005. On June 8, five days before his trial was to begin, he pleaded guilty to killing his teammate.

Dotson was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison, with the chance of parole after serving half of the sentence. He wrote a letter in December asking the judge if he could appeal his sentence. His request was denied, as he was told he had forfeited his right to appeal by pleading guilty.

Dotson Is Sentenced

Following Patrick Dennehy’s murder and Carlton Dotson’s conviction, the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) found the Baylor men’s basketball program to have committed numerous violations, several of which centered on their slain player. The most serious violations included:

• Coach Bliss paying for tuition for two players, Dennehy and Corey Herring, and attempting to conceal it because all of the allotted scholarships had been given. Both players were told and believed they were under scholarship.
• The coaching staff providing meals, transportation, lodging, and clothing to players.
• The coaching staff paying for tuition and fees for recruits at other schools.
• Bliss’s encouragement of school boosters to donate to a foundation tied to a basketball team that included prospective Baylor recruits.
• Failure to report positive drug test results by athletes.
• Failure by the coaching staff to “exercise institutional control over the basketball program.”

Baylor was placed on probation until 2010, was prohibited from non-conference play for one year, and was docked several scholarships for three seasons. The penalties were among the harshest ever imposed on a Division I program, stopping short of the “death penalty,” i.e. the complete shutdown of the program.

Baylor Is Severely Reprimanded

The NCAA has imposed the death penalty on an athletic program only five times. The last of the three times it was rendered on a Division I school was on the Southern Methodist University (SMU) football program in 1987. Coincidence or not, the head basketball coach at SMU at the time was Dave Bliss. Shortly after the investigation was completed at SMU, Bliss resigned to accept the head coaching position at New Mexico.

The investigation into the Baylor scandal showed that Bliss had likely also broken several NCAA regulations during his eight-year tenure at SMU.

Coach Bliss Had Probably Committed

 Earlier Infractions At SMU

Bliss was forced to resign as Baylor head basketball in August 2003. He denied all the NCAA’s accusations saying, “We have followed the rules.”

Recordings given to the NCAA and leaked to the press one week later, however, suggested otherwise. They showed Dave Bliss was not ignorant of the infractions committed under his watch.

Bliss Is Forced To Resign

Conversations secretly recorded by Baylor assistant coach Abar Rouse from July 30-August 1, 2003, reveal Bliss telling his players to lie to investigators. Rouse taped the conversations after Bliss threatened to fire him if he did not go along with the scheme.

Bliss is heard instructing his players to say the slain Patrick Dennehy financed his tuition through drug deals. The tapes also show that Bliss and his staff knew that Dennehy had been threatened by two teammates even though they publicly denied such knowledge.

Despite the findings of probable extortion, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering, no criminal charges were filed against Bliss.

Incriminating Tapes

In addition to the heavy penalties levied on the Baylor basketball program, the NCAA also came down heavy on Bliss personally. They described his actions as “despicable behavior” and “unethical conduct.”

In 2005, the NCAA imposed a ten-year show-cause penalty on Bliss, meaning that until 2015, any NCAA school wishing to hire him had to report to the organization every six months stating that he was in compliance with the restrictions, unless that school could demonstrate that he had served his punishment.

As most universities will not consider hiring a coach with a show-cause order, the effectively blackballed Bliss from coaching for a decade.

Bliss Gets A Ten-Year Show-Cause Penalty

After the show-cause order expired in 2015, Bliss returned to the college basketball coaching ranks at the much smaller Southwestern Christian University. He resigned in April 2017, following the airing of the Showtime documentary Disgraced, chronicling the scandal and cover-up at Baylor.

A Brief Return To Coaching

Bliss’s interview in the Disgraced documentary only worsened his image as he still claimed the murdered Patrick Dennehy was a drug dealer.

No speck of evidence to verify the claim has been found.

Disgraced Dave

Patrick Dennehy’s killer, Carlton Dotson, is incarcerated in the John B. Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas. He was denied parole in December 2020, December 2021, and February 2023.

On March 25, 2024, Doston was granted parole on the condition that he first complete a prison program. He is currently working on doing so.

Conditional Parole Granted

The scandal and aftermath crippled, but not kill, the Baylor men’s basketball program. From 2003-07 the Bears won only thirty-six games. In 2008, however, they made the NCAA tournament. The 2010 and 2012 teams both advanced to the Elite 8, the school’s deepest NCAA tournament run since going to the Final Four in 1950.

After several more solid seasons, Baylor was a projected #1 seed going into the 2020 NCAA tournament before the COVID pandemic forced its cancellation. The following year, Scott Drew fulfilled his goal of compiling a championship team.

Baylor was ranked #2 for most of the 2020-21 season, behind Gonzaga. But they were ranked #1 at the only time it mattered– at the end of the season. Baylor handily defeated previously unbeaten Gonzaga, 86-70, in the 2021 title game to win the school’s first men’s national basketball championship. Baylor has been consistently ranked in the Top 20 in subsequent seasons.

From The Ashes To The Champions

For many years, Baylor University has had the reputation of emphasizing athletics over academics.

At the time of the basketball scandal, the men’s tennis program was on probation for major violations. In 2017, several football players were accused of sexually assaulting a female student. In 2021, a jury found the University was not negligent in the alleged assaults.

Baylor is still fighting a public relations battle which began with the murder of Patrick Dennehy and the infractions of Coach Dave Bliss, but it has come a long way since those dark days.

Baylor Is Rebounding

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7715977/patrick-james-dennehy

SOURCES:

• ABC News
• Dallas Morning News
• Disgraced (documentary)
• ESPN
• Fox Sports
• Houston Chronicle
• New York Times
• Waco Tribune-Herald