18B • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SPORTS
MONDAY, AUGUST 18,2003
President will grant all releases
Baylor program to be on probation because of major NCAA violations
The Associated Press
John Lucas III, Baylor's starting point guard, said Wednesday he has received his release to talk to other schools about transferring.
Baylor president Robert Sloan said Monday that any player who requests a release will be granted one. He also said the school would support a petition to the NCAA to waive the requirement that players sit out a year when transferring to another NCAA Division I school.
Sloan said last week he was putting the program on probation for at least two years because of major violations of NCAA rules, saying it will not participate in the postseason this season, including the Big 12 tournament.
Lucas, who is spending the summer in Houston, said more than half dozen schools, including Georgetown and Arkansas.
have already contacted him about transferring.
"It's just like high school all over again." he told Houston television station KRIV on Wednesday. "It's exciting but it also makes me nervous because you don't want to make the wrong decision."
He hasn't decided on his future, but said he plans to decide with his father if he will remain at Baylor or finish his basketball career elsewhere.
"Right now, it's still more like a shock to everybody," Lucas told the Dallas Mallorca News in a story in Wednesday's online edition. "The whole thing, it's like, it can't be happening. It's like it's a movie. It’s all crazy. But I know I’ll have to figure things out sometime soon, because school starts in a couple of weeks."
The development may quiet talk that his father, former Cleveland Cavaliers head coach John
Lucas, is a candidate for to be the head coach at the school. He declined to comment on whether he had been contacted by Baylor.
Sloan
"We're trying to listen and learn," the elder Lucas told the newspaper. "My concern is him. Once I help him decide what he needs to do, then I can go forward from there and talk about my situation."
Attempts by The Associated Press to reach the Lucases by telephone Wednesday night were unsuccessful.
Lucas joins other Baylor stand-outs Lawrence Roberts, the Bears' leading scorer last season, and Kenny Taylor, the third-leading scorer, who requested and received releases from Baylor on Tuesday. On Sunday, one of Baylor's top recruits, 6-foot-9 center Tyrone Nelson said he would ask for a release from his national letter of intent.
Baylor organized a six-member search committee Tuesday to find a new coach and athletic director.
Former coach Dave Bliss and athletic director Tom Stanton abruptly resigned last Friday after school officials revealed that Bliss was involved in two players' receiving improper financial aid and that staff members did not properly report failed drug tests by players.
Questions about the basketball program came about after the disappearance of Baylor player Patrick Dennehy, whose body was found in a field July 25. Dennehy, who was missing about six weeks, was shot twice in the head. A former teammate and roommate, Carlton Dotson, has been charged in Dennehy's death.
Some of Dennehy's family and friends said a coach gave him money for a car and apartment rent and that his tuition was taken care of, although he was not on scholarship after transferring from New Mexico.
Sloan: Boosters have no paid ball players
The Associated Press
No boosters have been involved with paying Baylor basketball players, according to school president Robert Sloan.
Sloan would not elaborate last week on where two athletes got money for tuition, an NCAA violation that led to the resignations of coach Dave Bliss and athletic director Tom Stanton on Friday.
"Thus far, I have no knowledge of any booster money being involved in improper payments." Sloan said during a news conference. "...I know of absolutely no evidence of a slush fund."
Allegations of NCAA violations surfaced after the disappearance in mid-June of basketball player Patrick Dennehy, whose body was found July 25 in a field near a rock quarry southeast of town. He died of gunshot wounds to the head, according
to a preliminary autopsy report.
Carlton Dotson, who played
basketball at Baylor last season and lived with Dennehy for a few months, has been charged with murder. He remains jailed in his home state of Maryland, awaiting transfer to Texas.
One of Dennehy's friends has said an assistant coach gave Dennehy blank money orders to buy a vehicle and for his apartment rent. Patrick Dennehy Sr. has said a coach assured his son the school would help him pay tuition and living expenses after the player gave up his scholarship for a year. Dennehy's mother and stepfather, Valorie and Brian Brabazon, have said they were not paying his tuition
— more than $17,000 a year —
and living expenses.
In a news conference Friday, Sloan said Bliss was involved in the violations but that Stanton had no direct knowledge of them. Sloan put the basketball program on probation for at least two years.
Sloan also met with players and their families for more than two hours Monday, saying there was "frustration, tears, commitment, all kinds of emotion in the room." Bliss and Stanton also attended the meeting.
Matt Sayman, a senior, said he and at least two other players will return this fall, despite Sloan's self-imposed sanctions barring the team from postseason competition next season.
"We have nothing to lose, so we're just going to go and play hard and try to gain people's respect as we go and get a couple of wins along the way." Sayman
said.
Sloan said last week he would announce a search committee that would work quickly to hire a basketball coach and an athletic director.
Richard Guinn said his son, basketball player R.T. Guinn, will stay at Baylor because he is a senior. R.T. Guinn wants to be a college coach, his father said.
Guinn said school officials discussed the NCAA rules regarding transfers, but that no one in the meeting said if they planned to leave.
Sloan said Baylor agreed to release any player who requests it but that the NCAA will decide whether to waive a rule requiring players to sit out for a year after transferring.
Guinn said the group also praved for Dennehy.
"I wish we could go back in time," Guinn said, "like it never happened."
The Associated Press
Tapes show Bliss asked players to lie to police
WACO, Texas — Secretly recorded tapes and handwritten notes show former Baylor basketball coach Dave Bliss told his players to lie to investigators looking into program violations and say a slain player had paid his tuition by dealing drugs, two newspapers reported Saturday.
"The bizarre circumstances painted me into a corner and I chose the wrong way to react," Bliss told the Star-Telegram. Since resigning, he said, "I have cooperated completely and will continue to do so because I know I have disappointed a lot of people."
Earlier this month, Baylor President Robert B. Sloan Jr. said an internal review committee found two players received improper tuition payments and that Bliss admitted involvement.
Bliss, who resigned Aug. 8 after the investigation into Patrick Dennehy's death, has admitted to being involved in paying players' tuition and acknowledged the attempted cover-up to both the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Dallas Morning News.
The review committee found no evidence Dennehy was involved in drug dealing, committee chairman and law professor Bill Underwood said.
The tapes of Bliss speaking with players were secretly recorded by assistant coach Abar Rouse, the Star-Telegram reported. In them, the newspaper says, Bliss is heard telling his players what to say to investigators.
"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," Bliss is heard saying on one tape according to the newspaper. "Even if we had to kind of make some things look a
little better than they are, that can save us."
The tapes also apparently show that Bliss knew some players smoked marijuana and that Baylor coaches lied when they denied knowledge another player, Harvey Thomas, had threatened Dennehy before Dennehy's disappearance.
In one conversation, Bliss indicated Thomas would be willing to lie about Dennehy's activities because Baylor coaches had publicly said they knew nothing about Thomas' threats.
"Harvey will do anything," Bliss told Rouse. "And the reason is because we did it for Harvev."
Thomas has denied the threats or any involvement in Dennehy's death. A former teammate, Carlton Dotson, has been charged with murder.
Rouse said he made the secret recordings July 30-31 and Aug. 1 after Bliss told him he would lose his job if he didn't help carry out the deception.
In a statement Friday night, Sloan said he felt betrayed by Bliss' attempt "to suppress and conceal the truth."
Kirk Watson, counsel for the review committee, said members were stunned.
"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.
Underwood told the Morning News that the review committee also found that Bliss wrote scripts for players and coaches to review before talking with authorities. The scripts included fabrications alluding to drug use by Dennehby.
Dennehyn's stepfather, Brian Brabazon, said he was outraged by Bliss' actions, "especially trying to besmirch my son's name when he is dead."
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