Dave Bliss

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Dave Bliss was a college basketball coach, who resigned as head coach at Baylor University during the Summer of 2003 after an internal investigation discovered Bliss had paid the tuition of two players, Corey Herring and Patrick Dennehy.

Bliss graduated from Cornell, where he received his MBA.

He began his coaching career as an assistant coach at Army under Bob Knight. Bliss followed Knight to Indiana, where he met graduate assistant coach Doug Ash.

Bliss got his first head coaching position at the University of Oklahoma, where he coached from 1975-1980. Ash joined Bliss at Oklahoma as his top assistant. It was at Oklahoma where Bliss met his wife, Claudia.

From 1980-1988, Bliss was the head coach at Southern Methodist University. While at SMU, Bliss recruited and received a commitment from Dallas high school legend Larry Johnson. Johnson was illegally represented by Sherwood Blount, a Dallas-area real estate tycoon and SMU alum. Blount gained his first million by the age of 28, and was the primary financial contributor to the SMU football team's "slush fund" during the early 1980's. SMU became the first and only school to receive the death penalty after a 1986 NCAA investigation.

Johnson did not qualify for admission to SMU, and spent two seasons in junior college. Still represented by Blount, Johnson signed with UNLV before the 1989-1990 season and the team would go on to win the national championship that year. In his autobiography, former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian confirmed that Blount illegally represented Johnson.

Bliss' most successful player while at SMU was Jon Koncak, who was the fifth overall pick in the 1985 draft by the Atlanta Hawks. An NCAA investigation during the mid-80's reported that Bliss was involved in illegal payments to his players, but the NCAA chose not to pursue the investigation any further due to the football program having just landed the "death penalty."

Koncak told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that he received illegal payments while at SMU.

“The focus of that story was obviously Dave Bliss, but other people got caught up in it, which is unfortunate,” Koncak said. “But, yes, there had been some benefits while I was at SMU, and I did accept some of those benefits. What I did was against the rules."

The NCAA investigation memo from Bliss' time at SMU leaked during the Summer of 2003 at the peak of the Baylor basketball scandal. The memo reported that Koncak had illegally received the money during his junior and senior years from boosters as well as Bliss. Among those boosters were Sherwood Blount and William F. Stevens, two of the nine boosters who were eventually banned from any contact with SMU because of their illegal contributions to an SMU football team slush fund, which was uncovered during an NCAA investigation that led to the team receiving the "death penalty".

Stevens eventually moved to Crawford, TX, about 15 minutes from the Baylor campus. Stevens was a prominent contributor to the Baylor basketball program under Bliss, and hosted a postseason team party following Bliss final season (2002-2003). The existence of the party, an NCAA violation, as well as Stevens' involvement with the Baylor program as a booster were uncovered during the summer of 2003.

Bliss left SMU after the 1988 season to take over as head coach at the University of New Mexico.

Rob Robbins, who played for Bliss at New Mexico from 1988 to 1991, said he was not surprised by his former coach's fall.

"He's a liar, for one, a used-car salesman," said Mr. Robbins, who graduated as the school's second-leading scorer. "He'll promise you one thing and give you another. Everything he said or did was just a means to make him richer and more powerful and to feed his ego.

Bliss was hired to as the head coach at Baylor University before the 1999-2000 season. The school paid him $600,000 a year, reported to be twice his salary at New Mexico.

In his four seasons at Baylor, Bliss' team only made the post-season once. During his second season (2000-2001) Baylor made the NIT where they lost in the first round to Bliss' old team, New Mexico. Dennehy was a freshman on that New Mexico team that beat Baylor, and was named to the Mountain West All-Freshman team.

Preceded by: Joe Ramsey	Oklahoma Head Men's Basketball Coach 1976 – 1980	Succeeded by: Billy Tubbs
Preceded by: Gary Colson	New Mexico Head Men's Basketball Coach 1988 – 1999	Succeeded by: Fran Fraschilla
Preceded by: Harry Miller	Baylor Head Men's Basketball Coach 1999 – 2003	Succeeded by: Scott Drew