Death And Deception Summary

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Mike Wise’s article Death and Deception documents the scandal that engrossed the Baylor Bears men’s basketball programs during the summer months of 2003. In June 2003, Patrick Dennehy, a Baylor basketball player, was murdered by his teammate Carlton Dotson. Dennehy had transferred to Baylor and the upcoming 2003-2004 season would be his first as a Bear; he redshirted the 2002-2003 season. Baylor’s head coach, Dave Bliss, was also forced to resign that summer after the increased scrutiny that Dennehy’s murder brought upon the basketball program led to many of Bliss’s rule violations being discovered. The after-effects of what occurred in the summer of 2003 stuck with Baylor’s basketball program for quite awhile as their probation only ended …show more content…

During this time Bliss had compiled over 500 wins and had the 13th most wins of any college basketball coach ever. With a reputation like that, it is natural that one would resort to drastic measures to preserve it. Throughout his illustrious coaching career, Bliss, hadn’t always been ethical and did, at times, resort to committing NCAA violations in order to win on the basketball court. Bliss had broken NCAA bylaws by giving impressible benefits to and paying the tuition of several of the team’s walk-on and transfer players. Bliss had also looked the other way on numerous failed drug tests. One of the beneficiaries of Bliss’s illegal benefits was Patrick Dennehy. Knowing that his actions will likely be discovered because of the public’s interest in Dennehy, Bliss told several of his players to lie about Dennehy and his character to investigators. Bliss’s orders were secretly recorded by Abar Rouse, who was one of his assistant coaches. On these tapes Bliss was heard emphasizing to his players that Dennehy “could not refute [your] stories, because he is dead”. Dave Bliss would later resign and was punished by the NCAA by receiving a 10 year show-cause order, which would make it nearly impossible for him to be hired by another NCAA-affiliated organization. Several members of Bliss’ staff received show-cause orders as well. It’s highly unlikely that Bliss ever coach …show more content…

This insinuation brought to mind the social process theory that I had read about in my textbook. The social process theory emphasized the social process, or the learning and interactive processes involved in causing criminal and or deviant behavior. In this article it is noted that both Carlton Dotson and Patrick Dennehy grew up in tough neighborhoods. Thus, when they both arrived on campus after transferring, they naturally bonded. Another side-effect of growing up in a tough neighborhood was that they were both quite paranoid and viewed violence as a more acceptable solution than most others. Thus, it was only natural that both bought guns after they believed that their teammates had stolen $300 from the apartment that they shared. This paranoia also, sadly, may be why Dennehy is no longer living as Dotson stated that he had shot Dennehy as a matter of self-defense as he had “felt

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