Disgraced Page #5

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He says, "I'm at Baylor."

And one of the first things

I did when I got to Waco

was meet with Abar in

the parking lot at

McLennan Community College

and right away,

I could see he was scared,

distracted,

things were going on with him

and that was in mid-June.

And this was his dream job.

He went to Baylor.

Suddenly, he's now on the

coaching staff at Baylor,

the school he loved and

look what's going on.

And early on, you could tell

he felt there was some

manipulation of the facts

that wasn't on the up and up

and he was concerned about it.

[Dan Rather] Baylor University

in Waco, Texas is coping with

having to defend the reputation

of its basketball program

and rightly or wrongly, in some

ways, the university itself.

I'm looking for Patrick.

I'm looking for every

possible avenue.

I just felt that we needed

more authorities involved

in Patrick's investigation and

that's the point where I took

the initiative to self-report

my own NCAA violations

and also report Patrick's

because as I understood,

the NCAA worked with the

FBI when necessary.

I told the NCAA that

I had received money...

on several occasions.

And that Patrick had received

money and he had received a car.

The first time that I hear

that coaches are paying

Patrick Dennehy is through

media reports and on the news.

The rule violations reportedly

include payments to players.

[reporter] And that Dennehy

bought this SUV with cash,

that Baylor paid its players

under the table.

I remember being asked

if I was paying

Patrick's tuition.

And I said, "No, he's on

scholarship."

You have the question of

how did Patrick pay,

you know, the $30-40,000

tuition to go to...

and fees to go to Baylor

when he couldn't have been.

There were so many questions

flying around

and I never dreamed that

Patrick wasn't on scholarship.

He's a 6'9" future NBA player.

Of course, he's on scholarship,

but he wasn't.

He wasn't on a scholarship.

So, all of a sudden, the

university as a whole

has a real big problem

on their hands.

[Charles Gibson] We're going to

turn next to Dr. Robert Sloan.

He's the President of Baylor.

There have been questions about

whether money was being paid

under the table to

Patrick Dennehy,

who was not on scholarship

and had bought an SUV

and had living expenses

to take care of, etc.

Has the school

looked into that?

You know, there is nothing

in Coach Bliss'

distinguished record to support

those kinds of allegations,

but on the other hand, we take

allegations of this sort

very seriously.

I remember when

Bliss was hired

and I remember thinking

to myself,

"Okay, Dave's back in Texas

where he was before at SMU

and I wonder when all that

SMU stuff is going to

come up and bite him

in the ass."

[reporter] The sanctions

levied against SMU

go beyond the one-year

death penalty.

The NCAA has tacked on

another two years

to its current

probationary period.

SMU will be on probation

until September 1st of 1990.

[Robbins] Football had an

elaborate program in which

the coaches took money

raised by nine boosters,

tens of thousands of dollars

given to recruits

when they signed with

essentially a stipend,

a contract that paid them

X amount a month.

They were caught in 1985,

lost every scholarship one year,

couldn't go to bowl games

and Governor Clemmons and others

swore they wouldn't do it again.

low dramatic music

Well, they did.

They kept paying the players

that were on the quote, payroll,

and that's how they

got the death penalty.

SMU wanted to find out,

really,

how much damage had been done,

so they hired Southwest Security

and Investigations to go in

and investigate this and

I was the guy that did it.

[Robbins] They went to the

best player Dave ever recruited,

John Koncak, and the private

investigator, Denny Kelly,

went to John Koncak and

John Koncak told him.

[Kelly] He told me that

after his freshman year at SMU,

that everybody on the basketball

team was getting paid.

And he said they would brag

about it and he said,

"I wasn't getting paid."

And he said,

"I went to Dave Bliss.

And I said, 'Dave, I want to

get paid like everybody else.'"

And he says, "Within two days,

I had a Ford Mustang,

brand new," and he said,

"I moved into a really,

really nice apartment."

One day I just stopped by

Dave Bliss' office and I went in

and I said, "Dave," I said,

"I'm getting all these stories.

You sure you don't

want to..." you know.

And he just, he got really

upset with me.

He said, "I told you everything

I have to tell you

and that's the way it is and if

anybody's telling you different,

they're lying."

And all this kind of...

He didn't throw me out,

but he, he did everything

but throw me out of his office.

You know, the period

about SMU, that's hard for

me to know too much because

I never did anything.

[Robbins] The NCAA did some

of their own investigating.

They had plenty of information.

They just felt, what else are

we going to do to SMU after

they got the death penalty,

so they kind of put it

on the back burner.

And Bliss went off to

New Mexico with a quote,

clean record, that nobody

knew the real story.

I have no question and

no doubt in my mind,

from what I heard, what I saw,

what people told me,

that Dave Bliss was fully aware

of the players getting paid

in various ways:

cash, cars, apartments,

that kind of thing.

low dramatic music

I received a phone call

from the

Dorchester County Sheriff's

Office, who indicated to me

that Carlton Dotson wanted

to make a statement

and wanted an FBI agent

present.

And frankly, at the time,

I think my first question

to Captain Hurley was, "Who's

Carlton Dotson and why does

he want to talk to the FBI?"

My understanding is that at that

point, an attorney, his attorney

had sent notifications out to

different media outlets

that Carlton Dotson was going

to make a statement.

I was thinking, do we have some

sort of publicity stunt taking

place here or what exactly

are the circumstances?

[Carlton laughs on recording]

[Carlton laughs on recording]

[reporter] Dotson left the

Sheriff's Office in this

burgundy vehicle without

talking to reporters.

He was picked up by his

former high school coach.

I was very concerned about

his mental health at that time.

I tried not to ask a lot of

questions, I just wanted

to talk to him and just make him

know that I was there for him.

He was talking about

seeing angels.

Um, he was crying some.

He didn't eat and

he didn't sleep

and we were very concerned.

Talked about Jesus,

talking about the devil.

He would see...

he would see witches.

He'd say he was Jesus Christ

and you know that's impossible.

He said he had to protect us

because if he would talk,

something would happen to us.

He wanted to protect his family.

You know, he had said that

he saw me in heaven

and don't worry, you know, about

myself, that I was going to-

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