Baylor BB may be in trouble..Dennehy

[OldTimer]

Dennehy given money by coach, father says

07/23/2003

By JEFF MILLER / The Dallas Morning News

The father of missing Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy said Tuesday that his son told him that a coach arranged to help pay for his education and living expenses, a potential NCAA rules violation that school officials dispute.

Patrick Dennehy Sr., speaking by phone from his home in Tacoma, Wash., also said his son's girlfriend, Jessica De La Rosa, informed him that she has talked to the NCAA staff about the possibility that a coach helped his son buy an automobile.

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Baylor University

Patrick Dennehy

Mr. Dennehy said his son told him a coach promised to "take care of'" him after he transferred to Baylor and agreed to give his scholarship to another player last season. " 'Patrick, are you sure you want to give up that slot?' " Mr. Dennehy Sr. said. "He said, 'I'm the new kid on the block. I want to seem like I'm a team player.' "

Baylor athletic department spokesman Scott Stricklin said coach Dave Bliss and his staff would not comment on Mr. Dennehy's statements other than to say, "Our coaches claim that the story is false." Mr. Stricklin said the school was aware of the allegations before Tuesday and had begun an inquiry independent of the athletic department.

"We take matters of NCAA compliance very seriously," Mr. Stricklin said. "Any time we get a hint of anything along these lines, we research it with all due diligence. Thus far, we've found nothing to indicate there's any validity to it."

Colleges

Video: Brett Shipp reports

Read the affidavit (.pdf)

07/22: Waco police say former teammate confessed

07/20: Behind friendship, a mystery

07/19: Dennehy teammate yielded few leads

07/18: 'Person of interest' talking with police

07/11: Bliss: Staff not told of threats against missing player

07/10: Dennehy puzzle wears on loved ones

07/10: Dennehy said he was stalked

Patrick Dennehy bio

(from baylorbears.com)

More Baylor

The NCAA, a governing body for college sports, prohibits extra benefits to athletes. An NCAA spokesman said the organization, as is its policy, would neither confirm nor deny whether it was investigating the Baylor program.

Reached by phone Tuesday at her Albuquerque, N.M., home about the allegations and possible contact with the NCAA, Ms. De La Rosa said, "I can't talk about any of that. I'm not going to confirm or add anything. I can't talk about that."

The issue of the younger Dennehy's finances at Baylor, a private school, has been one of the unanswered questions since his family reported him missing in mid-June. Former teammate Carlton Dotson has been charged with murder, accused of shooting him in Waco. Police are searching for Mr. Dennehy's body.

Mr. Dennehy had attended Baylor last year after two seasons at the University of New Mexico but could not play until this fall because he was a transfer student between Division I programs. Coaches have said he was not on athletic scholarship, meaning he was responsible for tuition and other expenses. But they said his scholarship would have taken effect this season.

School officials have declined to release information on whether Mr. Dennehy had obtained loans or grants to pay for his education, citing privacy laws.

Frustrated with school

His father said he wanted to give his account of what his son told him, partly because he has become frustrated by the school's lack of communication with him about his son's disappearance. Mr. Bliss and Baylor officials have said they acted quickly when they learned that Mr. Dennehy had vanished.

Mr. Dennehy said Tuesday that his son told him that the Baylor coaching staff asked him to give up his athletic scholarship for the 2002-03 academic year so that it could be used by a teammate. When he pressed his son to explain how the school's tuition would be paid, Mr. Dennehy said his son told him an assistant coach who knew his son well told him "they will take care of me."

"I said, 'Don't be surprised at the end of your time in school that you get a bill for that year.' He said, 'Oh, no. They said they're going to take care of it.' I said, 'Hold on. Let me tell you how these things work. They're going to have you sign papers for student loans and student grants. And you have so long after you get out of school to pay those off.' And he said, 'No. They're going to take care of me.' "

"I said, 'How are you going to pay your rent, pay your tuition and all these things?' He said, 'I don't know how they're going to do it, but he [the assistant coach] said they're going to take care of me.' "

Close to assistant coach

Mr. Dennehy said that his son had an extremely close relationship with the assistant coach, that the coach was his son's mentor. That assistant could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Mr. Dennehy also said he was curious about how his son paid his rent at the Sterling University Parks complex. He said he was told by an employee of the complex that the player usually paid with money orders.

Apartment manager Kelli Chapman declined Tuesday to discuss Mr. Dennehy Jr.'s rental history, citing tenant privacy.

Mr. Dennehy Jr.'s mother and stepfather, Valorie and Brian Brabazon of Carson City, Nev., have said that they couldn't pay his tuition, living expenses and car payments.

"We live paycheck to paycheck," Mr. Brabazon said last weekend when discussing his stepson's time at Baylor. He said the family struggled financially this month to determine how to pay to send Mrs. Brabazon from their home to Waco to pack their son's belongings when the apartment lease ran out at the end of June.

Mrs. Brabazon said her son, soon after arriving in Waco last year, asked her to fill out forms to help him apply for financial aid. She said the family learned later that the application was rejected because their income was too high.

She said that her son ultimately told her that the school had helped him arrange to get tuition money, and that she assumed it came from grants and loans.

"He said Baylor was taking care of it," she said.

"I figured he'd gotten one of those student loans and stuff," Mr. Brabazon said Monday. "I never really thought about it. I just knew he was going to Baylor."

Mr. Dennehy Sr. said Ms. De La Rosa, a student athlete who met Mr. Dennehy at the University of New Mexico, told him that someone connected with Baylor made part of the $2,000 down payment last October on the younger Dennehy's Chevy Tahoe. That vehicle was found abandoned June 25 in Virginia Beach, Va.

"[Mr. Dennehy Jr.] asked me to co-sign on the vehicle, which I did," Mr. Dennehy Sr. said. "He had a knee operation last year. He was laid up [when buying the Tahoe], so I called up the dealership and said, 'Hey, what's it going to take to get that Tahoe delivered to him because he's laid up?' The guy said, 'Really, not too much. Just the $2,000 that's going to go down on it.' I said, 'Oh, I wasn't aware of that. I guess he must have it. He didn't talk to me about it.'

"As it turns out, speaking with Jessica just recently, he apparently got that from one of his coaches. Jessica told me it was somewhere between $1,200 and $1,800."

Staff writers Lee Hancock, Keith Whitmire, Arnold Hamilton and Rachel Cohen contributed to this report.

E-mail jmiller@dallasnews.com

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[eagle60]

And church schools are so beneficial and uplifting! Financially speaking, of course!

Its actually morally uplifting to know the bast###s are so pious about where the money comes from.

[eagle60]

Oh, and I forgot to include Southern Methodist U's football program a few years back! They used the wrong "Method."

[Greenblood94]

Whether or not the allegation is true, it sure sounds like Mr. Dennehy, Sr. is a bit bitter with the Baylor people over his son's apparent death, and is looking for some payback.