Excerpts from the Bliss/Rouse Tape Transcript

Harry · August 18, 2003

July 30, Conversation 1

(Bliss and Rouse are in an office.)

Bliss: Tell me how you think it went with ...

Rouse: (Player 1)?

Bliss: (Player 1).

Rouse: He's on board.

Bliss: You think?

Rouse: Yep.

Bliss: Let me ... He's gonna say whatever it takes?

Rouse: I think so. I'm almost sure.

Bliss: See, (Player 2) will do the same thing.

Rouse: That's what I told him.

Bliss: Those two talking?

Rouse: I don't know if he called him yet.

Bliss: OK.

Rouse: But ...

Bliss: And I'll tell you, it's funny. (Player 3) will say whatever it takes.

Rouse: I just think with (Player 1) we're good. I know that (Player 1) ... I think we're pretty safe.

Bliss: We'll help (Player 1) after we get out of all of this.

Rouse: I told him. I said, "You know, you're gonna be in good favor with Coach." So I just told him, "Don't worry about anything else."

Bliss: We need to think of ... I just spent time with the lawyers.

Rouse: Yeah.

Bliss: Our whole thing right now, we can get out of it, OK? Reasonable doubt is there's nobody right now that can say that we paid Pat Dennehy.

Rouse: I understand.

Bliss: Because he's dead.

Rouse: I understand.

Bliss: OK? So what we have to do is create the reasonable doubt. I've aged about 30 years in the last two months.

Rouse: I know.

Bliss: I used to be young.

Rouse: I know.

Bliss: But the thing is, I've got like 30 years (in coaching), I've never talked to an NCAA guy, OK? So, I mean, that stands for something.

Rouse: Yes.

Bliss: And the thing about it is, what the lawyers want to do is all they've got to handle is $2,000 for the down payment (on the sport utility vehicle) and then like $7,000 on his tuition.

(The two then discuss whether someone else will help out.)

Bliss: And what we've got to create here is drugs.

Rouse: I understand. I don't ...

Bliss: Once we do that ...

Rouse: We're done?

Bliss: You know ...

Rouse: We're good?

Bliss: Reasonable doubt.

Rouse: I'm with you. I'm with you.

Bliss: So here's the thing that we've got to do. You think of this over the night. Like, did (Player 1) tell you any stories after I left or anything like that? Because what we want him to do ... Think about this.

Rouse: OK.

Bliss: We want him to tell stories to (law professor Bill) Underwood (a member of the internal investigative committee) that end in (INAUDIBLE). You know, "Coach, I'm a role player." I'm big on role-playing.

Rouse: Yeah.

Bliss: This is (Player 1). And what we have to decide is whether we want (Player 3) and (Player 1) to go together or if we want them to say the same thing and maybe (Player 2) say something different.

Rouse: I understand.

Bliss: So think of ... We don't have to do anything until tomorrow.

Rouse: OK.

Bliss: What we want to do is they tell the story, "We've been going to Dennehy's apartment. And what we've done out there in Dennehy's apartment (is), you know, we'll go up there and smoke some weed and drink some stuff and have some ladies up there. And then there's one time I went out there. And this was like the middle of May. And we're up there and we're getting ready to do some ---- (expletive deleted) and Pat walks in with a tray. All of a sudden on this tray, I notice some new ---- (expletive deleted). There's pills. There's whatever."

Rouse: I'm with you.

(Bliss digresses for a moment.)

Bliss: And then what happens is, they walked in and they put the tray down, OK?

Rouse: Yeah.

Bliss: And when they put the tray down, Patrick said something like, "We're gonna have some fun tonight and we're gonna let the other guys pay for it." And he brings out his roll of $100 bills.

Rouse: I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you.

Bliss: And so what happens is, the perception that he's doing other ---- (expletive deleted) at the same time ...

Rouse: Exactly.

Bliss: And what happened ...

Rouse: And so that's where he gets money.

Bliss: Yeah. That's where he gets a part of it.

Rouse: But they don't have to know where it comes from?

Bliss: They don't have to know anything. All these guys have to do is tell them what they saw.

Rouse: Exactly. OK.

Bliss: They don't have to fabricate something, but what we want to do is have decided whether we want two of them to agree or three of them to agree or one to agree to one story, one to agree to another story.

Rouse: Like another incident?

Bliss: Yeah. Another incident.

(The coaches discuss how to create another story about Dennehy's involvement with drugs, this one involving a Baylor recruit who has been accused by Dennehy's girlfriend of threatening Dennehy.)

Bliss: What does that sound like?

Rouse: That sounds good. That sounds believable.

(The coaches further discuss the player accused of threatening Dennehy, then discuss Carlton Dotson, who has been arrested in connection with Dennehy's murder, as well as media coverage of the case.)

Bliss: So. Now tell me the amount of time you talked to (Player 1) when you left here. You talked to him a little bit more?

Rouse: I just talked to him. ... I just wanted to spend another like hour with him just to let him know. We talked about that for just a couple more like minutes when I got over to his house. Just, you know, basically, "Hey, everything's gonna be all right. This is gonna be good for us, for the program." He'd like to save the program.

Bliss: Yeah.

Rouse: That brought a smile to his face. So ... I was like, "Look, you're getting off." I said, "You don't have to worry about anything. You're getting off scot-free on that. And so you just need to relax and ..."

Bliss: Abar, he tells us the story that he told us today about stuff and then what we do is we give him the kicker. In other words, he tells the story kind of like I told you just now.

Rouse: Yeah.

Bliss: And then we have him talk about the fact that he (Dennehy) brought out the roll of money.

Rouse: OK.

Bliss: Because, see, then he only has to remember one thing.

Rouse: The plate and ...

Bliss: See, the plate, that's kind of how they did stuff. He says they bring out the stuff.

Rouse: Yeah.

(The coaches discuss the player's story some more, then cover several topics, including another player who apparently once hung out with Dennehy, and discuss several people who have made accusations against the program. They then return to a discussion of the players they have spoken to.)

Bliss: All they've got to remember is they can tell the story, "We went up there (to Dennehy's apartment) and everything. And all of a sudden, he walked out with that tray and it had everything on it that you can imagine. And I knew something different was up. And then he pulled out his roll of bills. And when he pulled out that roll of bills, it scared us and we never went back."

(The conversation continues, with the coaches discussing the players' stories and their future in the profession.)

Bliss: And we are gonna win. I'll tell you, like I just spent two hours with our lawyer. He's a ----- (expletive deleted). That's why he told me, "Just give me reasonable doubt." He said, "This is the first time they've ever had an NCAA investigation with a dead person." So we don't have to have overwhelming evidence. All we've got to have is any reasonable doubt, because I've got 30 years in the business with no bad track record.

(The coaches discuss Dotson and people who have made accusations against the basketball program. Then Bliss mentions a Star-Telegram article detailing allegations against the basketball program when he was head coach at Southern Methodist University. He denies the accusations, which drew no punishment from the NCAA.)

Bliss: Twenty years ago, and I've been clean ever since. I've never talked to an NCAA person. So that's what I'm trying to save you guys with. And the only thing about it is, we've got to be tough during all this. (Bliss goes on about assistant coach Rodney Belcher, then the coaches discuss the logistics of getting two players together the next day to "kind of put a story together," in Bliss' words.)

(Bliss stops briefly to speak to his wife on his cellphone. Then conversation resumes. Rouse asks what's going on with the Sheriff's Department regarding the murder case. Bliss explains that it's a shift in jurisdiction and isn't important.)

Bliss: That's nothing compared to ... All we've got to do is come up with $2,000 and $7,000. We come up with that, then we're home free. (Another person) is going to help us a little bit with $2,000, and then the rest of it we've got to get from the drug thing.

Rouse: OK.

Bliss: And I'll tell you, this guy, if he had $5,000 in his pocket, you know, then anything's possible.

Rouse: I understand.

Bliss: So what we'll do is just create reasonable doubt. Well, why don't you plan on this. Why don't you get (Player 1). Make sure he gets to class in the morning. And then tell him we'll get him over here at 11 o'clock, both he and (Player 3), and we won't do anything tomorrow. We'll just talk about it from 11 to 12. And then we'll figure out after that what they want to do. We might do them Friday or Monday. If they're ready to go ... See, really, they're part of the story. There's really only gonna to be (INAUDIBLE). All they're gonna do is at the end of it say, "When he brought out that tray with all those exotic drugs on it, we got scared. All we wanted to do is smoke some weed. And then Pat reached in his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills and said, 'We'll let these guys pay for it tonight.' "

Rouse: Yep.

Bliss: That's like the key phrase: "We'll let these guys pay for it tonight." And all of a sudden, they both say the same thing, because they remember him saying that. Now with (Player 2), I have a hunch (Player 2) is gonna have a different story, because he might have gone out to that place out there in Leroy or might have been someplace where they dropped off some ---- (expletive deleted). But he'll have a story. We'll listen to his story, and then we'll put a little punch on it. He can tell the story, because that's his story, and then we'll put our punch at the end.

Rouse: I'm with you. It sounds good. Let's rock and roll.

Bliss: Yeah. All that lawyer wants ...

Rouse: Will that end the inquiry?

Bliss: What I think it'll do is give a reason for the extra money, and what they'll do, the inquiry, will then tie it all up and say, "This is what we found," and present it to the NCAA. And we could be done with it in two weeks. What I want to do is be done in August with it, once we get back in school. And if we do what I think we can do, we'll be done faster than that. Then what we end up doing is present it to the NCAA. They look at it. If they want to take it further, fine. If they accept it, then we go from there. If they want to take it further, then they have to wait for the criminal investigation to be over, and that's like a year or two later, especially now that Dotson says he didn't do it.

Rouse: I'm with you.

(The conversation in the office ends. Bliss and Rouse then walk out. Tape continues to run. Bliss reiterates that the unnamed lawyer is tough and will "eat up" bad stories. He says players will have to tell the same stories to NCAA officials if the NCAA doesn't believe it, but NCAA will be "easy" compared with the lawyer.)