PHILADELPHIA – Dave Bliss should go to jail. And he should stay there for a while.
Jim Harrick should visit him. And hang around for a time just to get a feel for the place.
The criminals, cheaters and liars have become the face of college basketball. Every coach is now being branded because of the sins of his peers.
There are 327 Division I men’s basketball coaches. Too many of them will do anything to win. Too many others are assumed to be Nick Nolte in “Blue Chips,” because of what they do, not who they are.
Coaches find they must defend themselves against a perception., which is why the National Association of Basketball Coaches called for a summit of Division I coaches on Oct. 15 in Chicago.
That they recognize they have a problem is a nice place to start. Putting Bliss in jail would be even better. That really would send the proper message.
Bliss, the former Baylor coach, is every bad coaching stereotype come to life.
This man, hiding behind religion and masquerading as a teacher, is a liar and a cheater, and perhaps a criminal. And he has no heart and no soul.
Last spring, Bliss took away Carlton Dotson’s scholarship because, in the coach’s opinion, the player he recruited could no longer help his team win.
As police investigated the disappearance of Baylor player Patrick Dennehy this summer, Bliss tried to distance his program from Dennehy.
He lied about what he knew and when he knew it. He told Dennehy’s parents he knew nothing about any threats toward their son, even as it became obvious he did.
Eventually, Dotson was charged with Dennehy’s murder. Dennehy’s body was found in a field outside Waco, Texas. And Bliss, who had been helping fund Dennehy’s tuition against NCAA rules, tried to paint Dennehy as a drug dealer.
Why?
To demonstrate how Dennehy might have been capable of paying his tuition and to take the heat off himself. Baylor was over the 13-scholarship limit, and Bliss wanted more players.
Has there ever been a more callous man in the history of intercollegiate athletics?
Won’t authorities be interested in possible obstruction of justice charges?
After all, his own players have said the coach encouraged them to lie to investigators. Shouldn’t somebody want some answers from this man, who portrayed himself as virtuous and turned out to be a fraud?
Shouldn’t some Division I coach hire Abar Rouse, the young former Baylor assistant who taped Bliss’ shameful attempts at a cover-up and blew the whistle on the coach who not-so-subtly threatened his job if he did not go along?
Bliss was turned down by a jail when he volunteered his services there late last month.
If there is any justice, he might not be in position to volunteer soon.
Bliss is just the worst possible example of what seems like an epidemic.
There was Harrick at Georgia, presiding over an academic scandal and pretending he knew nothing about it.
Who can forget the president of St. Bonaventure approving a player with a welding certificate?
Were the Bonnies about to win the NCAA title? Was Bob Lanier still eligible?
Baylor? When has that school ever won anything? And why would they even try? What are these people thinking?
And whatever has become of Iowa State hoops coach Larry Eustachy?
If you suggest much of this starts at the level of the college presidents, you would not be wrong. Presidents have pressure to raise funds. They are trying to attract students. Winning sports teams, it has been proved, does both. Sadly, this mentality also breeds Dave Bliss.
The only thing worse than preaching sports writers is preaching coaches. Do not trust either. Trust the facts. And the facts are that college basketball has an unprecedented image problem.
And who can leave out the football coaches? Mike Price and Rick Neuheisel did not have great off seasons.
Can anybody here tell the truth? Can anybody behave? Does anybody get it?
The answer to all three questions actually is a resounding yes. The problem is that nobody knows it. Everybody knows Bliss, Harrick and their ilk. They don’t know Penn’s Fran Dunphy, Notre Dame’s Mike Brey or Niagara’s Joe Mihalich.
Nobody knows an athletic director like Villanova’s Vince Nicastro, who simply does not know how to lie.
Everybody hears about the players who beat up women, get somebody else to take their SATs or go along with a school when nobody insists they go to class.
They don’t know about the thousands of kids who really want to do the right thing, the players who mix class, basketball and life. Who knows whether the summit will solve anything?
What the coaches can do is promise to no longer look the other way when they see a colleague breaking rules that pertain to the game’s fundamental integrity.
The Code of Silence must go.
Everybody blames the NCAA. That’s way too easy.
Remember, the NCAA is the schools. They don’t trust each other, which is why the NCAA and all its rules exist.
The coaches know this. Now, they must do something about it, and something about themselves.

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