Las Vegas High School Hires Disgraced Former NCAA Coach Dave Bliss
Former NCAA coach Dave Bliss was hired as the athletic director of Calvary Chapel Christian School. The disgraced former basketball coach gets another chance; this time, at the high school level just months after he resigned as head coach at a Christian university over controversial remarks seen in a documentary.
Bliss, 73, notoriously resigned from Baylor University in 2003 after one of his players Patrick Dennehy was murdered by teammate Carlton Dotson. He was included in the controversy for allegedly making fabricated claims against the victim being a drug dealer to pay for his education.
It was later learned that Bliss concocted the story to hide the fact that he was actually paying for his late player's tuition with his own money in violation of NCAA rules. He stepped down from his position as head coach at Baylor after the association banned him for 10 years. The ban was lifted in 2015, and he was immediately hired by Southwest Christian University.
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But in the Showtime documentary "Disgraced," Bliss reiterated his remarks about Dennehey saying: "He was selling drugs. He sold to all the white guys on campus...He was the worst." He spent two seasons at Southwest Christian and resigned after the airing of the documentary. Calvary Chapel took him in thereafter.
The Las Vegas high school may have considered the veteran coach's track record of 526 career wins at NCAA's elite Division 1 level. September Wilson, a coach and teacher at Calvary Chapel, said she felt "absolutely" comfortable working with Bliss whom she described as "a man of Christ."
Sought for his comment on Bliss' hiring, Calvary Chapel Superintendent John Trevino merely gave a Bible verse — 1 Timothy 1:15 which says: "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of who I am chief."
