I’ve heard about more scandals in college sports in the last three months than I have in a long time. Recently, Miami’s football program and, wait for it, Boise State women’s tennis team have come into the public spotlight for wrongdoing. Hearing all of these recent allegations has made me think about other scandals in college sports history.
Although it’s widely believed that Southern Methodist University is the only program to receive the death penalty, that is not the case. The first team to have its entire athletics program shut down was the University of Kentucky. Kentucky won three national championships in four years between 1948 and 1951. During their tournament run in the 1948-49 season, three members of the Wildcats' basketball squad were accused, and eventually convicted, of shaving points. The NCAA and the SEC investigated the program. Alex Groza, Ralph Beard, Dale Barnstable, and All-American center Bill Spivey were found to have intentionally lost Kentucky’s game against University of Loyola-Chicago. As a result, Kentucky was barred from competing in ANY sport during the 1952-53 season, well after the convicted players had graduated. The story doesn’t stop here. Maurice Podoloff was the President of the NBA when all of this was occurring. After hearing what had happened at the University of Kentucky, Podoloff barred all the players involved in the scandal, including Groza and Beard, from ever playing in the NBA again. Not only did this hurt the players, it caused the financial downfall and eventually bankruptcy of the Indianapolis Olympians, who were one of the first members of the NBA. Maybe Roger Goodell and David Stern should take a chapter out of Podoloff’s book.
Another scandal that rocked the sports world occurred at Baylor University in 2003. In 2001 sophomore forward Patrick Dennehy transferred from New Mexico State University to play for Baylor during the 2002-2003 season. Carlton Dotson was also a transfer to Baylor and played the 2001-2002 season. On June 19, 2003, Dennehy was reported missing by his mother and stepfather after Dennehy didn’t call them on Father’s day.
On June 25th, Dennehy’s SUV was found in a parking lot in Virginia Beach, VA, but Dennehy was nowhere around. During this time, Dotson had returned to his home in Maryland and had told his cousin that he had shot and killed Dennehy while they were firing guns outside of Waco, Texas. On July 21, Dotson was charged with the murder of Patrick Dennehy and taken into custody in Maryland. Dennehy’s body was found on July 25 and eventually Dotson was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
So how did this affect Baylor’s basketball team? Simple answer: it rocked their world. Long answer: an NCAA investigation was launched that entangled players, coaches and virtually the entire athletic department and nearly tore the program apart.
One thing that was called into question was how Dennehy was financially eligible for the team. Dave Bliss, then head coach of Baylor basketball, had already reached his scholarship limit when Dennehy transferred. Yet, somehow, Dennehy received an athletic scholarship. It was also found that while Bliss was at SMU, a booster paid a star center between $2000 and $5000. This allegation followed him to Baylor. In addition to these violations, several family members of players voiced allegations of rampant alcohol and drug use on the team. They alleged that Bliss and then AD Paul Bradshaw knew of the use, but did nothing to stop it. Other violations committed by the program included coaches being present at offseason “pick-up” games and meals, and transportation and clothing were provided to the players free of charge. As if all this weren’t bad enough, Bliss asked his players to lie to the NCAA...and this conversation was recorded.
Bliss was hit with a 10 year “show-cause penalty,” which means until 2015, Bliss cannot coach at any institution affiliated with the NCAA. The program also was banned from any non-conference games during the 2005-06 season as well as loss of multiple scholarships.
In its final report, the NCAA called the violations at Baylor as serious as those which occurred at SMU almost 20 years earlier. In fact, due to major violations by the Men’s tennis program, Baylor was up for the “death penalty.” The only reason it did not happen was because the institution reacted quickly and took care of their own house-keeping.
Although the recent allegations by several athletic programs seem really bad, there have been worse. Scandals aren’t new to the NCAA, but it seems like they keep getting more outrageous.
Robert is a junior studying journalism and electronic media. You may contact him at rdavis60@utk.edu.
