Truth and Consequences

Kevin McCarthy
 

One of the aspects of college sports that has fascinated us for some time is the unspoken etiquette of silence among coaching staffs, a code of looking past wrongdoing or suspected wrongdoing by another coach or coaches, or even within a coaching staff.

Former Baylor coach Dave Bliss

The concern with this is, once accepted, where is the line drawn, if at all? Does everything and everyone remain unreportable, regardless of the seriousness of any suspected offense? If not, then what is fair game and what isn’t?

Obviously this subject is far more important and sometimes deadly serious when pertaining to police, military or certain government officials, as opposed to college sports.

Obviously this subject is far more important and sometimes deadly serious when pertaining to police, military or certain government officials, as opposed to college sports. For who can forget the infuriating case of New York police officer Frank Serpico, who attempted to do his job without taking kickbacks and the like? He was shot and gravely wounded as a result of his fellow officers shunning him. Or more currently, how about Sergeant Joseph Darby who exposed the wrongdoing at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq and, because of death threats to him and his wife, eventually had to enter the military’s form of a witness protection program and move away from his hometown?

Despite our national mythology about so-and-so never telling a lie, reporting wrongdoing can exact a heavy toll.

But we’re veering too much into an apples and oranges comparison so let’s return to college coaching.

History indicates that the line of demarcation is drawn thusly among college coaches: recruiting offenses and the willful breaking of coaching limitations--times, days, hours for drills, scrimmages, phonecalls, etc.--flagrant or not so flagrant violations of NCAA rules and regulations, are considered off the table, not reportable.

A recent Sports Illustrated article about Tennessee Coach Bruce Pearl and his emergence on the national scene contained an excerpt about his darker days. As an assistant coach at Iowa, Pearl taped a phone conversation with a prospect regarding money and a vehicle being offered to the young man by conference rival Illinois. The end result for Pearl was death threats to him and his family and his exile to the coaching hinterlands.

Of course, there are different versions of the actual ‘truth’ depending upon who is offering it. But the reality afterwards for Pearl was that he ended up coaching at Divison II Southern Indiana for nine years, winning a national title in 1995 and then moving up to his alma mater Wisconsin Milwaukee. Pearl surprisingly took that team to the Big Dance before Tennessee, his present coaching destination, came calling.

Has Pearl enjoyed the last laugh? Who knows? What is certain is that he has reached the pinnacle level of his profession, coaching a top 25 team, despite his banishment and exile.

Mike Jarvis became an ESPN analyst after being fired by St. John’s

A similar case involved the director of basketball operations at St. John’s passing along improper payments, totaling close to $10,000, to a player on the team. St. John’s ended up on probation after the staffer pled guilty and cooperated with authorities.

Then Johnnie Coach Mike Jarvis was let go by the school as a result but he received no penalty from the NCAA. The director of basketball operations, the lowest position on a basketball staff and not one that has direct access to large sums of cash, received a three year "show-cause" sentence imposed on him by the NCAA--meaning anyone attempting to hire him would have to explain the reasoning behind such a move--plus an unspoken death sentence from the college coaching fraternity.

Mike Jarvis moved over to the bright lights of ESPN as an analyst. His assistant coach son headed to Duke to fill the same position there.

Something is wrong with this picture.

Remember the inconceivable situation of former Baylor Coach Dave Bliss and his willingess to destroy the reputation of Patrick Dennehy, one of his players? Dennehy had been murdered by a fellow Baylor basketball player yet Bliss afterwards concocted a coverup story in a scumbag attempt to save his job.

Bliss was already in hot water with the NCAA because of swirling allegations regarding recruiting improprieties, illegal payments to players, tuition irregularities, plus player drug policy violations. Eventually he was fired.

The NCAA also imposed a 10-year "show-cause" order on Bliss for his actions. Doug Ash, who had been Bliss’ top assistant throughout Bliss’ entire coaching career, was hit with a five-year "show-cause" order. Another former assistant, Rodney Belcher, was hit with a seven-year "show-cause" order for recruiting violations regarding Dennehy and lying to the infractions committee.

But here’s the unfathomable: During the investigation, Bliss attempted to smear Dennehy as a drug dealer, saying that was how Dennehy afforded his own tuition. This despite Bliss having illegally covered the cost of Dennehy’s tuition out of his own pocket.

One of Bliss’ other assistants, Abar Rouse, secretly taped Bliss pressuring the Baylor players and assistant coaches to lie about Dennehy. The Fort Worth Star Telegram obtained these tapes. On them, Bliss is heard saying "I think the thing we want to do--and you think about this--if there’s a way we can create the perception that Pat may have been a dealer."

Even worse, if such is possible, Bliss wanted his players to say they saw Dennehy in possession of an array of drugs and a roll of $100 bills, noting that Dennehy was in no position to deny this because he was dead.

According to Rouse, Bliss told him he would be fired if he didn’t cooperate with the lies.

As of 2006, Rouse was a graduate assistant coach at Midwestern State University in Texas, earning $8,000 annually. He is no longer there and we couldn’t locate an update on him.

Values sometimes come with a price.

Granted, the St. John’s and Baylor situations are anomalies--the Baylor one especially so--definitely not the norm and by no means do we wish to give or leave the impression that such actions are everyday occurrences.

Do remember that college coaches either win or get fired. Graduation rates don’t mean a thing if not accompanied by many more wins than losses. This, despite the public platitudes offered by university presidents and most fans.

Also, do keep in mind that college coaching is an unusual situation. It consists of working with young people who don’t always utilize the best judgment-- as if adults are infallible--in a setting that is often public but also laden with privacy restrictions. Personnel decisions are made, eventually proven correct or incorrect, but ‘insider’ information needs to remain just that or legal and costly ramifications may result. So a head coach must be able to trust his staff that the whys and wherefores of certain decisions and matters--the background--remain private.

But at what cost?

In the Baylor/Bliss situation, it seems readily apparent to any individual with a thread or two of moral fiber that what Bliss was attempting to do merited exposure regardless of any coaching code. But not according to Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim or Coach K at Duke who lambasted Rouse for his lack of ethics in taping private conversations. We were unable to locate any opinions offered by Boeheim or Krzyzewski regarding Dave Bliss and his tactics. A further note for what it’s worth: Krzyzewski and Bliss were assistants under Bob Knight back in the mid 70s.

But coaches are no different than the rest of us, an ever-shifting mix of saint and sinner. So why the expectation of behavior anywhere approaching purity? A number may make a lot more money than we do and have a marked impact on a large number of young adults but they are judged on the court by the often unfair and impossible.

On the other hand, it is a chosen profession, coming with an acceptance of the sometimes shifting moral parameters enveloping it.

But isn’t that something--albeit a lower level but still high-wire balancing act--most of us face everyday?

Yet within the coaching ranks, the awareness of such vice, even if not the specific details, must remain within the club.

Or else.