Dave Bliss

David Gregory Bliss (born September 20, 1943) is an American basketball coach.

He served as the head men's basketball coach at Oklahoma, Southern Methodist, New Mexico, and Baylor of the NCAA Division I, as well as Southwestern Christian of the NAIA.

Bliss was born and raised in Binghamton, New York and graduated from Binghamton Central High School in 1961.

He graduated from Cornell University in 1965 where he was elected to the Sphinx Head Society.

He was an all-Ivy League guard at Cornell, was captain of the baseball team, and was named to the first team Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League in 1965.

He then earned an MBA from Cornell in 1967.

Bliss began his coaching career as an assistant coach at Army under Bob Knight from 1967 to 1969.

After serving as an assistant at Cornell from 1969 to 1971, Bliss rejoined Knight at Indiana University from 1971 to 1975, where he met graduate assistant coach Doug Ash.

Bliss got his first head coaching position at the University of Oklahoma, where he coached from 1975 to 1980.

Ash joined Bliss at Oklahoma as his top assistant, and remained with Bliss for the rest of his career.

It was at Oklahoma where Bliss met his wife, Claudia.

From 1980 to 1988, Bliss was the head coach at Southern Methodist University.

Bliss was inducted to Cornell's athletic Hall of Fame in 1984.

He led the Mustangs to three NCAA tournaments, in 1984, 1985 and 1988.

One of Bliss's most successful players while at SMU was Jon Koncak, who was the fifth overall pick in the 1985 NBA draft by the Atlanta Hawks and gold medalist on the 1984 U.S. Olympic basketball team coached by Knight.

An NCAA investigation during the mid-'80s reported that Bliss was involved in payments to his players, including Koncak, in violation of NCAA rules.

But the NCAA chose not to pursue the investigation any further due to the football program having received the "death penalty".

Koncak told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that he received payments while at SMU, in violation of NCAA rules:

"The focus of that story was obviously Dave Bliss, but other people got caught up in it, which is unfortunate,' Koncak said. 'But, yes, there had been some benefits while I was at SMU, and I did accept some of those benefits. What I did was against the rules."

His best season was the 1987–88 season, in which the Mustangs won their first outright Southwest Conference regular-season title in 21 years and won the Southwest Conference tournament.

Bliss left SMU after the 1988 season to take over as head coach at the University of New Mexico, largely due to the violations surrounding the Mustangs football program.

He stayed at New Mexico for 11 years and is the school's all-time winningest coach.

Under him, the Lobos went to seven NCAA tournaments, and notched four NCAA tournament wins.

His best season at the school was 1995–96, when the Lobos finished 28–5 — second best in school history.

Baylor University hired Bliss as head coach for Baylor Bears basketball on March 23, 1999.

In his four seasons at Baylor, Bliss's team only made the post-season once.

During his second season (2000–2001), Baylor made the National Invitation Tournament, where they lost in the first round to Bliss's old team, New Mexico.

Dennehy was a freshman on that New Mexico team that beat Baylor, and was named to the Mountain West All-Freshman team.

After a memorial service for Dennehy in San Jose, California, Bliss asked to meet with school investigators.

At that meeting, he was told that Dennehy's girlfriend had told them Bliss paid for the sections of Dennehy and Herring's tuition not covered by financial aid.

Bliss confessed to making the payments, estimated at $7,000—a major violation of NCAA rules.

Two members of Baylor's 2001–02 squad told the Dallas Morning News that Bliss and several members of his staff had been present at a pickup game involving star recruit Harvey Thomas during his official visit to Baylor—another major NCAA rules violation.

It also emerged that Bliss and his staff knew about rampant marijuana and alcohol abuse among Baylor players, but did not follow procedures for reporting failed drug tests.

Bliss resigned from Baylor in 2003 following internal and NCAA investigations into a number of circumstances surrounding the murder of Baylor player Patrick Dennehy by teammate Carlton Dotson.

The NCAA investigation memo from Bliss's time at SMU leaked during 2003, at the peak of the Baylor scandal.

The memo reported that Koncak had illegally received the money during his junior and senior years from boosters as well as Bliss.

Under the circumstances, Bliss was forced to resign on August 8, 2003.

After Bliss resigned, it emerged that he had told players to make up a story about Dennehy being a drug dealer in order to pay for his tuition.

The story was intended to serve as a cover-up for Bliss paying Dennehy's tuition.

These included the alleged involvement of Bliss in making illicit tuition payments for players Dennehy and Corey Herring, and his attempt to frame Dennehy posthumously as a drug dealer in order to provide cover for himself; in 2005, the NCAA issued Bliss a 10-year "show-cause" notice.