Spring Break
Mystery at Baylor University
Missing player a devastating blow
Michael O’Keeffe | NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Issue date: 7/10/03 Section: Sports
"How does Bliss tell the parents of a recruit that their son will be safe at Baylor?" asks Johnson.
Dennehy has been missing for three weeks, and optimism that he is still alive fades with each passing day. "There's always a glimmer of hope," Waco police spokesman Steve Anderson says, his voice trailing off.
Without a body or stronger forensic evidence of a crime, Anderson later admits, it will be difficult to file criminal charges. "You want to find a body," Anderson says. "Until then, we're at a stalemate, we're just hitting dead ends."
As the summer session began last week, dusty bulldozers and piles of dirt dotted the Baylor campus, part of university president Robert Sloan's ambitious "Baylor 2012" plan to build a state-of-the-art campus.
The conservative school that forbid dancing until 1996 is eager to become an elite academic institution with big-time sports.
Across University Parks Drive is the Ferrell Center, the Bears' handsome basketball arena, and the Baylor Ballpark, a three-year-old baseball stadium with red brick and green girders that looks like the Ballpark at Arlington.
Baylor athletics, however, have not kept pace with its glistening sports facilities. The woeful football team has had four coaches in eight years. The baseball team advanced to the NCAA Super Regional this spring, but it is better known for the two players who were suspended two years ago for beheading a stray cat.
The basketball team, meanwhile, hasn't been to the NCAA Tournament in 15 years. The program was placed on probation in 1994 for five years when coach Darrel Johnson was fired amid allegations of academic fraud. During the 1998-1999 season, the Bears were 0-16 in Big 12 play.
Bliss was hired after that awful season and has helped the Bears take small steps towards respectability by building a team that resembles the Island of Misfit Toys - transfers from other schools, kids who had behavior problems, poor grades or just didn't fit in.
Dennehy has been missing for three weeks, and optimism that he is still alive fades with each passing day. "There's always a glimmer of hope," Waco police spokesman Steve Anderson says, his voice trailing off.
Without a body or stronger forensic evidence of a crime, Anderson later admits, it will be difficult to file criminal charges. "You want to find a body," Anderson says. "Until then, we're at a stalemate, we're just hitting dead ends."
As the summer session began last week, dusty bulldozers and piles of dirt dotted the Baylor campus, part of university president Robert Sloan's ambitious "Baylor 2012" plan to build a state-of-the-art campus.
The conservative school that forbid dancing until 1996 is eager to become an elite academic institution with big-time sports.
Across University Parks Drive is the Ferrell Center, the Bears' handsome basketball arena, and the Baylor Ballpark, a three-year-old baseball stadium with red brick and green girders that looks like the Ballpark at Arlington.
Baylor athletics, however, have not kept pace with its glistening sports facilities. The woeful football team has had four coaches in eight years. The baseball team advanced to the NCAA Super Regional this spring, but it is better known for the two players who were suspended two years ago for beheading a stray cat.
The basketball team, meanwhile, hasn't been to the NCAA Tournament in 15 years. The program was placed on probation in 1994 for five years when coach Darrel Johnson was fired amid allegations of academic fraud. During the 1998-1999 season, the Bears were 0-16 in Big 12 play.
Bliss was hired after that awful season and has helped the Bears take small steps towards respectability by building a team that resembles the Island of Misfit Toys - transfers from other schools, kids who had behavior problems, poor grades or just didn't fit in.
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