Published January 13, 2015
The mother of a former Baylor University (search) basketball player who lived with a teammate now accused of murder said she warned the school about rampant drug use on the team, according to a published report.
Sonya Hart, whose son Robert left the team in February, told The Dallas Morning News in Saturday's editions that her son gave her the names of five players who were using marijuana and drinking alcohol, and she gave the information to the athletic department.
Her son shared an apartment with Carlton Dotson (search), who has been charged in the shooting death of another former teammate, Patrick Dennehy (search). She said she never heard back from the school after the drug report.
Dotson's estranged wife, Melissa Kethley, has also made claims to the newspaper that members of the basketball team smoked pot and drank alcohol, sometimes before practice. She also said she witnessed Dotson fake a drug test by using urine provided by a fellow player.
A spokesman for Baylor University declined comment Friday on the drug allegations.
Baylor Head Coach Dave Bliss (search) had said Monday that, as far as he knew, his players had no more to do with drugs "than the man in the moon."
Dotson was arrested July 21 and charged with murdering Dennehy, who had been missing for about six weeks. His body was found a week ago in a field near the Baylor campus, and he had been shot in the head. Dotson has disputed police claims that he admitted shooting Dennehy in a statement to the FBI.
Robert Hart declined to provide the newspaper with names of teammates who used drugs, saying he didn't want to hurt his friendships with those still at Baylor.
But he said the house he shared with Dotson was "the party house."
"It was one big party," he said. "There was always drinking and smoking."
Hart left the team after playing only two minutes in the first two games of the season.
"It wasn't a good situation for me. I wasn't playing and I had problems with my roommate," he said. "It was time for me to go."
Baylor has appointed a panel to examine potential NCAA (search) violations in its basketball program, including the possibility that improper financial assistance allowed Dennehy to attend the university during the 2002-2003 academic year without an athletic scholarship.
Meanwhile, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in a copyright story Saturday that Bliss left Southern Methodist University in 1988 months after an NCAA investigation uncovered evidence of what would typically be considered major rules violations, including booster payments to a player.
Neither Bliss nor SMU received NCAA penalties stemming from the allegations contained in an NCAA memo obtained by the paper.
Robert L. Stroup III, a former NCAA enforcement representative who wrote the memo, told the Star-Telegram he stopped investigating the program at the direction of his supervisor, who said the university had already paid a heavy price by receiving the "death penalty" for violations in its football program.
"It was just kind of decided, 'We gave them the worst (penalty). What more can we do?"' Stroup said.
Bliss declined to be interviewed for the report but has said he has always complied with NCAA rules.
NCAA spokesman Jeff Howard declined to comment specifically about the report, but said that under the organization's policies, it makes public only major infractions by college athletic programs.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/report-players-mom-says-she-warned-baylor-about-teams-drug-use