The past few days have taken on the feel of a multilayered celebration of Texas basketball.
Chris Bosh, one Georgia Tech year removed from a Dallas high school, was the fourth pick in the NBA draft Thursday night. He’s 19 and a tad scrawny, but he was deemed worthy of a first-round gamble by the semidesperate Toronto Raptors.
T.J. Ford, the waterbug point guard who quarterbacked Texas into the 2003 Final Four as a sophomore, was chosen three picks later by the Milwaukee Bucks, who affirmed their commitment to him by dealing incumbent Sam Cassell to Minnesota.
And Sunday’s Dallas Morning News carried the uplifting tale of “Sister Paula,” a 29-year-old novice nun who gave her life over to God a while back, after wrapping up a standout hoops career at Kansas, where she was known as Angela Aycock from South Dallas.
The story of Patrick Dennehy seems sadly out of place amid such joyousness, but it is a story that seems to defy belief.
Dennehy, awaiting his junior season at Baylor University, has been missing from the Waco area since June 11. His Chevy Tahoe turned up late last week in Virginia Beach, Va., where Dennehy has no family, no friends, no ties whatsoever. Inasmuch as it’s almost unheard of for a 6-foot-10-inch, 230-pound basketball player to be missing for more than two weeks in a close-knit college town–and because his family in Northern California and his girlfriend in Albuquerque haven’t heard from him either–police have moved from a missing-persons case to a homicide investigation.
The FBI has joined in, because the discovery of Dennehy’s SUV, with its license plates removed, in Virginia suggests whatever happened to him involved the crossing of state lines.
Though Baylor coach Dave Bliss insisted, “We believe in miracles,” no one expects the Dennehy matter to end well. A police disclosure that his teammates had been questioned and an off-the-cuff suggestion that “some may be involved” has prompted wide-ranging speculation and a general sense of unease.
“Weird things happen, and they can happen anywhere,” Monique Carter, a junior biochemistry major from Rusk, Texas, said as she strolled the quiet Baylor campus on a steamy Sunday afternoon.
“Just because we’re a religious school doesn’t mean we’re immune to evil. I hate that it happened here, but you just have to pray and seal yourself from it. Of course I’m praying for the young man.”
Baylor, chest-thumping proud of its academic stature and God-fearing serious about its Baptist heritage, is no party school. And its spacious, picturesque campus is an unlikely setting for the athletic lawlessness that’s so common to some of its Big 12 Conference brethren.
“More than half our customers are Baylor people,” said Mike Hodge, manager of Crickets, an off-campus bar and restaurant that thrives on the sports crowd. “They have fun and they like to enjoy themselves, but it’s not exactly `Girls Gone Wild.'”
Hodge follows the Baylor teams but fears they may be overmatched as the only private school in the ultracompetitive Big 12, which had two entries in the 2003 Final Four and aspires to a say in football’s national championship debate as well. In basketball, Bliss is regarded hopefully as the great equalizer–a Bob Knight disciple, he won at New Mexico and he won at Southern Methodist while steering clear of the shenanigans that kept both schools on the NCAA’s most wanted list for years before he arrived.
“This thing is going to kill him,” Hodge said, shaking his head. “This is a big, red X on the program, and it’s not Bliss’ fault. I feel for him.”
Bliss was not in his office Sunday and could not be reached by telephone. He was visibly shaken during a brief meeting with reporters Saturday.
“Our players and coaches have been talking to investigators, and we want to help in any way we can,” Bliss said, his voice quavering. “There’s a lack of answers in most regards, but we do want to help . . . and we believe in miracles.”
Bliss had a firm stake in Dennehy’s future at Baylor.
Former New Mexico coach Fran Fraschilla recruited Dennehy to the Lobos’ program. Dennehy then clashed with some teammates and Fraschilla during a sophomore year in which he averaged 10.6 points and 7.5 rebounds per game. He then sought a fresh start under current New Mexico coach Ritchie McKay, who dismissed him after an altercation.
Dennehy sat out last season as a transfer student and was preparing to play in 2003-04 as a junior at Baylor.
His history of trouble with teammates at New Mexico–he was once walked off the floor at Air Force after an in-game altercation–has led to Dennehy being characterized as distant and difficult, but that’s a misconception, says Jon Hart, a Baylor junior from Cleveland.
Hart was Dennehy’s neighbor in the Sterling apartments, a tidy off-campus complex just blocks from the Ferrell Events Center, where the Baylor Bears play basketball.
“I saw him all the time, and he was a nice guy, a really nice guy,” Hart said. “I used to shoot baskets with him on the outdoor court. I never saw him lose his temper or be violent in any way, and there was never any trouble in the apartment that I was aware of. I liked him a lot.”
Robin Harris, a junior from Houston who lives across the hall from Dennehy’s now-vacant Sterling unit, had a similar impression.
“I didn’t know him well, but he’d always say hi to me, and once when my little sister was visiting he asked if she wanted to come over and play with his puppies,” Harris said.
He didn’t think much of Dennehy’s absence for a while, Harris said, but eventually he got the manager to let him into No.11308 so he could feed Dennehy’s dogs.
Late last week he began to suspect something was amiss when Waco police showed up to search the apartment and removed Dennehy’s computer.
“I wish I could tell you what’s going on,” Harris said.
Over at the Ferrell Events Center, Patrick Dennehy’s portrait hangs on a concourse wall among 11 others belonging to the 2002-03 Baylor Bears. His long, angular face is unsmiling, and his deep-set eyes are serious, but not sad. He’s also included in the 2002-03 team picture, though he didn’t play a minute in his transfer season.
Hours before the high-pitched shouts and screams of a middle-school cheerleading competition had been audible from the farthest reaches of dark green seats, and on Monday the Lady Bears basketball camp takes over the brightly painted floor.
But for now the arena behind Patrick Dennehy’s picture is quiet. Somewhere between eerily quiet and deathly quiet.
