Eric Bieniemy also has numerous arrests to his name and was involved in a major scandal as a college coach.

In 1988 as a player at Colorado, Bieniemy was charged with disorderly conduct and fighting in public. He pleaded no contest and received a suspended sentence.

In 1990 he was suspended for a game and charged with interfering with a firefighter, providing false information, and harassment. Most of those charges were dropped.

He was arrested again for failing to appear after being charged with leaving the scene of an accident and driving with a suspended license.

In 1993, Bieniemy was arrested again in Boulder after grabbing a female parking attendant by the throat and threatening her. This incident caused him to be banned from the University of Colorado’s campus. He was a coach there a decade later.

By 2001, his license had been suspended a second time after a DUI conviction and multiple moving violations.

In 2004, he and other Colorado coaches were accused of using drugs and alcohol to entice high school recruits. The resulting scandal revealed at least four accusations of sexual assault by players. One of the victims was Colorado’s kicker, Katie Hnida. A Colorado staffer also hired prostitutes for recruits. Bieniemy was accused of helping to cover up the allegations. Bieniemy, and the rest of the staff, were fired for their roles in the scandal.

It’s just too much baggage for a person who’s never been a head coach before.

But the issue is not just his legal past. Vance Joseph was part of that same Colorado coaching staff and became a head coach. Matt Patricia has a very credible sexual assault allegation against him. According to insiders, Bieniemy believes the numerous violations he has committed are the result of a conspiracy against him and not due to his own misconduct. He reportedly had quite a meltdown in 2019 when he was passed over for the Colorado head coaching job,