Len Bias: The Death of a Dream

Exactly 20 years ago tomorrow, a dream died.
That’s what the cover of Sports Illustrated proclaimed the death of Maryland All-American basketball player Len Bias from a cocaine overdose. If you grew up in the Washington, D.C. area like I did in the mid-1980s, the date maintains a “Where were you when John Kennedy was shot’’-kind-of-feel to it.
It was weekday morning, as I recall. I had gone with my friend Bill to Detroit Tigers-Baltimore Orioles at game at old Memorial Stadium the night before, a forgettable affair made only slightly memorable by the late Alan Wiggins getting picked off with the old hidden-ball trick, then getting booed lustily as they put his face on the scoreboard in one of those jigsaw-puzzle-identify-who-it-is things.
As a young intern-reporter, I had gotten to work around 9 that day as word that Bias, who had just been taken second overall by the Boston Celtics in the draft two days earlier, was hospitalized. That couldn’t be, I thought.
No one looked healthier than the sculpted Bias, who remains the closest thing to Michael Jordan I ever saw on a basketball court. Amazing leaping ability, deadeye shooter, tenacious rebounder and defender, Bias was the total package.
Yet by late morning, it was true. I dutifully called a couple of friends (including my friend Brian, the biggest Maryland fan on the planet), then tried to get back to work. As a reporter, I was sent back to Baltimore, this time to a hospital to investigate with a noted cardiologist whether it was possible that an enlarged heart, which had killed former Terps players Owen Brown and Chris Patton, had killed Bias.
By the time I drove back to Washington, the disturbing details were starting to leak out. There had been an all-night party with Bias and some friends, then-Terps coach Lefty Driesell had sent an assistant over to clean up Bias’ apartment, players were shocked but no one was really talking about what exactly Bias had been doing the night he died.
A few days later, the autopsy confirmed that cocaine had killed him. So much depressing information had already leaked out by then, it was almost anticlimactic. Bias was gone, another sad statistic from the drug that gripped much of our culture in the 1980s.
I used to think that Bias’ death had actually helped America win the war with illegal drugs. But 20 years later, we’re no closer to breaking the grip narcotics holds on so many of us.
Bias’ death remains a personal loss for his mother Lonise, who unbelievably lost Len’s brother Jay to a shooting at a mall several years later. Lonise Bias still lectures today on the dangers of drugs.
No, Bias’ legacy remains a basketball one. The Celtics had just won their 23rd NBA championship days before Bias died. They still haven’t won one since. Larry Bird couldn’t have been more correct when he called Bias’ death “the cruelest thing I ever heard.’’
Athletic chaos ensued at Maryland in the post-Bias years. Driesell was eventually forced out and replaced by the ludicrously unqualified high school coach Bob Wade. Three years later, Wade had Maryland on NCAA probation and was fired after a 9-22 season.
But with the school at rock bottom, UM alum Gary Williams was lured back to College Park. And after some long and tough struggles over the next 16 years, Williams took Maryland where not even Bias or anyone else could _ to an NCAA championship. I’ll always believe if Bias had not died, Williams would have stayed at Ohio State and never come back to his alma mater.
The final irony of Bias’ death is Juan Dixon, the spindly guard who led the Terps to that 2002 NCAA title. Dixon wore the names of both his parents in tattoos on his arms. Both had been drug addicts that died on the Baltimore streets years before.
So Dixon didn’t need Bias to teach him anything about the power of illegal drugs.