Len Bias — 20 years later

Grew up in Maryland watching Len Bias at Maryland, Patrick Ewing at Georgetown and David Robinson at Navy. The most vivid memory I have of Len Bias' death was how angry Cougardad was about it. "That stupid idiot Len Bias sucked his whole life up his nose, and now he's dead."

 

I was working at The Very Big Paper in those days, but was on vacation when he died and wound up reading about it in the Rochester paper. Stunned, to say the least.

I wound up working the story for a while, when I got back to work. Seems to me I talked to his mother a couple of times. Fuzzy recollection on that, though.

At any rate, a terrible waste.

 

I remember turning to ESPN at my grandparents' house the morning he died and watching some diving competition, and they were scrolling something about someone being taken to a hospital where he died. I assumed one of the divers missed the pool. Then I went to make some cereal and returned to the TV to see a mug shot of Bias and "apparent heart attack" next to his name, and I got it.

Fucked the Celtics, but double-fucked Maryland basketball and Lefty Drisell.

 

driesell won the acc tournament just once during his time at maryland, when bias went freakin crazy over the rest of the league and was named tourney mvp. (keith gatlin was pretty good, too.)

john thompson weaseled his way into getting good buddy bob wade in as coach. wade was completely incompetent, and ruined that program for years.

 

At least Maryland was able to rebuild and eventually win a national title with Gary Williams. The Celtics still haven't won an NBA title since Bias died.

There is no doubt in my mind that Bias would have been freaking awesome. Imagine someone as strong as Karl Malone, as quick as James Worthy, who could jump like Jordan, with a mid-range jump shot like Bernard King. That was Bias. Sad.

 

Who would have made a bigger impact had he lived long enough to have a full-term NBA career -- Bias, Hank Gathers, Reggie Lewis or Drazen Petrovic? That's a tough damn call because it's entirely possible Gathers would have been the real deal, and Petrovic could have personified the white scoring guard spot, and Lewis and Bias speak for themselves.

 

Of those 4, MM, Bias and Petrovic.
Not sure how good Gathers would have been and, much as I liked Lewis, Bias had the potential to be a beast. Petro was a great shoote rwho was just scracthing the surface of his talent

Of course, if you look at the 4, you have 3 tragic deaths and one sadly self-inflcted bit of stupidity.

 

Gathers had amazing numbers in college, but how much of that was a product of Loyola Marymount's system? Bo Kimble had great numbers in college, too, and he struggled mightily in the pros - even by the standards of being a Clippers first-round draft pick.

 

Gathers numbers were more legit than Kimble's. He was a beast. Strong, fast, big (6-foot-7). He led the NCAA in scoring AND rebounding as a junior. Some of that was certainly LMU's system, but he could have been a good NBA player.

Not in Bias' league, however. People don't realize that Bias was a 6-foot-8 bull who could jump AND shoot.