Len Bias — 20 years later

Well JackS asked, so ...

Len Bias' death, as someone mentioned, was a where-were-you-when-you-heard moment for a lot of sports fans, but for Maryland people, it was a step above that. I was only 10 and unbelievably, I didn't hear until that night when an usher at an Orioles game told me.

I can't add too much to the discussion about how good he would have been. But I can say that for my alma mater, as sickening as it is to say this, a lot of good resulted from it. It's too bad tragedy had to spur the university into action, but these days Maryland as an athletic department is better off, and the school has steadily gained in reputation and academics, I believe partly because people at the school were so humiliated by everything about it that it spurred them to try and get to the levels of the Michigans/North Carolinas/Virginia. We're clearly not there yet, but it's a much better school than it was in 1986.

As a basketball program, the years between 86-93 will always be a dark period. Bias' death directly led to Driessell's departure, then the hiring of Wade and therefore indirectly to the sanctions that nearly killed the program in 89. Gary Williams may not be the best person in the world, but he will always be remembered as the man who left a stable, rising program at Ohio State to come back to Maryland. He endured four bad years, and it wasn't until Keith Booth and Joe Smith came that things started to return. But it still took 10 more years for the program to make its first Final Four and then win it all - led, fittingly by Juan Dixon, a kid who lost both his parents to drugs.

Len Bias' legacy at Maryland is still a very complex one. A lot of people are still hesitant to bring up his name, and although his number is raised at the arena, it was first raised without any fanfare, in order to avoid an unpredictable spectacle. A lot of people hold it against him that he died of a drug overdose - and clearly used more often than just that one night. But others just remember him as a player or the good person that everyone says he was, drugs excepted. The bottom line is that as much as it affected a school, a state and a basketball program, all of those have recovered but Mrs. Bias will never get her son back. And that's the biggest shame of all.

I could go on, but won't. Sorry if this was too much, but I don't have a college column or a blog, and hell if I'm gonna troll a loser-boy Terp message board, so you all had to suffer my top-of-my-head thoughts. Tomorrow: My thoughts on Norah O'Donnell, and how beautiful she is. (Watching Hardball right now.)