The Great Traffic Light

“Leonard Saved My Life”

Lefty Driesell, Len Bias’ coach at Maryland, finds solace in Len’s legacy when he tells the following story. During the early summer of 2010, a man approached Driesell as they walked out of church near Driesell’s home in Virginia Beach. “Someone said, ‘Aren’t you Lefty Driesell? I was always a big Maryland fan, and Leonard was one of my favorite players,’ ” says Driesell.

The man explained that shortly before Bias’s death, he had reached a personal low, losing his job and his family due to a cocaine addiction. When friends told the man that Bias had died, he immediately stopped abusing cocaine. Says Driesell: “He said Leonard saved his life.”

Who knows how many lives have been saved, and how many more will be for decades to come? Brian Straus had no connection to Bias other than growing up in the Washington area and watching him play on TV and was not a rabid fan of either the Terrapins or the Celtics. He was raised in white upper-middle-class suburbia. But when I told Straus, a longtime friend and an accomplished soccer journalist, that I was writing a book about the legacy of Bias, his immediate reaction surprised me.

“He was the reason I never used cocaine,” Straus says. “He was exactly the reason when I was at parties in college at [the University of Pennsylvania] and saw people do cocaine and I didn’t try it. He was the great traffic light, the devil on your shoulder saying don’t do it. It wasn’t an essay question. It was just like a punch in the gut that told you don’t touch this ever.”

Excerpted from the book, Born Ready: the Mixed Legacy of Len Bias

Learn about the Born Ready Project that teaches life skills, using Len’s legacy as a teaching tool.

Find out about the Born Ready Hoops Festival  Nov. 22-24, that will honor Len’s legacy as a basketball player.

Jeff Baxter

A Long Transition to Acceptance

Once burdened by the death of Bias, his close friend and roommate of four years, Jeff Baxter now talks comfortably about the trying times he endured in the few years that followed. He agreed to be interviewed for Without Bias but says that in the past he has mostly been very guarded about what he has discussed. Baxter agreed to talk at length because he says he has nothing to hide. “It took a while for me to come to grips with it,” he says. “I avoided countless interviews with numerous people over the years, and only because I thought at the time that it may be a target session for Coach Driesell and Lenny’s family. I can see why it haunts a lot of people.”

Baxter says that, until a few years ago, something would happen every day that would make him think about Bias. Now, he mostly reflects on his friend and teammate only when asked. At the D.C.- area premiere of Without Bias in 2010, Baxter abruptly walked away from the entrance before the showing when he saw cameras. He says he waited across the street until the excitement faded. “That wasn’t a celebratory moment to me,” he says.“That wasn’t a moment to gain or regain fame.” During a bathroom break that night, Baxter spotted Steve Francis, a Maryland star for just one year in 1998 before joining the NBA. Francis was crying so hysterically that Baxter remembers him barely able to stand up. “He said ‘You guys were the reason I went [to Maryland],’ ” says Baxter. “But I’m sure he meant Lenny, because he was the star.” To Baxter, Bias’s legacy is simple: He was a great basketball player who made a bad choice. As he sat alone at the Saloun the evening of June 19, 1986, Baxter realized that life was too short and that one never knows what will happen next. He says Bias’s death solidified lessons his parents had taught him. “You’ve just got to be careful about the choices you make, because not all of them are going to be right,” he says.

Excerpted from the book, Born Ready: the Mixed Legacy of Len Bias

Learn about the Born Ready Project that teaches life skills, using Len’s legacy as a teaching tool.

50 for 50 – Len Bias’ Golden Moments #30…Ross Resigns

Through Nov. 18, Len Bias’ 50th birthday, the Born Ready Blog will provide each day a new item that helped define Len’s legacy, 50 in total.

Unsure of Academic Standards, Ross Quits

Head football coach Bobby Ross’s reaction to a win in the last game, against Virginia in Charlottesville, typified the feelings of that season. On the first half of his car ride home, he traveled north on Virginia Route 29, a rolling four-lane highway that passes through the bucolic Shenandoah Valley of central Virginia. Such a drive normally prompts peaceful and reflective thoughts. But despite the Terrapins’ commanding 42- 10 win, the mood on the ride back for Ross, his wife and four of his five children was far from either serene or celebratory. It was during that 2 1/2-hour ride that the Ross family had a long talk about Dad’s future. They decided that he would step down as Maryland’s head coach. Maryland finished the season 5-5-1. It was the worst record in Ross’s five year Maryland career.

Not long before that ride, Ross had met with acting Athletic Director Charles Sturtz to discuss the university’s admissions policy and how it might affect the future of Maryland athletics. In the meeting, Ross sought clarification about Maryland’s admissions policy, which was being scrutinized following Bias’s death. He was told it could be as long as three or four years before it would all be settled. “That’s when I started to think about it,” says Ross. “Not having a defined direction and all the other distractions, I felt it was time to move on.” Ross resigned on December 1, 1986, and says he told his players he was leaving because he felt “at that time, they needed a change, and I needed a change.

Excerpted from the book, Born Ready: the Mixed Legacy of Len Bias

Learn about the Born Ready Project that teaches life skills, using Len’s legacy as a teaching tool.

Find out about the Born Ready Hoops Festival  Nov. 22-24, that will honor Len’s legacy as a basketball player.

50 for 50 – Len Bias’ Golden Moments #28…Keith Gatlin struggles

Keith Gatlin struggles

Keith Gatlin, a junior point guard on the 1986 Maryland team, admits that he was in denial, struggling with the fact that his close friend had died from a drug he never saw or even heard of him using. He tried to escape by attending the graduation of a friend at Pepperdine University in California, but he quickly found that a change of venue even some 3,000 miles away did little good. “I get off the plane, and one of the first people I see says, ‘Hey, ain’t you Gatlin? Man, what happened to Lenny Bias?’ ” he said in the Post. “And I figured if I can’t go to Malibu Beach to escape this stuff, then my mother is right. I can’t run from it.” “I was getting ridiculed and I had nothing to do with it,” he says in 2010. “I’m thinking this is crazy. I was guilty by association. Because we played at Maryland, everybody perceived us as being a pot smoker and bad kids. I felt like everybody on the team was being targeted. I was very bitter. We were young men having a great time in college.”

After Maryland coach Driesell was removed and athletic director Dick Dull resigned, Gatlin felt he had lost any remaining support at the school. “You couldn’t turn to no one and not think they won’t stab you in the back,” he says. Admittedly distracted, Gatlin failed to register for classes in the fall semester and was ruled ineligible for the 1986-87 season. (Media reports claimed that Gatlin couldn’t register due to unpaid parking tickets, but he says the amount he owed would not have prevented him from signing up for classes.) Gatlin would likely have missed at least the early part of the season, regardless: He says he had knee surgery that summer to repair a damaged ligament. He admits that his thoughts were far from basketball and school. “I took the wrong approach,” he says. “I was young, I felt like ‘This is not fair.’ Instead of handling it like an adult, I went into a shell and had the ‘F the world’ mentality. That lasted the whole year for me.”

Excerpted from the book, Born Ready: the Mixed Legacy of Len Bias

Learn about the Born Ready Project that teaches life skills, using Len’s legacy as a teaching tool.

Find out about the Born Ready Hoops Festival  Nov. 22-24, that will honor Len’s legacy as a basketball player.

50 for 50 – Len Bias’ Golden Moments #17…Senior Setback

Bias is Suspended After Missing Curfew

Things seemed to be on the upswing when Maryland beat Clemson to win its second consecutive ACC game, then traveled to Raleigh to play N. C. State. Bias scored a team-high 21 points and made two free throws with about a minute and a half left that helped clinch the one-point win for Maryland. Having now won three consecutive ACC games, Maryland was on a bit of a roll. But that momentum fizzled after coach Lefty Driesell suspended Bias and teammates Jeff Baxter and John Johnson for violating a team curfew after the N.C. State game.

Media reports said the three players returned at about 4 a.m. to Maryland’s hotel after watching a replay of the game at a friend’s room on the N.C. State campus, but that’s not what happened. Baxter admits that the three were actually at an off-campus party with an N.C. State player whose name he declined to make public. He insists that neither he, Bias nor Johnson drank alcohol or took drugs.

The party included what Johnson calls a “Freak Momma” contest set up to select the most attractive female. “We were just dancing. And we had a ball,” Baxter says with a laugh. “We were pumped up that we won the game. I still remember to this day how much fun that was.” Baxter added that they returned to the hotel by about 1 a.m. and were greeted by Maryland’s assistant coaches and Driesell, who asked, as Baxter delicately put it, “ ‘Where the bleep, bleep have you been?’ We knew we weren’t supposed to be out, but we didn’t think the impact would be anything big. For me, it was, OK, we didn’t do anything. We didn’t think it was a big deal.” Driesell benched Bias, Baxter and Johnson for the next game, a loss to Clemson.

Excerpted from the book, Born Ready: the Mixed Legacy of Len Bias

Learn about the Born Ready Project that teaches life skills, using Len’s legacy as a teaching tool.

Find out about the Born Ready Hoops Festival  Nov. 22-24, that will honor Len’s legacy as a basketball player.

50 for 50 – Len Bias’ Golden Moments #15…Staying Put

Bias Chooses to Stay at Maryland for His Senior Year

Bias enjoyed a trio of post-season accolades in 1985: He was voted ACC Player of the Year, all-ACC and a third-team All-America, offering sweet redemption for not being named all-ACC the previous season and creating a swirl of speculation that he might enter the NBA draft the following summer. But on May 2,

Bias settled the uneasy nerves of Maryland fans and coaches by saying he would indeed stay in College Park for another year. His decision came after coach Lefty Driesell requested that his good friend Red Auerbach talk to Bias. Auerbach dined with Bias and his parents and all agreed that he would return to Maryland.

Auerbach, of course, had told Bias after the previous summer that would do everything he could to make him a Celtic, but the Celtics had the 20th pick of the 1985 draft, and certainly Auerbach must have known the chances were slim that Bias, as the ACC Player of the Year whose upside still featured plenty of positive growth potential, would still be available.

In a Boston Globe story published the day after Bias died, Auerbach detailed his dinner discussion with Bias. “I told Lefty when he set the dinner up I would tell the kid the truth, and not to expect me to tell the kid to go back to Maryland for his final year if I did not think he had anything to gain by going back as a senior. When we met, I told Len how I felt. I told them that if he came out in the draft, he would not be drafted in the top 10. I thought he would go around 15th. I told him, on the other hand, if he stayed in school for another year, he would be one of the top choices in the draft, certainly in the top seven, putting him in the lottery, and that we might have a chance to get him. He told me he would love that. He would love to play for the Celtics.”

Excerpted from the book, Born Ready: the Mixed Legacy of Len Bias

Learn about the Born Ready Project that teaches life skills, using Len’s legacy as a teaching tool.

50 for 50 – Len Bias’ Golden Moments #10…Freshman Frustrations

Through Nov. 18, Len Bias’ 50th birthday, the Born Ready Blog will provide each day a new item that helped define Len’s legacy, 50 in total.

Freshman Frustrations Force Bias to Think About Transferring

Bias showed flashes of brilliance during his freshman season at Maryland. In one highlight, he hit a 17-foot jump shot with two seconds remaining that helped unranked Maryland upset 15th-ranked Tennessee-Chattanooga by one point in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Bias ended up starting 13 games for Maryland and averaging 7.1 points per game, the best of any Terrapins freshman.

But Bias was far from content with his first year at Maryland. Mentor Johnnie Walker says that after a loss to UCLA in late December, Bias asked him to contact N.C. State coach Jim Valvano about transferring to the school. Bias was unhappy after Driesell subbed him out of the game after he took a shot, and felt that Driesell wanted him to focus more on defense than offense.

Also, Driesell was working to persuade Bias to change his shot by releasing the ball at the height of his jump, to take advantage of his superior leaping ability, and Bias admitted that it took him a while to adjust. It wasn’t until late in his junior year, he told the Washington Post that March, that he finally felt comfortable with his new technique: “Now when I go up to shoot, I don’t expect anybody to block me.”

Walker says Driesell called him shortly after the UCLA game to discuss Bias’s concerns. Walker says he talked bluntly with Driesell, saying Bias didn’t like the fact that he had to focus so much on defense and was clearly unhappy with what he felt were Driesell’s attempts to break him down and control him. He said Bias felt that he wasn’t supposed to take shots. Before the end of the season, Driesell met with Bias and worked out the problems.

“After that, Leonard said everything was OK,” says Driesell.

Excerpted from the book, Born Ready: the Mixed Legacy of Len Bias

Learn about the Born Ready Project that teaches life skills, using Len’s legacy as a teaching tool.

Find out about the Born Ready Hoops Festival  Nov. 22-24, that will honor Len’s legacy as a basketball player.

Staying Home

Bias Picks Maryland, but he was close to joining the Wolfpack

If any school stood a good chance of stealing Bias away from the Terps, it was ACC rival N.C. State. At the time, the Wolfpack featured Dereck Whittenburg and Sidney Lowe, teammates at DeMatha High School who were Bias’s good friends, as well as local basketball rivals. “By the end of the visit, I knew I wanted to go to State,” Bias said in a Washington Post  story in 1985. “That’s the last thing I told Coach Valvano when I left.”

Those words from Bias to Valvano as he said goodbye to the coach left Valvano in a dreamy state.  “Are you kidding? I remember him hugging me at the airport and saying he was coming,” Valvano said in the Post  story. “I said, ‘Don’t tell me that. I’ll get too excited.’ If we had gotten that kid …”

It turned out, however, that no college could compete with the passion Bias felt for Maryland combined with the influence James Bias had on his son. The elder Bias liked the fact that it would be easy for Len’s three younger siblings to watch their big brother play so close to home. “He had great respect for his father,” says Johnnie Walker, his mentor. “The fact is, his father wanted him to stay home and go to Maryland. Len didn’t make the decision to go to Maryland.”

Driesell, for one, felt little concern that Bias might attend another school. “He wasn’t like Tom McMillen and had everyone recruiting him,” says Driesell, referring to the former Maryland player, eventual All-America and Rhodes Scholar who was the top high-school recruit in the country in 1970. “I felt good that he liked Maryland. He hung out there all the time.”

To the surprise of few, Bias signed with Maryland in mid-April 1982.

Excerpted from the book, Born Ready: the Mixed Legacy of Len Bias

Learn about the Born Ready Project that teaches life skills, using Len’s legacy as a teaching tool.