Self-Induced Scrutiny

Task Forces and a Review

Within weeks of Len Bias’s death, Maryland Chancellor John Slaughter appointed J. Robert Dorfman, a university physics professor, to serve as the chairman of a task force to review the academic practices of the athletic department. He disagrees with Dull’s assertion that Bias’s death disrupted the relationship between athletics and academics. Rather, he says, it made such big headlines that it drew the whole university community together to focus on academics and athletics. “Many faculty came up to me afterward and told me they had learned a great deal from the reporting and the television interviews. They had a better understanding of what was going on in the athletic department.”

Slaughter also initiated a task forces to examine the school’s policies related to education and drug-abuse prevention. Further, Slaughter asked University of Michigan Athletic Director Don Canham to lead a group to review the athletic department’s structure and efficiency. That review stated the department was overstaffed and disorganized, leading to the release of more than a dozen staff members in January 1987. The academic-achievement task force released its report on September 30, 1986. It recommended a number of reforms, some of which were implemented as early as the winter of 1987.

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 #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 #13…A Rising Junior

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.

Bias Becomes a Dominant Force During his Junior Season

During a three-game stretch in early January of his junior year that included four ACC games against teams ranked among the top 20 in the country – including No. 2 Duke and No. 5 North Carolina – Bias started to show why he would be named the top player in the ACC that season. He led Maryland in scoring in a two-point win over 17th-ranked N.C. State (17 points), a one-point loss to North Carolina (23 points), and in its next game five days later, a two-point overtime win over Duke (24 points).

Against Duke, Bias scored 16 second-half points to erase a 14-point deficit, causing Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski to lament afterward how many of Bias’s shots bounced around the rim before sliding through the net. Krzyzewski thought Bias was a lucky shooter until he reviewed the game tape and realized that Len’s soft touch helped him make the shots. Two weeks after the Duke game, Bias scored 30 points in a three-point win over 14th-ranked Villanova, the eventual national champion.

In late January, he scored 24 points in a win over Old Dominion, and converted Maryland’s last two free throws in the final seconds of the Terrapins’ one point win over N.C. State in late February. At the end of the regular season, Bias led the ACC in scoring with 19 points per game on 53 percent shooting from the field and led Maryland with an average of 6.8 rebounds. In a Washington Post feature about Bias the day before Maryland was to meet Duke in the first round of the ACC tournament, Indiana Pacers personnel director Tom Newell said: “Len Bias has a chance to become one of the best players to ever play his position. I don’t mean one of the best now, I mean one of the best ever. He’s replaced Newton’s theory of gravity with Michael Jordan’s theory of gravity – which is that there is none. He just climbs up there and hangs.”

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 #11…Sophomore Surge

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.

A Sophomore Surge and an ACC Tourney Triumph

Maryland ended the Bias’ sophomore season at 24-8, finishing second in the ACC regular season standings with a 9-5 conference record. Despite his impressive numbers – he finished the year second on the team in points (15.2) per game and third in rebounds (4.5) per game – Bias was not selected for the all-ACC team when it was announced in early March.

The snub provided added motivation. Brian Waller, Bias’ close friend and high school teammate, remembers receiving a phone call from Bias: “You see the paper today? I didn’t even make the second team. You see the dudes they got in front of me? That’s alright, I’m gonna go down to the ACC and win the MVP of the tournament.”

Maryland made it to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament after winning the ACC tournament title for only the second time up to that point and the first since 1958. In the ACC tourney, Bias had 15 points and 7 rebounds in a first-round, six-point win over N.C. State, and scored 15 points, including 10 in the first half, in a two-point semi-final win over Wake Forest that saw him make a free throw with one second remaining. In the final game, against Duke, Bias scored 26 points, converting 12 of 17 field goals – 10 of which came on a 24-3 run that erased an eight-point Duke lead early in the second half. It was enough to convince voters to name him the tournament MVP, just as he had proclaimed.

 

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.