Posted on 06/19/2006 11:56:32 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
The frantic 911 call from a University of Maryland dormitory came in at 6:32 a.m. June 19, 1986. A 22-year-old campus hero -- the finest basketball player in the Terrapins' history, just two days earlier the second player chosen in the NBA draft -- was sprawled on the floor between two narrow beds, unconscious, without a pulse.
"It's Len Bias. . . . He's not breathing right," one of his closest friends, a Maryland dropout named Brian Tribble, told the dispatcher in a shaky voice. "You've got to bring him back to life."
Bias was rushed to a hospital less than two miles away in Riverdale. Inside, doctors used five medicines and a pacemaker to try to restart his heart. Outside, his teammates, coach and mother gathered, stunned and praying. Across town, his agent phoned a senator's office, searching for a military helicopter that could deliver a world-class cardiologist to save him.
At 8:50 that Thursday morning, Len Bias was pronounced dead.
He had been killed, it would turn out, by an overdose of cocaine, a nearly pure form he and friends had been snorting from a pile on the living room table. It turned out, too, that he had gotten F's in three classes and dropped two others in his last semester, leaving him -- like most of his teammates -- unable to graduate.
At the University of Maryland at College Park and across the country, the scandal exposed the twin corruptions of drugs and academic failure in high-pressure, big-money college sports.
In a nation that had not yet lived through the excesses of the O.J. Simpson trial, had not yet experienced the killings at Columbine High School, his death riveted public attention.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The tragic cocaine overdose death of former Maryland star Len Bias two days after he was drafted by the Celtics still impacts the way college athletics are operated to this day.
Remember it well. Sad, sad day.
# Team Name College/HS/Country
1 CLE Brad Daugherty North Carolina
2 BOS Len Bias Maryland
3 GSW Chris Washburn North Carolina State
4 IND Chuck Person Auburn
5 NYK Kenny Walker Kentucky
6 PHO William Bedford Memphis State
7 DAL Roy Tarpley Michigan
8 CLE Ron Harper Miami (OH)
9 CHI Brad Sellers Ohio State
10 SAS Johnny Dawkins Duke
11 DET John Salley Georgia Tech
12 WA1 John Williams Louisiana State
13 NJN Dwayne Washington Syracuse
14 POR Walter Berry St. John's
15 UTA Dell Curry Virginia Tech
16 DEN Mo Martin St. Joseph's
17 SAC Harold Pressley Villanova
18 DEN Mark Alarie Duke
19 ATL Billy Thompson Louisville
20 HOU Buck Johnson Alabama
21 WA1 Anthony Jones Nevada-Las Vegas
22 MIL Scott Skiles Michigan State
23 LAL Ken Barlow Notre Dame
24 POR Arvidas Sabonis None (Soviet Union)
If memory serves, Don Rogers of the Cleveland Browns died that very same week.
I remember growing up watching this and me and my buddies were talking about Bias being the heir apparent to Larry Bird. And that Cleveland Browns player dying of a cocaine overdose days later. This was at the height of the cocaine/crack cocaine epidemic.
Wow, 20 years have passed? Looking at the Top 10 and I see no Hall of Famers. Most of the players could be classified as "servicable".
Yeah, what a weak draft. The Cleveland Cavaliers hit paydirt though, getting Brad Daugherty 1st overall and then in the 2nd round they grabbed Mark Price with the first pick. I guess of the first rounders you'd have to say that Ron Harper was the most successful?
Never got the chance to play with Lenny.
Good friend of mine did play in a college all-star game with him. Says he was a nice guy.
"I'd have played against him for the next 14 years. I would have been in my prime and he would have been in his. I'll never forget what he looked like. He was a 'Wow!' player. When Maryland played and was on television, I watched. It was like, 'I need to watch this guy; I'll be seeing him real soon.' . . . It was just shocking. Thing is, cocaine was huge then. My brother had been in and out of rehab. . . . It was a popular drug at the time. And guys I was playing against, like John Lucas and Michael Ray Richardson and John Drew had done cocaine. I was thinking: 'What the hell is up with this cocaine? I should try this once to see what it was all about.' Then, we heard the reports were that Bias only used it once . . . that it was his first time. When I heard that, it scared me to death . . . scared the daylights out of me. It scared me into not trying it even once, not going anywhere near it."
Dennis Rodman ... 3rd pick of the 2nd round
Why did he turn to cocaine after getting the Fs? Couldn't he have declared himself eligible for the draft and then finished school in the off-season? I mean, it's sad really. Kids today are bypassing college for the NBA.
Remember that also.
Don't want to speak ill of Lenny, but I don't buy that "first time use" stuff. Tribble was rumored to be a dealer, driving the Mercedes and flashing the money while working at a laundromat or something like that.
I think he just celebrated too much (obviously).
"Couldn't he have declared himself eligible for the draft and then finished school in the off-season?"
He had already been drafted. Eligibility used up. Grades were irrelevant. I think the grades were reported to show he wasn't going to class anyway. Had no intention of trying to graduate.
This hurt Lefty more than anything. Did not speak well for his program.
Or John Salley. I would say Harper, Tarpley, and Curry were in the same range.
BTTT
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