Tremendous Len Bias story

I am JackS nonsensical rantings.

 

I'm not ranting, but if you two want to be such wise guys and act like a 22 years later Len Bias story is such an obvious call, then tell me why no 15 years later Reggie Lewis sidebar that also makes no mention of the Celtics 2008 resurgence?

Take a cue from Jay Sherman and at least come up with a response that's not so juvenile.

 

i dont question that this story has relevance to a certain segment of readers; obviously by the response here that is so.

my primary point is, ESPN knows where its bread is buttered. it recognizes that fans of boston sports are more passionate about following their teams than probably those from any other city.
it is no coincidence that the rise of bill simmons parallels that of the rise of boston's teams. any media outlet will rightly feed the beast buying the product.

i'm just tired of it.

secondly, just because the piece resonates with some doesn't make it good journalism. it lacks perspective, and no group of 35-year old telling themselves in the echo chamber how relevant and important it -- and len bias -- is changes that. that's why journalism needs editing and editors, a process by which someone from a distance can say, 'just because it's important to you doesn't make it important to everyone.'

and yes, some opinions are just wrong. the social impact of len bias is not in the same universe as that of jackie robinson or muhammad ali, to name two.

and i still say the real story is a the sad one of a mother not knowing her own child, even after his death 20 years ago. that's another thing editing -- or mine, at least, any way, would have suggested. in the hands of a gary smith from SI, say, or an alec wilkinson from the NYer, we might have instead gotten a hall of fame effort.

 

"Since Bias' death, the Celtics had not won an NBA title. But they sure kick ass this year! Which, dear readers, is why we are writing this story for you to enjoy. Bias' death usually would just be a minor event in history, but since the Celtics are good again, we're telling his story now."

 

At the beginning, I thought the article was going to be about Lonise Bias, and in that case, the timing wouldn't have mattered so much because it would be a contemporary story.

But after several grafs, it turned into another Len Bias rehash story. Not a bad one, mind you, but not one that really had any purpose if you weren't going to revolve it around a "Celtics have finally come full circle" theme.

 

That's fair, JackS. It was just another Len Bias rehash story after starting like it would be a Lonise Bias story, a different way of approaching what had been done many times.

I still find the Len Bias story compelling, regardless of the Celtics ties. His story is not just relevant because the Celtics are good again, and it didn't all of a sudden become relevant when Maryland won the national title a few years ago. A young athlete struck down by his own poor judgment just as his life should be beginning, is always a compelling story. And one that doesn't need any sort of hook outside of its own facts.

The work of a mother to inspire others years after losing each of her sons tragically is just as good a story, if not better. This piece did not do a good job tying the two themes together.

 

To me, what separates this story from other Bias rehashes is that it lookes at his death's impact, not only on basketball, but on his family and the African-American community as a whole.

His point is that politicians were so quick to use emotional responses after Bias' death to pass legislation that called for mandatory sentencing of the rock form of cocaine, which was mostly sold on the street by young black men. The irony is that Bias snorted the powdered form of cocaine, which was more of an upscale drug, rich man's drug. And, of course, the people convicted of selling the powered form of cocaine escaped mandatory sentencing.

If you read the story, 1986, the year Bias died, marked the first year more blacks were imprisoned than whites. After the legislation passed, the number of blacks in prison skyrocketed. Low level drug offenders (mostly black men) went to jail, while the higher-ups who only delt with powder saw much less time.

And the fallout goes from there. Man gets sentenced to 10 years for a couple of rocks, leaving more and more single women raising children alone. Man gets out of jail, can't find a job, and goes back to jail. Happens all the time. Honestly, I was about eight months old when this all happened but after reading the story it makes alot of since.

Read it again with an opened mind you'll see there's alot of truth in it.

 

The most overrated phrase in our profession is: "It needs a newspeg." A good story is a good story. If you have new perspective, insight, point of view ... it works. If you disagree, I would suggest someone emailing ESPN.com and asking how many web hits this story got. I bet it's a very high number. As journalists, we still get too wrapped up in our own rules and regulations, which given the state of our industry, is mindboggling.

That said, this story has several newspegs:
*What Mrs Bias is doing today, talking with high school students.
*The Boston Celtics finally getting back to the top.
*Len Bias being dead longer than he is alive (weak, but it qualifies.)
*The social impact of his death, which I previously had never read.

The author's age had a lot to do with his storytelling. I was 14 when Bias died -- and like the author wrote -- it scared the hell out of me. At that time, I knew a few athletes did cocaine. (Was the whole Dave Parker, Keith Hernandez, Pittsburgh thing before or after Bias' death?) But he's right: It was the first time I realized it could kill someone. The fact that it happened just two days after getting drafted by the Celtics, of all teams, pretty much made it a timeless story, one of the most interesting/devastating/fascinating/how-the-hell-did-this-happen of our lifetime.

I'm not saying we should all go out and write about Len Bias. But if I'm a sports editor and a reporter comes to me and says they hung out with Mrs Bias as she lectured high school students and he or she thinks they can weave an interesting tale with new perspectives on Len Bias' death, I do everything in my power to find a newspeg, no matter how weak it might be.

 

These guys get it.

I was 18 in 1986, and grew up far, far from both Boston and ACC country. Bias's death had a huge impact on me, and it would have mattered the same if he had been drafted by the Celtics or by the Clippers. It marked the turning point of attitudes toward "recreational drugs," both from society's perspective and from mine.

It was a good story, well told. No news peg necessary. It seemed to me to be an appropriate time to look back at the myriad ways Bias's death changed things.

 

You had me agreeing with you, Piotr, until your last graf. I thought just the right amount of Lonise Bias was in the story. Her work, in and of itself, is noteworthy, but I don't see a lot there that would make it a compelling narrative.

The other guy who keeps complaining about her not knowing her own son, because of what she says at the story's end, is missing a little nuance there, I think. She does not say it was Len's first time taking cocaine. She says "it has been said" that it was his first time. This acknowledges the controversy the writer has just outlined over whether he was a long-term user or not. She obviously doesn't know. Whether this means she didn't know her son very well, I don't feel qualified to say.


Good points from ramgrad and silentbob, too.

 

Definitely some good points since I last posted, particularly from Ramgrad, but I don't buy this idea that a news peg is unimportant.

That just sounds like a rationalization to write anything that floats your boat. This is a NEWS business.

 

It's also a "tell compelling stories" business, JackS.