Tremendous Len Bias story

I love posting board pissing matches. It's part of what draws me to this site.

 

Good story. At the risk of being branded a parochial Baltimoron, I do have to admit that the Boston-ification of Bias's death does irk me. Bias was a legend in Maryland and his death was devastating to this region's people (not to mention its Division I basketball program) in a way that is hard to explain 20 years later.

I heard the news on my way back home to Md. after going to Connecticut for my college pre-freshman orientation. I was asleep in the passenger seat when suddenly my mother, who hadn't then and still hasn't yet watched a college basketball game in her life, yelled to me that the radio sports guy had just said Len Bias was dead. He was that big of a deal even to someone as uninterested in sports as she. The community was profoundly shaken in a way that exposes as painfully shallow the "The Celtics would have been even more awesome if Bias hadn't died!" line of mourning.

As someone who grew up living and breathing ACC basketball, I think James Worthy is the baseline comparison of what Bias would have been in the NBA, with considerable room for being much, much better.

Here's a link to the single play that defined Len Bias as a player, the greatest highlight of his career. I bet every Maryland/DC person on the board can identify that moment without clicking the link.

 

i did read it.
hope you don't approach your assignments with such assumptions.

 

okay writing...bad journalism. the death of len bias has the same impact as JFK or MLK? that's what the experience of 30-40-year-olds has been dumbed down to? "...we, as a society, stopped and stared collectively into the void and declared that human existence was entirely unjust.'

we did?

"And I do believe that because of this public narrative and the consequences of this narrative, the death of Len Bias can be classified as the most socially influential moment in the history of modern sports."

hyperventilate much? never heard of jackie robinson or muhammad ali, i guess.

an arbitrary anniversary combined with boston's nba victory stands as the reasoning for running this now. I feel for his mom and his remaining family and friends; i've notn suffered a loss like this, so i cant imagine how deep the damage runs.

but if you ask me, the real story is buried near the bttom, when overwhelming evidence to the contrary, lonise bias says this: "It's been said it was his first time," Lonise Bias says.

there's the tragedy worth investigating -- a mother who even 20 years later still doesn't know her son.

 

Tremendous story and I agree with the sentiment that people who think this is purely just a pile-on story for Boston fans obviously didn't read the article. Boston just happens to be the team that drafted him. The story is not about how Maryland influenced/was influenced by Bias or what could have been in Boston had Bias not snorted (or smoked) the coke (or crack) that night. It was about the ripple effects caused by his death at that precise time in America.

This line is probably one of the best -- if not the best -- to describe the heart of this piece:

 

And I hope you don't usually draw totally erroneous conclusions from what you read.

 

Very good story; can't wait for the documentary that is in post-production state according to IMDB.com

 

right...because anything you don't agree with is wrong. in the adult world, people disagree; some even cite supporting points when logically mustering an argument.

to quote an expert: "...and getting drafted by Boston had a lot to do with the impact..."

which was only my point to begin with.

see .. i must be right because i'm agreeing with you.

 

So you think that if the Warriors or the Hawks or the Bulls or the Mavericks had drafted Bias it would have had less of an impact? The guy was the no. 2 pick in the draft. He was considered a surefire superstar with mass appeal. And he died of a cocaine oversose on the fucking night he was drafted. Yet, it's only got that much attention because it was the Celtics that drafted him?

I was 12 years old when he died. I lived a thousand miles away from Boston and I HATED the Celtics. And I still remember exactly what I was doing when I heard the news. I would think most sports fans who were older than 10 remember where they were that day. And I'm sure we all heard the same song over the next few years as well ---- about the danger of cocaine and how it had killed this terrific, young athlete the very first time he tried it, so we needed to stay far the hell away.

But you're right. Just more Boston-centric piffle. No one else outside Mass. could give two shits about Len Bias and his legacy.

 

I call bullshit. Read the article. Bias is and always will be a legend in the state of Maryland and the author made that clear. That he was selected by the Celtics is not the story, not even close.