Ep 10 - Len Bias: A Mixed Legacy - Teammates

Few were as profoundly affected by the death of Len Bias as members of the 1986 Maryland basketball team. For this episode, we will focus on the impact of his death on some of his teammates as well as his coach, Lefty Driesell.

This episode captures the essence of resilience as it relates to the death and legacy of Len Bias. Some managed to endure the torrential onslaught of challenges….and forge lives wiser and more sturdy than they might have been without the tragedy. Others struggled to escape the lingering wreckage.

About the narrator: Dave Ungrady, a former Maryland athlete, is the author of the book, Born Ready: the Mixed Legacy of Len Bias. He is the president of GoGrady Media and the executive producer of this podcast series.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast is based in large part on the book
Born Ready Mixed Legacy of Lend Bias. Some cultus are
narrated by podcast producer and book author David Grady from
interviews done for the book. Recruitings for those comments were
not available. We got to that point where the second
guess that was coming from everywhere, and I asked a

(00:21):
lot of questions about post I was learning that thought
was a little those strange the inspiration that len Bias
was to what Williams and I, But we also came
back and contributed to the program in the rebuilding process
that ultimately led with winning the championship in two thousand
and two. At this point, you know, you're thinking, how

(00:41):
much more you know can one person that endure memories
remember me and show they tried to make the left
the fall more left had no more to do than
you arrived here and not. Unfortunately In this episode of
Lambias Mixed Legacy was the teammate how the death of

(01:01):
member Maryland basketball. Few were as profoundly affected by the
death of Lynbias as members of the Maryland basketball team.
For this episode, we will focus on the impact of
his death on some of his teammates as well as
his coach, Lefty Drizzle. This episode captures the essence of

(01:24):
resilience as it relates to the death and legacy of
ln bias, the ability to recover quickly from difficulties and
showing toughness during those times. Some managed to endure the
torrential onslaught of challenges, and forge lives wiser and more
sturdy than they might have been without the tragedy. Others

(01:46):
struggled to escape the lingering wreckage. Dave Dickerson, Derrick Lewis,
Keith Gatlin. Through teaching and coaching, they've managed to pass
along lessons they learned that tumultuous time this generation didn't know.
They've heard about the Peters know then Tony Massenberg overcame

(02:09):
a stop and start college career to become an NBA champion.
John Johnson has lived a quiet life with little taste
for basketball, but still idolizing his friend. It's important for
me to tell my story as far as how he
impacted my life. I carry him with me every day.
Jeff Baxter is philosophical what the first was. Life is short,

(02:39):
you never know what stores what's going to happen, and
speedy Jones turned to God. David greg and Terry Long
were with Bias when he died. They both have mostly
remained quiet, choosing to let Len's legacy pass with minimal
public reflection. Greg Nard went on to work with such

(02:59):
super stars as Tiger Woods and Michelle we as a
marketing and management representative for Nike. Brian Palmer has coached
youth sports. He has told the Len Bias story to
his athletes, hoping it will help them make the right choices.
Phil Nevin says he's long ago put it all behind him,

(03:23):
coached Brazil, fared better than most, continuing a career that
ended with an induction into the Nasmith Memorial Basketball Hall
of Fame. You know, basketball is being great to me,
and for me to get into his Hall of Fame
is like unbelievable and thank you very much. Some talk

(03:48):
to us for this podcast. Some of their comments came
from the book Born Ready, The Mixed Legacy of Len Bias.
It's a tale of one shattered team that shared an
enduring tragedy, the death of lenba Is, but it was
not by their own choice. So I met we both
for shooting uh at those uh those uh those basketball

(04:11):
course set us set up to lose. I think we've
bubbled off a lot of money because you have to
be so perfect with him with the handing Australia. He
approproth me. We started, I'll remembers what's up. Man gave
each other five back in the day, so the hand

(04:32):
was different. We had a lot of people around just
watching the shoot. I do know that that's Jeff Baxter
talking about the day he met Lynn Bias. It was
on a senior class trip in two to King's Dominion,
an amusement park about eighty five miles south of Washington,
d C. Baxter and Bias were two of the top
players in the Washington d C. Area in the summer

(04:55):
of nineteen eighty two. They shared a room on campus
while attending summers. They did preseason workouts together. They developed
a comfortable bond from the beginning. You kind of like myself.
You may kind of serious or whatever, but we're both
really silly. Baxter and Bias would be roommates during their
four years at Maryland. During their first year, Bias and

(05:18):
Baxter held their own little dance parties in their campus apartment.
We would actually when we would have to have few
which was implemented the night before a game, and you
can you can go out out, you can go out
the apartment at all. I couldn't leave it. You get bored,
he gets bored, stiff, you've done. The game is not

(05:41):
until nine o'clock the next night, and you know it
could be a Friday night. So we're a freshman. We
would just t turn the music out. Then we would
dance the funniest, myself and him being a dancing. It's great,
not together, but just dancing. Okay, okay, didn't you go?

(06:03):
It will be funny. I mean, okay here I mean.
And that's how it was just hilarious for a guy
six fort a basketball player, amazing dancer. As juniors, they
ventured further from campus for social outings. A favorite hangout
was Georgetown, a section of Washington, d C. With dozens
of upscale bars and shops. One of their favorite places

(06:27):
in Georgetown was the Saloon, a jazz club. Baxter claims
that he never saw Bias drink alcohol. As for himself,
Baxter says he drank only wine or champagne during celebrations.
Lenny would never drink one thing in front of me
when we went out party, dance, we chase the girls.

(06:51):
We didn't. We didn't go out there, we didn't go
out to Okay, we got fun. We have hot. Baxter
did not start his first game until the Sea in
your season. That year, he started thirty games and average
nine point five points per game. One of his more
fond memories from that season was a night he and
Bias broke curfew after a game against NC State, Along

(07:14):
with freshman John Johnson, they stopped by a party on
the NC State campus. The three returned to the team
hotel after midnight. Waiting for them were Maryland's assistant coaches
and head coach Lefty Drizzle. Had it not been for
a summer school exam he needed to take on to nine,

(07:35):
Baxter would likely have stayed at his girlfriend's house, where
he had fallen asleep the night before. Instead, he returned
to the dorm suite he shared with Bias and others
shortly after midnight, expecting to study a bit more. The
group was celebrating bias a selection by the Celtics in
the NBA Draft, held two nights prior. I was more

(07:56):
so excited. Again, the whole was never to my mindset,
wasn't what grandpants, Who'll saw a couple of eyes a
little bloodshot read But a few hours later Bias was dead.

(08:20):
Baxter was unaware of any drug use by Bias during
their four years of Maryland. He still insists Bias did
not use drugs before the ninety died. But I've heard things.
I have not heard anything validated that Lin had had drugs,
cocaine plots. That's crazy. I would go on trial, not

(08:41):
that that would matter, and deny that. Baxter found solo
comfort in a familiar place on the evening of June nineteen,
hours after Bias died, a place that was special to
both Baxter and Bias. Yeah. I came to this. It's
just kind of because I was trying to just flash

(09:02):
back his whole big in my mind because actually I
thought he didn't think, but it felt like a dream.
D it was reality, but I thought, so that's where
I came. Probably was there about three uniform soda and

(09:23):
I think it's cramper aperties. It was time away from
it all. Baxtor spent the next few weeks at his
parents house nearby. While at home, he was surprised when
even his brother asked him if he had been using
drugs second from everywhere. Baxter tried out for two NBA teams,
and he feels his connection to Bias hurt his chances

(09:46):
of making a team. He claims he was asked by
one team to perform three drug tests a day for
five days, more than other players during their tryouts. Baxter
feels the excessive testing was due to his connection to
the death of Bias. Two years after Bias died, back
to return to Maryland and completed his public relations degree.

(10:09):
For some twenty years, something would happen every day that
would make Baxter think about Bias. He now mostly reflects
on his friend and teammate only when asked. Baxter attended
the premiere of the documentary Without Bias in two thousand nine.
He recalls an emotional moment that night with former Tarrapin

(10:30):
basketball star Steve Francis. Saw Steve Francis and he was crying.
Oh my god. He he almost couldn't stand up. And
this is Steve. Chief said he's alive with the howik
because of all you guys playing. I mean, he was
torn up. I said, man, just take care of yourself.
Gave him a hug and everything, and I went trying

(10:51):
to watch the moon and how it's life. That's crazy,
he said. He said, because but I'm sure Lynn, because
Lynn start when thinking of Bias, Baxter tries to focus
on lessons learned from his death to solidify everything has

(11:11):
been knocked into my heads. Family just got to be
careful and not all who they're to be right, But
like Baxter. Tom Speedy Jones was a senior on the
Maryland basketball team in six He admits that by the

(11:32):
time he began his Maryland career in as a junior
college transfer, he had stopped going to church. During a
phone conversation in May two thousand eleven, Jones said that
the death of Bias renewed his faith in God. Speedy
Jones told me, the sad thing is it's a hard
thing to say, but it was a positive thing for me.

(11:55):
It made me take a look at how I was
living my life during that year. I was the worst.
I had no respect period. Anyone would tell you if
I went into a restaurant, I treated everyone with disrespect.
When he died, I knew I had to get my
life straight. I'm here by the grace of God. John Johnson,

(12:15):
a freshman on the team, confirms that self assessment by Jones,
Speedy was always that guy. Whatever dead, it was also
about him. I could tell he had changed. He was
just he was more of a person. Whatever Dad, that
was more considerate of you know, other people, know the

(12:38):
people's feelings. It was just like, It's almost like he
was a different person. Jones was an All American in
both high school and junior college. One newspaper described him
as a Bias like leaper, but his Maryland career failed
to reach great heights. As a senior forward, he averaged
seven points and four rebounds to gain. To avoid the

(12:59):
underwanted attend shin that surrounded Maryland's players. After the death
of Bias, Jones fled to Europe. Jones told me, I
took the first flight out to Europe. I couldn't come
out of the apartment without a camera getting into my face.
I thought I could get away from it over there,
but over there were the same questions. Jones played four

(13:20):
years of professional basketball in Europe and for several minor
league teams in North America. He later became a special
education teacher. In two thousand and eight, he helped secure
Lannis Bias as a graduation speaker at the school where
he was teaching. Keith Gatland was the high school player

(13:43):
of the year in North Carolina. Some considered him a
natural to play for the Tar Heels of North Carolina,
but Gatland like Maryland's up tempo style, and some of
his relatives lived near the Maryland campus. Maryland was high
on Gatland's list of schools. When he there for a visit,
Lenn Bias was assigned to be chaperone. Keith Gatlin told me,

(14:06):
I hit it off with him when we first met.
When you go to a campus to a visit, most
of the coaches put you with somebody they know will
be talkative, outgoing show you a good time. He was
that guy that visit convinced Gatland to commit to Maryland.
He was the team's top point guard for three years
with Bias. Gatlin finished his junior year as the team's

(14:28):
second leading scorer. He was primed to be the team's
scoring and assist leader as a senior, and at six
ft and five inches tall, he had the strong potential
to become at least a role player in the NBA.
Gatlin attended summer school in and lived in the same
four room suite as Bias. He had his last conversation

(14:52):
with Bias before going to bet on June eighteen, an
early class back in the next day, Gatlin told me,
I said, I'll see you in the morning. He said,
I'll see you in the morning. Gatlin awoke the next
morning and found Bias unconscious on the floor. He called
lunist Bias and told her to go to the wrong hospital.

(15:15):
Len's death shattered Gatland's life. After Bias died, Gatlin cried
every day for weeks. He spent lots of time watching
soap propers on television. He ordered pizza and ate it
in bed. He was scared to leave his room, fearful
of people whispering, hey, that's Gatlin. He was in the
room when Bias died. Catlin told me I was getting

(15:38):
ridiculed and I had nothing to do with it. 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. Destroy acted.

(16:00):
Gatland failed to register for classes in the fall semester
and was ruled ineligible for the next season. He admits
that his thoughts were far from basketball in school. Gatlin
told me, I took the wrong approach. I was young.
I felt like this is not fair. Instead of handling
it like an adult, I went into a shell and

(16:22):
had the f the world mentality. This lasted the whole
year for me. Gatland played his first home game at
Coldfield House since the death of Bias on January eight.
Most in the sellout crowd of fourteen thousand, five hundred
stood and cheered for him as he entered the game
for the first time. About midway through the first half.

(16:45):
Gatland score twelve points and that Maryland in assists with
six in a fifteen point win over Clemson. Gatland was
not picked in the NBA draft. Still, he played that
summer with the Milwaukee Bucks before being cut. Gatland recently
appeared on the Goat Turps podcast, hosted by former Maryland

(17:06):
star Travis Garrison. He explained the challenges he faced trying
to make an NBA team. I went to the Milwaukee
Bucks and then I went in and the paces and
I was told, thank you do the wait things. Having
that Maryland bad for the community. I'm all a c
C all times since leader, you know, and I'm like,

(17:29):
I'm hoping right when it comes time to to get
the bag that can deal with I'm like, I'll take
a drug test for your twenty four hours, say take
a drug test two. Gatlin did play for Proteins in
Europe for eight years. Even when he played in Europe,
Gatlin couldn't escape the death of Bias. They knew that

(17:50):
I played Maryland and lived. Bias was such an icon
of figure lost his life. So I only had one
Yugoslavia coach in the EuroLeague when I was in Greece
that made it a big deal and was just like, hey,
well you're in that room whatever. But oh I told
my wife, if I ever see him again, I'm gonna
step to him. So he tried to break me mentally,

(18:12):
but he couldn't. But he went. He went where you
shouldn't go by saying stuff like when you're in that
room or when you're part of that when you do cocaine.
He went somewhere that you know, as a as an
athlete and a coach, you should never go. Gotlind credits
his mother with helping guide him through the challenging time.
My mom rest of the soul was just like, yo,

(18:35):
you keep doing it the right way to come back
to your tinfold, and and that was poetic from her.
It was correct. I hung in there and got my degree,
played on a nice level. You know, made some money.
But at first it did bother me. But the grips
with it, like you know, you can't control people. You

(18:57):
can control and you can control the controllables. Gatland is
an assistant coach at High Court University in North Carolina.
As a longtime coach, he has used his experiences with
Bias to teach life lessons to his players. Gatlin believes
that if Bias had heated that kind of advice, he
might still be alive. Catlin told me on the court,

(19:20):
Lenny was a tenacious player. When he was with his
local crew, he did what they did. But when he
was his own person, people said he was too soft.
I tell kids, it's okay to be different, lived to
your own standards. Derrick Lewis was walking on the Maryland

(19:41):
campus to take a calculus test on June nineteen when
a team mate stopped him. He told Lewis to go
to a nearby hospital. Something serious had happened to Lend Bias.
Studying all night for his tests his days, Lewis raced

(20:03):
to the hospital he needed to find out what happened
to Bias. Missing that test was a minor inconvenience for
Lewis compared to what he endured during his last three
years at Maryland. When he was five years old, Lewis
moved from North Carolina to Temple Hills, Maryland, some ten
miles from bias his hometown of Columbia Park. He was

(20:27):
a high school All American and a big North Carolina fan,
but Lewis says a coach at North Carolina told him
he'd have to sit for much of two years until
Michael Jordan was done. So Lewis picked Maryland as a freshman.
Lewis and Bias and then a jr. Were roommates on
the first team trip of the season. It was at

(20:51):
the Alaska Shootout. On the trip, Lewis witnessed the spontaneous
side of Bias, so he ended up staying in the
room and taking He's a middle goofy pictures. He had
dicky on and no shirt and jeans rolled up and
they had a had who that he was had one
leg groud Jade, we're taking pictures like that. So he

(21:13):
spent to dressed that night doing that. Lewis recalls the
high confidence level of Bias, you know Superman. After Bias died,
Lewis struggled largely with the blame given his coach left
to Grisel for the death of Bias. I'm gonna quit
because they were they were bring with them, he said,
it was his fault in that control one and left.
He can't be with that's twelve hours a day and

(21:34):
its twelve was and it's ridiculous and they made an escape,
goes you know, there's day I'll I don't understand. I
think that and that's what this one kiss me on
the rose. Lewis decided to stay at Maryland after some
comforting words from Bob Wade, who took over as coach
after Grisel left the program. Yeah, he's a poison and

(21:56):
if you was you one of these in this, that's fine,
he said, you know, we do helps would love for
you to stay. And uh, he said, you hell stuff Now,
I can't say notting issues that have a different feeling
about He said, understand and make a hasty decision and

(22:18):
then Lady. In his senior year, Lewis led the team
in scoring and rebounding, and for the second time, he
earned All Atlantic Coast Conference second team honors. The Chicago
Bulls made him a third round pick in the NBA draft.
Lewis felt confident about his chances of making the team.

(22:40):
He signed a two year deal that would be in
effect only if he made the team. When Lewis got
to training camp, the topic of bias came up often
during an interview with the bull staff, and I asked
a lot of questions about I was learning, which I
thought was little. That was strange that the stays, you know,

(23:00):
how how close who are as far as you with
the roommates? Um uh, you know in the road, did
we room, did we go out together? A lot of
that kind of stuff. Um, I haven't see him do anything,
you know that that. I was happy to be there.
I was getting it growed about the bias and how

(23:21):
close we were. On the second day of camp, Lewis
got food poisoning from eating tuna fish. He recovered in
a couple of days, but the vomiting prevented him from
keeping its blood pressure medication down. He sat out a
full week and missed the team's first summer league trip.
When he was able to take the medication again, it
slowed him down and made him feel groggy. That probably

(23:44):
hurt just as much as probably the association at that
time they caught maybe. Lewis was one of the last
players cut in the eighty nine Bulls team that advanced
to the NBA Eastern Conference Finals. An emerging star on
that team was Michael Jordan's. The last day we had,

(24:07):
Doug Collins told me, he said, like you play, I
want to send Dona Rockey said, right now you have
a problem card Carden players, Uh, Joe position and practice
And I said, does an' due respect? I said, I God,
Michael do it every day twice a day for two
hours and thirty minutes. So I haven't seen anybody else

(24:30):
about my majority uh up until now. Lewis played one
year with Rockford in the Continental Basketball Association. He then
played for Proteins in France for fifteen years. He later
became a health education teacher. He has talked to students
about the dangers of drugs and alcohol abuse. For a time.

(24:51):
Pictures of Lewis along with some other Maryland teammates flashed
on his computer screen in the classroom. One was Bias.
Students wondered who Bias was. Sensing the student's interest, Lewis
decided to show the ESPN documentary without Bias to his class.
After one viewing, a student said the documentary helped teacher

(25:15):
that abusing drugs even one time can kill you just
one time, if you have any one time one time.
Like many of his teammates from Maryland team, Tony Massemberg

(25:36):
thought about transferring out of Maryland after Lamed Bias died,
but he chose to stay instead. Here's what Massenburg said
about it in a newspaper article quote, I thought that
I'd seen the worst this program had to offer, So
why would I leave for some place that maybe even worse.

(25:56):
I could have said, this is it. I'm not doing
this anymore. Somebody is out to get me. I kept striving.
I knew there would be a rainbow at the end
of all of this. Still, it took some time for
Masterburg to work through some challenges. He learned within weeks
of biases death that he would be suspended from the
team his sophomore season for cheating on an exam. Here's

(26:19):
Massemburg again in nine quote, I didn't think they had
enough evidence. I felt I may have been made an
example of during the time Maryland was supposedly cleaning up
their program. End quote. More academic problems forced Massemburg to
miss the early part of the night eight season his
third year as well. He played his first Maryland games

(26:43):
since Bias died on December eight that season. His next
season was delayed too, Massenburg was suspended for selling complementary
tickets to the a c C Tournament. Said Massemburg in
the nine nineties story, quote, I can less lee say
there hasn't been anybody in the history of nt double

(27:04):
a basketball, barring injury, that has had a rougher career
at one school than I have. End quote. There were
signs in the preseason that Massenburg was disheartened. New head
coach Gary Williams remembered him as lacking aggression and practices.
Williams said this in the Washington Post story about Massenburg

(27:27):
that year, quote, I wasn't sure he wanted to rebound,
or play defense, or any of the other things that
require the work. I think there was a tendency to think,
why me, Why did I have to go through this?
Funny thing about the suspension. He came back from that
ready to play end quote. Williams added to those comments

(27:49):
in an interview for this podcast. You know, when you
have a coach and all of a sudden he's let
go that, that's not a fun time for any podyer,
regardless of felt you felt to the coach. And I'm
sure Tony has some feelings about that. You know. The
only thing I could do was make a promise. I'd
try to make him as good as possible. And you know,
I didn't blow a lot of smoke at him and

(28:11):
tell him how great he was anything like that. Tony
was the type of player that it was worth running
your offense to get the ball inside that first year.
By the end of his Maryland career, Masseburg was twice
selected to All Atlantic Coast Conference teams. The San Antonio
Spurs picked Masseburg in the second round of NBA Draft

(28:34):
in thirteen NBA seasons. He played for more than a
dozen teams and won a championship with the Spurs in
two thousand five. In two thousand and eleven, Massburg had
agreed to an interview for the book Born Ready, The
Mixed Legacy of len Bias. Two months later, he notified
me that he had a quote conflict of interest clothes

(28:56):
quote and would not do the interview. It turned up
Massburg and former Maryland star Walt Williams. We're working on
a book about bias. The book was published. At a
promotional appearance, Massenburg explained what inspired him to write the book,
called Lessons from Lenny. The inspiration that LND Bias was

(29:18):
to walk Williams and I and the fact that that
motivated us to not only stay at Maryland at a
time when we left, but we also came back and
contributed to the program in the rebuilding process that ultimately
led to winning the championship in two thousand and two.
So we talked about that journey and the lessons that
we learned that actually made us better people. Because lin
Bias is inspirational, I'm surprised to lend By story is

(29:44):
not being told on a yearly basis when new athletes
come into college or into high school. The lend By
story is one of the better stories you can use
to get an individual or team to do the right thing.
That's Dave Dickerson, a freshman on the Maryland team when
Lent Bias died. From the death of Bias, Dickerson learned
fortitude and perseverance. Those lessons, some twenty years later, helped

(30:09):
him navigate through another tragedy. In April two thousand five,
Dickerson was one of about eighty people who applied for
the head coaches job at Tulane University in New Orleans.
He was chosen in part for how he handled himself
at Maryland after Bias died. A letter from former Maryland
Chancellor John Slaughter to Tulane athletic director Rick Dixon helped.

(30:32):
In the letter, Slaughter called Dickerson quote pillar of calm
during the storm and a national spokesperson not just for basketball,
but for the university end quote. Dickerson took over a
program that recorded one winning season in five years, and
then Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the home city for

(30:53):
Tulane men's basketball, was one of five school teams forced
to relocate to the campus of Tech to say In
m University, some four miles away. Dickerson had to think
of ways to keep players focused on playing basketball. He
told them the story about Lenn Bias. Dickerson told me

(31:15):
when I got them together, for the first time in Texas.
I told them the story about sticking with the University
of Maryland and not transferring and weathering the storm, and
look where it got me. Without that story, I think
I would have lost half my team. They had to
remain loyal to a coach who hadn't recruited anyone on
that team. I just told them what happened and what

(31:36):
type of player Bias was. I told them to this
day he was the best player I played with, or
against or saw during my coaching career. I compared him
to Michael Jordan's and Carl Malone and Larry Bird. I
talked to them about what happened the morning of June.
I went through that step by step. The Len Bias

(31:58):
story was the catch to get their attention, to get
guys to be loyal, maintaining the course. And yes there
will be some ups and downs, tragedies here and there.
We needed to continue to work and stick together. I
told them, at the end of the day, you will
benefit from it. Before taking the job at Tulane, Dickerson

(32:19):
worked as an assistant coach at three programs, including one
season at James Madison University. The head coach then was
lefty grisel in n Dickerson began a nine year career
as an assistant at Maryland. When he started at marked
the end of a boycott of sorts for Dickerson. Here's

(32:40):
Don Marcus, a podcast producer who covered Maryland athletics during
the Gary Williams era. I remember talking to Dave Dickerson
when Gary Williams hired him, and what struck me was
something that they've said about his time as a player
at Maryland. After graduating in he didn't wear his college

(33:00):
ring until he showed up in mainly because he didn't
want to talk about the years he was at Maryland
and he didn't want to talk about the death of
one Bias. As an assistant coach, Dickerson recruited such All
Americans and future pro players as Steve Francis and Juan Dixon.
Dickerson was an All State player in high school out

(33:21):
of South Carolina. He played in fifteen games as a freshman.
With forwards Bias and Speedy Jones ending their eligibility in
Dickerson felt good about his chances at forward the next season,
but then Bias died and chaos became the new normal.
Dickerson considered transferring, but chose to stay at Maryland. He

(33:44):
felt it was too risky to leave. He also feared
that if he left Maryland he would suffer the wrath
of his father, whom he called quote an old school guy.
Close quotes Dickerson told me, if you start something, you
finish it. I was scared of my father. In a
profound understatement, Dickerson says that playing for the Terrapins that

(34:06):
first season after Bias died was not fun. Dickerson told
me we were viewed in a different light than any
other athlete on campus. The perception of that team and
the players on it was that we were drug abusers.
We all didn't go to class, and that we all
were all part of what happened that night. There were
stairs people being stand offish. There weren't a lot of

(34:29):
people reaching out and hugging you. It was a life
altering experience. Dickerson ended his career at Maryland as a
part time starter. He was the team captain his senior
season in nine and earned his government and politics degree
in Perhaps his most cherished moment from Maryland took place
after his junior season in that's when he met his

(34:53):
future wife Laurette graduate of Maryland. Dickerson told me, I'm
at peace with everything that happened. I don't look back
and say COULDA would have in Dickerson began his fourth
season as the men's basketball head coach at South Carolina Upstate.

(35:13):
Throughout his coaching career, he has answered questions about bias
from players he's coached. Dickerson told me, was he really
that good? What kind of person was he? Did you
know what he was doing in that room that night?
I got those questions from my son when he was
ten years old. He did not fully understand the scope

(35:34):
of what happened. I talked to him about what's right
and wrong, about making good decisions and the consequences of
making bad decisions. To this day, I consider Len Bias
a role model. Role Models don't always make the right decisions.
When you make a bad decision, sometimes you pay for
it with your life. Len Bias taught me more about

(35:56):
life in the one year I spent with him than
any other person outside of my family. I feel like,
sitting next to his jersey, can you feel anything from this?
Any kind of emotion? Knowing that not really, Because anywhere

(36:24):
I go, anywhere I could feel any present or whatever.
A lot of times when I'm by myself, I could
be riding along or whatever and just burned down. He's
always looking. Minutes earlier, John Johnson had returned to a
familiar setting, eager but wary of how everything would feel.
He had not walked through the doors of R. J.

(36:46):
Bentley's restaurant in College Park in more than two decades.
Johnson walked into a back room in the restaurant, towards
the number thirty four Len Biased jersey hanging on the
wall in a glass protected frame. He did so without guidance.
It was as if he was propelled by a spiritual
force that was back in. Johnson was about to sit

(37:08):
down for his first in depth interview about Bias, almost
twenty five years after he died. As Johnson looked back
across the room, he asked, do you mind if we
sit next to Len's jersey? Not waiting for an answer,
he haaded toward it. Let's sit next to Lenny, he said.
Then he talked for three hours about his life since

(37:30):
the death of Bias, whom he called a brother, the
person that he was, his personality, his spirit, whatever his
attitude about the game and his love for the game.
Let me keep you right there, and everybody else can
have the rest what he gave to me. Whatever. Speedy Jones,

(37:53):
a senior on the Maryland team with Johnson, says no
member of the team was as affected by the death
of Bias as Johnson, and that includes David greg and
Terry Long, who were in the room with Bias when
he died. Dave Dickerson, a freshman with Johnson, witnessed Bias
and Johnson form a special friendship. Dickerson told me throughout

(38:15):
our first year he hit a natural bond with Lenny.
After Johnson left Maryland in he struggled to even play
pick up basketball games for years. During the interview, Johnson
expressed pride for not fading into a deep, prolonged despair
after Bias died. You see the two ways that could
have gone, could have crashed and burned or whatever. I

(38:36):
could have just picked myself up and used him as
a motivator and he go forward. I've never been arrested,
never been locked up. You know, my record as clean
as a whistle. Don't have any do d us had
no d w E or whatever. Johnson and Bias bonded

(38:56):
within moments of meeting. In the summer of Night four.
It was on Johnson's recruiting trip to Maryland. Johnson opened
a door to a dorm room full of Maryland basketball players.
Bias tackled him almost immediately. They started to wrestle, acting
like two young teenagers testing their competitive edge. And one
of the biggest reasons why I came was because of

(39:19):
the fact that when I got here, you know, he
and I were bound and wrestling in the floor orever.
You know, I'll never forget that now. And I had
no idea who Lin Bias was. When I was at seniors.
He walked with me almost like a teammate or As
a senior in high school, Johnson was named the top
player in Tennessee and an All American. Bias called Johnson

(39:43):
about a dozen times while Maryland was recruiting him. That
was even more important for convincing Johnson to attend Maryland.
Once Bias called from Alaska while Maryland was playing in
the Great Alaska Shootout. You think I care about what
happened one night in the room and you got a
calling you from Alaska, Johnson was referring to the night

(40:04):
by Hiss died nobody. I'm just a kid that's trying
to get into a universal but was As a freshman,
Johnson shared a dorm sweet with Bias, Terry Long, and
Speedy Jones. He seemed to be enjoying his first year
at Maryland. Sue Tyler, an associate athletic director at Maryland,
then remembers Johnson during his freshman year as a person

(40:27):
with a promising future. And he was just like um,
just a sweet, nice beat uh, smiley faced kid and
just the brightest smile on his face all the time,
and a positive word for everybody and final loving and
he just studded around and I just knew that he

(40:48):
was going to be somebody and he's going to make
a difference. I mean he was. He was just a
good guy. Johnson finished the year with the best numbers
of any of the five Maryland freshman He led the
class and overall appearances with thirty and with five point
eight points per game. Johnson also ended the season enjoying
his bond with Bias. He felt it was unique for

(41:09):
a freshman to be spending so much time with a senior,
especially a superstar such as Bias. He remembers Bias embracing
his Tennessee country leanings in Johnson's fondness for pop bands
such as New Addition, Bias preferred go go music, a
genre that originated in Washington, d C. I guess he

(41:30):
never thought he was gonna listening to, you know, New
Edition and Bobby Brown and some of these other casts
I was listening to at the time. But you know,
he started liking my music, and I remember he started
joking joking with me about that, you know, about how
how how these you know, a little you know, catchy
songs was starting to grow on him and stuff like that.

(41:51):
After Bias died, Johnson says he and most of his
Maryland teammates went back to the rooms and stayed there,
relying on friends to provide food for to a week.
They waited until the media interest waned. They turned away
a grief counselor. The first class Johnson attended after Bias
died took place in a large lecture hall. He and

(42:12):
a friend walked through a door at the front of
the hall, visible to the dozens of students who had
already taken their seats. The buzz of idal chatter suddenly
stopped He walked through row after row of students, all silent,
and took a seat at the back. Crickets that quiet. Yeah,

(42:34):
so me, I don't know, I don't know what about
you know? You associated me with being a drug head?
What do you mean? So I started feeling bad about
you know? What are these people thinking? I'm not ready
for you? Johnson stayed for about fifteen minutes and then
left to escape the pressures. Johnson spent time after biases

(42:59):
death at a friend's house in Columbia, Maryland. His routine
once he returned to school was going from class to
the gym, to the training table into his room. He
often read scripture for comfort and considered transferring to anywhere.
He struggled with what people were saying about Bias, the
team and coach Lefty Grisel. He seemed to be the

(43:22):
one that was most affected by Len's death because his
posture changed. He was rounded shoulders and he never looked
up anymore. His smile was gone. He was I think
he was deeply saddened and deeply affected by Len's death.
Comforting words from Lenis Bias helped Johnson deal with his grief.

(43:45):
It happened a few months after lenn died during a
chance meeting at a shopping mall near the Maryland campus.
Spoke to me. It encouraged me, and I never forget it.
She was one of them get ones or whatever. The
reason why I stayed because the fact that she has

(44:05):
so much to say, Lenny loved you and and and
you keep doing what're doing because God wants you to
be here. And she just had so much conviction in
her spirit and her heart or whatever. I remember at
the conversation with her, me and the young lady I
was with, I was already shaking Holy spirit. You know.

(44:28):
She encouraged me to keep going when she's you know, Lenny,
need to talk about you all the time. Johnson also
found inspiration from an unlikely source, Brian Tribble, one of
the three people with bias when he died. It happened
in the barbershop and to Cooma Park, Maryland, frequented by
Maryland players. He saw Trible sitting in a chair and

(44:51):
going to barbershop, trying to figure out now, trying to
sort out my feelings now, should I feel angry a like? Probably? Probably.
It was my first new encounter with him after after
the situation, after Lynn died. So I'm sitting there, Go

(45:15):
back outside, get in my car, go up like t
was in there. You didn't want to be in there
with m Yeah. I'm trying to sort out my feelings
right now about but going to barber shop. Go back in,
sit down next to Brian. I don't know what to say,
don't know what to talk about. But we just started something,

(45:36):
just some conversation whatever, man and Brian looks at me
and said, you know, Johnny, Lenny used to always say
that the next person that was gonna come out of
here was going to be here, said lean story tell
me he's I used to ask men, who's gonna take
over after you leave? He said, Leny, we always say
Johnny Johnson, so here and Brian say say that to

(46:00):
me and not hearing it from Lenny or whatever. It's
almost like Lenny talking to me. The season after the
death of Bias, Johnson started every game as a sophomore,
averaging about ten points a game, but as playing time
diminished as a junior. Interestingly, he found ways to have
fun that year. Oh my god, it was my best

(46:21):
year in regardless that that. Guess what, every day when
I went to practice or whatever. Even asking any of
them guys Greg Dave about this or whatever, they had
no answer from me. Play like Lenny and I were playing.
It's just free. The year that I didn't play my
best year at the University of Maryland, we had. We're

(46:42):
having fun. Johnson ended his senior year as one of
the team's top players, starting all twenty nine games and
posting a career best fifteen point five points per game. Still,
Maryland struggled and finished nine and twenty, and the effects
of biases death still lingered. Johnson McCalls that once, while

(47:04):
he said in Massenberg's dorm room, they suddenly both grew silent.
Moments later, Massenberg erupted in a spasm of crying. See
him break down like that with his life? Man, what
do I do? You know? What I mean? What did
you say? You can't say anything or whatever, because you

(47:27):
know we've already been through so much. You know it
was older. So did you cry along with them? You remember, man?
You know it was I just remember a big fellow
broke down, and I'm pretty sure I tear to. Johnson

(47:55):
admits that during his senior year, he and a couple
other players threatened to quit the team they had just
lost to eighth rank North Carolina in late January. The
record was six and eight. We're trying to shake all,
you know. Definitely, everybody was just at their breaking me.

(48:16):
I was done with it. I was I was rated
packing in. What're you gonna do something? Graduate? So what
I came? Johnson and the others decided to play through
the year. That allowed Johnson and Massemburg to share a
tribute to Bias. It took place in the first round

(48:37):
of the a CEC Tournament. Maryland, the lowest seed, defeated
top seed at NC State seventy one to forty nine.
It was Maryland's biggest win of the season, and on
the last play of the game, Johnson took an outlet
pass off a rebound and looked up court as Maryland
began to break away. He threw a lob past to Massemburg,

(48:58):
who responded with a resounding Bias like dunk. Massenburg then
ran to Johnson for an emotional embrace. Said Johnson at
the time, quote, it was like an exclamation point to
my career, me saying to Tony, hey, big fella, this
is my last past to you. Tear that rim down

(49:19):
and let's have a little Letty Bias celebration. Close quote.
Johnson did not have reason to celebrate basketball much after that.
Maryland lost its next game in the tournament and was
done for the season. He says a scheduled tryout for
the Celtics never happened due to injury. His passion for
basketball continued to fade. He would not even play in

(49:42):
a pickup game. It was not an easy decision for
Johnson to discuss Bias in he had not talked with
the media about him since in a Washington Post feature
about Massemburg. As he considered doing the interview, he consulted
the Bible to say that he wasn't an angel because
the fact that how many people didn't say, how many

(50:04):
people actually went to Christ, because of the fact that
they threw away a lot of drugs that the same
night they found out and decided they were going to
change their lives for the better. In my in my
estimation whatever, he would an anxious But you know, if
you think about it, you know how many other people
look at him and things because the fact that he
saved their lives without a lynd bias or whatever. Where

(50:29):
would those people do? You know? Terry Long was one
of three people with LN bias when he had the
heart attack that led to his death. Long achieved more
notoriety for his connection to the death of the Maryland
Star than for his accomplishments on a basketball court. For

(50:52):
most of his Maryland career, Long played a supportive role
as a six ft eight inch forward. He was not
a frequent starter until his junior year. Long average less
than four points and four rebounds of game. A Washington
Post story described Long as a polite, soft spoken sort
with an easy smile but an anxious demeanor. The birth

(51:15):
of a daughter about eighteen months before the death of
Bias was an additional challenge for Long, said Long in March.
It was something for me to get adjusted to. It's
made me mature faster. Long claims that Bias introduced him
to cocaine in four at the beginning of a sophomore season.

(51:39):
He says Bias gave him the drug in a folded
dollar bill. Speedy Jones was a senior on the team
in six. Long's cocaine connection to Bias was not a
surprise to Jones. Jones told me Terry Long was hooked
on cocaine. If Bias hadn't died, Long might have died

(52:01):
from cocaine. Long was charged with possessing cocaine and obstructing
justice related to bias his death, but the charges were
dismissed in exchange for his testimony against Brian Tribble, another
person with Bias when he died. Long's life took dramatic
turns after the death of Bias, he returned to the

(52:21):
Maryland campus two days later along with the police escort.
He had received death threats. In October, Long was suspended
indefinitely from the team following his indictment. He withdrew from
Maryland in late December. Derrick Lewis was a sophomore on

(52:42):
the team when Bias died. He doesn't talked about at all.
It was a while. He'll call and say happy birthday, Um,
but he doesn't. He doesn't discuss it at all. I
think because he was in the room. You have so
many questions, is what does Avy have? But during a
brief phone call in the spring of Long was asked

(53:02):
to talk about how biases death has affected his life.
He responded politely and calmly, saying I'm not interested. In
subsequent calls, he provided only brief background information. Long has
not talked publicly about the death of Bias. He is
the only one who was with Bias when he passed

(53:23):
out who has not done so. A few years ago, Long,
in a phone call, agreed to an interview, but it
has not yet been secured. He has not returned multiple
follow up phone messages and text messages. Long return to
the Maryland campus for the first time when the school's
athletic department honored their coach left in Brazil at a

(53:44):
Maryland basketball game against North Carolina State in two thousand three.
Here's Jeff Baxter as senior on the team. I think
I think I have not boughted that because I think
it's time. One think he's very stayed office. Yeah, I

(54:07):
think that's the biggest piece. I think he's hurt. I
think I think I think Terry l this is I
really I think I think he would put that type
of press with himself. Speedy Jones says Long broke down
and quote told him everything end quote about how Bias died,
but Jones did not provide details. He says that every

(54:31):
time he talks too long about Bias, he can still
see the pain in Long's eyes. Keith Gatlin, who entered
Maryland the same year as Long, talks with him occasionally
and visits him in Baltimore. He wishes Long with talk.
Catlin told me it would be therapeutic for Terry, and

(54:51):
the perception of Terry that he was a bad guy.
We're not a good kid is something that is really
not true. More than any other member of Maryland's six team,
David Gregg lives in the large and looming shadow of
Len Bias. As a player at Maryland, Greg was six

(55:15):
ft nine inches tall in just under two hundred pounds.
Greg could have passed his Bias his brother. In fact,
they jokingly referred to each other as cousins. Like Bias.
He was born in Washington, d c. Like Bias, Greg
seemed to share an endearing personality. Like Bias, Greg played

(55:36):
for the same coach, Bob Wagner, at the same high school, Northwestern.
At Northwestern, Greg was McDonald's All America, something Bias did
not achieve. Like Bias, Greg was very familiar with Maryland basketball.
While in high school. Greg was one of three people
with Bias when he had the heart attack that led

(55:56):
to his death. Mike Morrison has known Greg since the
third grade and was a high school teammate. So all
the home games we had tickets on Press Road. So
me and Mr Wagner and Dave will go to all
the games. We were in. We read the game when
Michael Jordan did the Rock the Cradle, were sitting on
the baseline. We were talking them before and after game.
So Lynn will come back to the gym some days

(56:18):
before games and shooting our gym. So we were constantly
in contact with him. We would constantly see him, so
you know, you know, David was excited about going to Merland.
He was working real hard and to wait whom with
Mr Wagner and Lynn's Charles Payne met Greg when both
were eleven years old and also played high school basketball
with Greg. He says Greg came out of a shell

(56:40):
at Maryland. He was always the quiet one. Yeah, he
just kind of found our lead, you know, and um,
you know, a great, great guy. You know, everybody loved
to be around him. But he loved to laugh and
have fun and have a good time at Maryland. The
good time seemed to continue after Greg settled in. Greg
admitted in him Miami Herald Report in that he stopped

(57:03):
going to classes during the second semester of his freshman year.
He chose instead to quote date girls, talked to friends,
just hang out close quote. Maryland teammate Terry Long said
in court testimony that he snorted cocaine with Bregg and
Bias at Brian Trouble's apartment. It was after a game

(57:24):
against NC State in College Park on January. Greg was
in his dorm room talking on the phone when Bias
knocked on his door in the early morning hours of
June nineteenth. Bias wanted Greg to help celebrate the start
of his new career with the Celtics. After they started

(57:47):
consuming cocaine, Gregg became concerned that Bias was snorting too
much of it, but he did not know how to
tell Bias to stop. Payne remembers getting a call later
that morning that woke him up and and it was
Dave and he was just telling me. He was like, hey, man,
I need you to come get me. I could immediately
I could tell something was wrong. And I said, what

(58:09):
do you mean you need me to come and get you.
He goes, I just need you to come get me.
So I said, what's going on? And then he tells
me he goes, man, let me just died. I said, what.
He goes, Yeah, he just, um, he just died. I said, how,
I said, you know what, wait until I get there.
And so he gets in my car and he explains
to me, you know what it happened. And so I'm shocked.

(58:33):
I'm trying to deal with that news myself, but at
the same time, I'm trying to be there for him.
Paine gave Gregor ride to the house of coach Lefty herself.
You know, Lefty left me in just like I was
a part of the team, and so we were we
were just sitting there and you know, Lefty came in
and he started talking. You know, he started talking to

(58:56):
the team and telling them about you know, how tragic
this is. But you know Lynn was ready. You know,
Lynn was a good, good guys Christian, He's he's okay,
and you know, we know that this is going This
is is very shocking and hard to deal with. You know,
we're gonna have people for you guys to talk to
if you need it. Just going kind of back and

(59:17):
forth because you know, at this point, left he doesn't
know that the story, he doesn't really know what's happened. Himself.
Payne then took Greg to his mother's house. The next
couple of days really just got crazy when all of
a sudden, you know, criminal charges are going to be
brought against him and everybody in the room, and then
death threats. But clearly, um, they got David and Terry

(59:41):
Long out of town. Um. I can't remember how long
it was, but I know they left town for a while.
Greg and Long later went to the house owned by
Bob Wagner, Greg's high school coach, but lefty and said,
you know, contain it in Terry state there until their
parents could get with their attorneys to get prepper some tame.
Can they stay where my house? Okay? So they stayed upstairs.

(01:00:03):
I had a little upstairs that I often did rent
anyone to make extra money to pay my pills. And
then when I had to go someplace. When I came back,
they were gone there. They've got their attorneys. Greg spent
the next two weeks at his mother's house. He stayed
mostly to himself. A grand jury indiced Greg for possession

(01:00:25):
of cocaine and obstruction of justice related to the death
of Bias. The charges were dropped in exchange for testifying
against Brian Tribble at Trible's trial, Greg was suspended from
the Maryland team for the next season, but he continued
to attend classes and played in occasional pickup games. In
early July, Greg announced that he would transfer from Maryland.

(01:00:49):
Said Greg at the time, quote, it's been very tough.
Wherever I go, people point and say, oh, there goes
David Greg. I've been getting more attention for this and
I did for my basketball. Close to quote, Greg wasn't
sure what to do next. Payne was starting his junior
year as a player at Florida International University and had

(01:01:10):
an idea. So the next move was what you know,
what are you gonna do? Where do you want to
go do? My coach was like, hey, do you think
he would like to come here? You know, get him
away from that area. You know, we're in an up
and coming program. You know it won't be as many
people going out of him. So you know, I reached
out to Dave and he was interested. Rick Walker was

(01:01:31):
the coach of Florida International at the time. I have
seen David play on television and he reminded me of
a young Sam Perkins. David was the top of the
line we were stilling an independent at that time, so
we had just this would have been our first or
second year in Division one. But this gave us a

(01:01:55):
credibility in terms of recruiting, in terms of having a
bigger name. But it seemed like a good opportunity for Greg.
The Miami Herald story in June tauted Greg's pending arrival
at f i U. If all goes well, it read
he could be the player who lifts the program to respectability.

(01:02:18):
But all did not go as well as hoped. First,
Gregg had to wait to play for FIU. He was
academically ineligible, so he took classes at Miami Dade Junior
College and f i U throughout that first year. And
so David didn't want to use any of his eligibility
his basket, so he was just going to go there

(01:02:39):
to get his school work so that he could transfer
into FIU full time. So what he did was he
was a full time student at Dade North and he
took like two classes at FIU so he could live
on campus at fi So Um, the basketball coach at
Dade North wanted him to, you know, play, and Dave
was like, now, I'm not gonna play. I'm just gonna
focus on my academics. And he did, and he did well,

(01:03:02):
and Greg joined the fi U team in the fall
of night. His start with the team lacked inspiration, says Walker,
then the f i U coach. The reality was, there
was not that that fire that was there that I
thought might have been there, uh prior to this. So
I thought he was lacking a little bit of self motivation.

(01:03:26):
You know, if you we were talking to fire from
one to ten. This was about a Greg then found
a spark in late December. In his third game for
f i U, he scored eighteen points and grabbed eleven
rebounds and the home loss to Radford in front of
all the four D and seventies six spectators. He appeared

(01:03:47):
to enjoy playing the game more than he ever had
in his life. We're in school, We're just having a
good time. He had some really good games. I mean
he was playing. I mean, it was it was fun.
I mean he I think for the first time in while,
you know that he was starting to feel like his
true self. Through early February, Greg played twelve games for FIU,

(01:04:08):
averaging sixteen point seven points and seven point eight rebounds.
But that momentum stopped suddenly on February seven nine. That's
when FIU placed Gregg on indefinite academic suspension. An official
at Miami Dade had claimed greg did not earn what
was described as appropriate credits in three classes at the school.

(01:04:34):
Charles Payne explains what happened. So in the spring semester,
Dave had to take They were he needed two classes, right,
so I think one class ended. One class ended at
twelve forty. Let's say started ended at twelve forty, but
one of the classes began began at twelve fifteen, so
they overlapped. So he had to give special permission to

(01:04:54):
take those classes. He registered for those classes. They knew
of the overlap, they were fine with it. He did
all that, He did all the work for those classes
when he finished, and he got his degree and he
transferred over the FIU all of that. But the head
coach went back, looked at his schedule, saw that he
took those two classes, and then he brought it to

(01:05:16):
the attention of you know, Day North to some other
you know I guess, I don't know who wouldn't step
up and say, hey, we we approved this. We let
the guy do it. But once that coach exposed it,
then what they did was they took those two classes
away from me. I just think that he didn't like
the fact that he didn't play for him and that

(01:05:36):
he went to f i U. Greg had an option
to keep playing at f i U, but he needed
to sit out the rest of the year and take
the classes in question again at Miami Dade before he
could return. F i U coach Rick Walker was devastated.
What I know, I had to set the team down,

(01:05:57):
but I had to tell everybody and uh, they had
to rule him ineligible. He was disappointment, The kids were disappointed.
I mean, it was like, or here we go again,
something mouse negative. And I tried my best to like
get to him and just say, hey, look man, I
know that's disappointing. I know it's not fair, and I

(01:06:18):
know you did the work, but just do it again.
Because I didn't because I knew if he didn't do
that that he would go home and just not play
anymore and not go to school anymore. But I just
I just didn't want to see him, you know, give
into you know, the bad actions of adults. Greg would
have none of it. He left for home, two days later,

(01:06:40):
disgruntled and disheartened, his family could not afford to pay
for him to take the classes again. At this point,
you know, you're you're thinking, how much more, you know,
can one person endure? Greg since then has endured more challenges.
Court record show that he was charged with driving under
the influence of alcohol in September, and in two thousand eight,

(01:07:05):
he lost his nine year old son to brain cancer.
His death in Lynn's death are the only two times
I've ever seen that main cry Gregg has attended Maryland
basketball games, but he appears to have kept a low
profile among his Maryland teammates over the last thirty five years.
Neither Jeff Baxter nor Derrick Lewis, who both live in

(01:07:27):
the Washington, d c. Area, knew how to contact Greg
or where he was living. Speedy Jones has tried to
counsel Greg. Jones would not elaborate on Greg's issues. Jones
told me he's dealing with some personal issues as a
result of Len's death. I don't know that he's ever

(01:07:47):
sought help to deal with it. I think he needs to.
I told him he needs to. Here's Bob Wagner, the
high school coach for both greg and Bias. I don't
know if he's ever been shame. David was not a
strong a psychological person to begin I didn't want him
to go to Marrow because I have seen what adn't

(01:08:07):
want to be with. Lefty Grisel came to Maryland in
nineteen sixty nine. He turned a team that had a
pension for losing and made them a national power where
they were always winning. And he had nothing for what
I got. I'm allay absolutely nothing. That's a clip from

(01:08:29):
a video about former Maryland head coach left to Grizzle
produced by a Washington, D C. Area television news station
in Perhaps it's a bit of hyperbole to say Maryland
basketball had nothing before Grisel became the school's basketball coach,
but there was not a whole lot to brag a bell.

(01:08:50):
Maryland had only four winning seasons in the nineteen sixties,
along with no national rankings. By the early nineteen eighties,
Grizzel had built a well deserved reputation as a pioneer
and a pretty good self promoter among college basketball coaches,
one of the winnings coaches in a SEC and n

(01:09:11):
C A A history is our next legend from Maryland
with seven hundred and eighty six career wins. Arriving in
College Park in nineteen seventy, he built the Terrapints into
a national power and twice was named a CEC Coach
of the Year. His nineteen seventy four Terrapints played n
C State in the a c C Championship Game, which
even today many consider the greatest game in conference history.

(01:09:34):
That clip came from an Atlantic Coast Conference Legends brunch
in two thousand eight. In another video released shortly after
he resigned as Maryland's coach, in a local television network
aired a tribute to Grisel. It featured a typical confident
comment from the coach. I would like to brag. See

(01:09:54):
that's why y'all don't think I can coach. But I'm
bragging today, Okay, because I don't like to talk about
what I doing, what I don't do. But don't ever
say that I can't coach. I may not be a
good speaker, I may not be intelligent to some of
these other coaches, I may not throw you a whole
lot of X is an oh crap, But I can coach.
We were in the top ten my whole career. How many.

(01:10:14):
How many Maryland teams are in the final top ten?
That was Tom McMillan, a three time All American at
Maryland in the early nineteen seventies, And the answer only
five teams that did not include McMillan have finished in
the top ten in the final Associated Press National poll.
Over the course of some seventy years after Len Bias died,

(01:10:38):
the perception of Grisel had changed dramatically. In the mind
of his critics, Grisell had morphed into a coach who
was at worst indifferent to the academic needs of his
players and at best blind to their off court mishaps.
This all made Grisell a prime target of blame for
the death of Bias. Russ Potts is a Maryland graduate

(01:11:02):
from the nineteen sixties. He was also the first marketing
director for Maryland's athletic department. Potts took that position one
year after Griselle started at Maryland. Whenever you have a tragedy,
whether it's Pearl Harbor or nine eleven or whatever, you're
gonna always have a fall guy. And so they tried

(01:11:24):
to make the lefty the fall guy. Well, that poor
lefty had no more to do with that than your idea,
and unfortunately, and it was he was in the wrong
place at the wrong time, and it was a tragic
happening that still to this day affects the University of Maryland.
Here's McMillan. It really bothers Lefty that his tenure at

(01:11:49):
Maryland ended this way. It was really it was very
tragic for him because he did so much for Maryland
and then to have this one incident, which was a
terrible mist that mistake, Len Bias abusing cocaine and then
dying transformed Grizzel from a Maryland basketball icon to m
maligned and minimized figure by those who struggled to understand

(01:12:13):
the death of Bias. It was a situation few could foresee.
At the start of Drizzle's Maryland career, Hey Dutch Mr
Child by the early nineteen seventies sell out crowds with
a norm at Maryland's mom Arina Coldfield House. Some fourteen
thousand fans wanted to watch a trio of eventual All Americans,

(01:12:37):
as well as impact players in the NBA McMillan, Len Elmore,
and John Lucas. Early in his career, Drizell boldly promised
to turn Maryland into the u c l A of
the East. If not for two teams he just might
have done so. One was the real u c l A,
which continued to dominate college basketball. The other was North

(01:13:01):
Carolina State, which interrupted u c l a's championship run
in nineteen seventy four, but the Terms were still among
the best teams in the country. In four different regular
seasons between nineteen seventy and nineteen eighty, Grizel's team reached
number two in the rankings. Four times they finished in

(01:13:23):
the top ten. In his seventeen years as Maryland's head coach,
Drizzle won only one a CC Tournament title, and it
was with Bias. In Night four, Bias, then a sophomore,
won the tournament's MVP Award. Bias praised Brazil's influence on
him in the nine eight six Maryland Basketball recruiting video.

(01:13:46):
He told me the things that I could do, and
he put a lot of faith in me and told
me that I will be able to score and I
will be able to rebound. I can do it. And
when you got a coach that puts confidence in faith
and you like that, you can't go out but play.
Here's drizzle. In that same recruiting video was having let
it Bias being the player of the year in the
a C C and make first Team All a C
C First Team of a P first Team up out American.

(01:14:09):
You know, you know, in my opinion, he was probably
player of the year in the country. Criticism towards Grisel
replaced praise for him after the death of Bias. Some
of it came from the Bias family. Bob Wagner, Len's
high school coach and a friend of Giselle, remembers a
moment of hostility from Len's father. It was at bias

(01:14:30):
Is wake. Once there, Grisel and Wagner walked over to
James Bias to offer condolences. At the wake, I rode
down with Lefty because we didn't know where we were going.
We come into the church and I know Mr Bias
was still hurt and upset. But Lefty walks over to

(01:14:51):
give his condolences and Mr Bias has something like te
Lefty like you stay away from me. You killed myself.
Media reports claimed for Zel instructed a coach to clean
the room in which Bias died before police arrived. Griselle
admitted that he instructed the coach to clean the room,
but the coach, Oliver Purnell, did not do so, in

(01:15:13):
part due to a police presence. Assistant coach Jeff Atkins
went to the room with Parnell. Atkins told me that
when they reached the Washington Hall dorm where bias Is
suite was located, police would not let them pass a
secured area. Triselle is not charged with a crime. During

(01:15:33):
this time, Grisel indicated he would not back down from
the challenges facing him. If you know me, I do
in best with my backs up against the wall, right.
I like for people get me in a corner and
get me around the neck. Then I'd like to get
out of there, you know. But the forces against RIZL
grew too strong. Chancellor John Slaughter felt that Grisel had

(01:15:54):
not provided the leadership needed At the time he removed
Grisel's coach. Slaughter told me my conclusion was we were
not going to turn that around unless the change was made.
I could come up with a whole lot of reasons,
but I consider that a closed chapter. I don't want
to open it anymore. I like left to you a

(01:16:15):
great deal. I'm not sure it's reciprocated. When asked about
his feelings towards Slaughter. Grisel told me, no comment. I
have a lot of feelings about Slaughter, but I'd rather
not say. Molly Glassman was a reporter for the Baltimore
Sun covering Maryland basketball at the time. He was a

(01:16:36):
chancellor who was very um concerned about the reputation of
himself and the school, and the reputation was in tatters,
as you say, academically when the when the revelations came
out that these kids weren't going to class, and this
wasn't the first year that this had happened, that there

(01:16:57):
was a history of leftist players, uh, not staying in school,
not graduating, but lefty. He wouldn't have gone, He wouldn't
have left of his own accord um. And he fought
it till the end. Trezelle claims he was asked to
remain as coach for one more year and then resigned

(01:17:18):
with nine years left on his contract. Grisell told me,
my lawyer said, we can fight this thing and you
can keep your job, but I'd be working for free
because his fees would be so big. I said, let's settle.
It was a great seventeen years at Maryland, except for
my last year. Griselle's lawyer was famed Washington defense attorney

(01:17:42):
Edward Bennett Williams. Russ Potts, Maryland's first marketing manager, was
a good friend of Grisel. He reached out to Williams
efter it became a parent that Brazil's future employment at
Maryland was in jeopardy. Not called Ed Williams. And I
asked Ed Williams if he would represent Lefty uh in

(01:18:04):
this uh terrible mass at Maryland. And I played it
within and I said, please please representing because he has
no idea and what's going to happen. Get Lefty to
call me tonight and uh so I said, you need
to call Ed Williams at home tonight, and he did.

(01:18:25):
But he said, Lefty effective immediately this very second. If
you say one word about this case, if you so
much as say a comma or a semical, I will
not represent you effective immediately. You shut up. I do
all the talking. And that was a hell of a

(01:18:48):
challenge for Lefty because getting Lefty to shut up was
not easy. And they had a meeting with Williams and
the President and the universe. The attorney Grizel resigned on
October and received a comfortable settlement. He was paid one

(01:19:09):
thousand dollars a year for nine years, the remainder of
his tenure coaching contract, and he could continue his basketball
camps at the school for the same length of time.
Grizel collected the full salary even after he left as
pots for calls, Williams took a hard stance with Maryland
while representing Brazel. He recounts the following story from a

(01:19:33):
conversation he had with Williams shortly after the meeting and
uh the the Maryland attorney arrogantly walked in the room
and he laid a contract on the desk. Left. He
had eight and a half years left on each contract,
and Maryland offered him a year and a half. They

(01:19:53):
laid that on the table and ed Williams looked at it.
He jumped up and grabbed the contra. He tore it
to shreds in front of me. Said I'll see you
in hell before we've never signed this. You want to
go to war. Will go to coort the next day.
The next day they called Williams and gave Lassie all

(01:20:16):
eight and a half years. Brazil added more context to
the negotiation on a phone call in the summer of
so Slaughter called back tomorrow said to your contract is
we've got to pay left before nine years and he
can stay here as an athletic director for two years

(01:20:38):
and he will get the same salary he will he
will be making as the head coach. He can also
have his basketball camp. And used to go him free
and the Jim free, and that was the deal. Ed
Williams said, look, you can you can take that if
you want to. You ain't gonna work for for seven

(01:21:01):
more years, and or you could go in code, take
the deal he's offering you and forget it, forget coaching.
I did. As part of the deal, Grisel transition to
an assistant athletic director who oversaw the department, sports information,
and marketing departments. He also helped manage the Maryland Educational Foundation,

(01:21:24):
which raised money for scholarships and other department needs. When
asked in what the Athletic Department and wanted him to
do in his new role, Grizel paused for a couple
of moments, laughed, and then said quote hide end quote.
Part of Grisel's job was to convince the elderly to

(01:21:44):
place their life insurance policy in their will and make
the athletic department the beneficiary when they died. Triselt told
me I was getting ready to do that, but never
got that much involved. When I took the job, Then
athletic director Luke Can said, just come on over when
you want and do what you want. Drizelle left Maryland

(01:22:06):
to become head coach at James Madison University. He became
the head coach at Georgia State, where he stayed through
two thousand three. Trazelle retired with the fourth most wins
in Division One history with seven hundred eighty six. In
the summer of two thousand two, Drizele returned to Maryland's

(01:22:28):
campus for the first time since taking the job at
James Madison. He attended his induction ceremony into Maryland's Athletics
Hall of Fame for his accomplishments during his coaching career.
At his successful tenure at the University of Maryland. Coach
Charles Lefty Grizzle is tonight being inducted into the University

(01:22:50):
of Maryland Athletic Hall of Fame. Trizelle returned the next
winter when the Terrapins honored his retirement from coaching during
halftime time of a game against NC State at the
Comcast Center, Maryland's new basketball arena. Grisel stopped by Maryland's

(01:23:13):
arena again in seventeen for another special ceremony. The crowd
was loud as Griselle flashed the familiar victory sign with
his right hand pointing to the rafters. It must have

(01:23:34):
felt as if he were back in Coalfield House, in
the building where he helped develop Maryland basketball into a
nationally respected program, ready to lead his Maryland team to
another of its many victories. John Lucas played for Grizzle
from seventy two to nineteen seventy six. He departed Maryland
as a three time All America and was the top

(01:23:57):
pick in the nineteen seventy six NBA draft. He offered
perhaps the most balanced assessment of Griselle's personality, which endeared
many and irritated others at Maryland. Lucas told me, coach
was genuine to a fault. What you saw was what
you got. He doesn't have any gray areas presenting Lefty

(01:24:19):
for enshrinement or Mikeyschevsky, George raveling, John Thompson, Ladies and gentlemen,
Charles Lefty Grizelle. At the age of eighty six, Grizelle
received the highest honor for a basketball coach, induction into
the Nay Smith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. I'm so

(01:24:42):
happy to be here. This is probably one of the
happiest days in my wife, my life and my wife. Whatever.
Look is anybody in here eighty six years old? Raise
your hand, will you? So? So if I screw up?

(01:25:02):
So look if I if I screw up, wait till
you get eighty ships. And I made the statement, and
we're gonna be the u c l A at the
East again. I was kind of drunk or someone, I said.
And so I've been lucky to be able to coach

(01:25:24):
and to be able to coach and recruit at four
great at two great high schools and four division universities.
I had a conversation with Griselle in the summer of
He was typical lefty, engaging, curious, and combative, and he
expressed some frustration when the topic of bias came up

(01:25:50):
anything to do with his death. You know, if you
look back at the record, what was Maryland in basketball
before I got them? Griselle finds comfort in a story
he has told about Bias during the early summer of
The man approached him as they walked out of church
near Griselle's home in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The man explained

(01:26:13):
that shortly before bias Is 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. The man told
Grisell that Bias was one of his favorite players and

(01:26:34):
that Bias saved his life. Several people tell me that
they never used drugs died. At a press conference shortly
after Bias died, Griselle expressed a connection between the two
of them, a connection that he feels is eternal. As
my wife said, He's in a better position right now

(01:26:55):
than we are. He's at home with the Lord, and
I really sincerely believe bad. I mean, I'm sad, but
I'm not even word because I know where Leonard is.
I know he's in heaven and I'm gonna miss him,
and I don't everybody else here will because I can't
say a whole lot more to I love you, Leonard,
and I'll miss you. I've seen you every one day.

(01:27:26):
Next on lun By some Mixed Legacy, how the death
of Lemon buy some acies remember me. I hope they
do what they always wanted to be like the older guys.
And you always say, man, I want to I want
to do what they're doing, you know, I want to
be there in that spot. But they was like a
big brother to us. Jay had more, much more skill

(01:27:47):
than Lenard did skill wants as a basketball player. It
would have been so sick. When I turned around, Jay
was laying down and I've seen the crowd coming on
the court. You know, the fight broke out, and in
the whole world, I thought it was no doubt that
he was a vision one, you know basketball player. Um

(01:28:08):
he could do anything on the court he wanted and
the people. I just hope that I lived Sam with
heaven and everything I do from now on is dedicated
for my brother. I was not prepared for the loss
of j and nothing that ideals with with Lynn helped

(01:28:28):
me through day. This podcast series is based on the
book Born Ready The Mixed Legacy of len Bis published
like Go Grady Media. The series is produced by Go
Grady Media and partnership with Octagon Entertainment. This segment was
produced by Davon Grady and Don Mark. It was written
by Dave von Grady and edited by Don Marcus. The
narrator was Dave von Grady, with additional narration by Jamaal Williams.

(01:28:51):
Technical production was provided by Octagon Entertainment. Production assistance was
produced by Kevin McNaughty, Tina Quagliarda, Lauren Ros Georgia Brown,
Casey Fair, Jamal Williams, Kelsey Mannix and Enzo Alvarindo. Matt
dew Versus providing the social media systems. Special thanks to
the University of Maryland and American University providing instudents. The

(01:29:14):
Decision Education Foundation is a content and promotional partner of
this podcast. More information go to go graded media dot com.
This has been a production of Go graded Media and
the Eight Side Networks.