In life, Len Bias was a transformative basketball player. In death, he’s a cautionary tale and an iconic symbol of poor decision making. Len Bias is also a cultural catalyst.
In this episode, Len’s story and legacy are juxtaposed with those of many important figures in American cultural history…Emmit Till’s traumatic tale, and racial injustice. The tragic young death of rapper Biggie Smalls…The black folklore fable of John Henry.
His legacy is addressed in contemporary black writings, including by acclaimed poet Reginald Dwayne Betts and Justin Tinsley. Songs have been written about Bias. And a play used his story to teach youth about the perils of drug abuse. All this, in the last narrative episode of this podcast series.
About the Narrator: John Salley - John Salley is an American former professional basketball player, talk show host, and actor. He was the first player in NBA history to win championships with three franchises, as well as the first player in the NBA to win a championship in three different decades.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Yeah, because Gwennolen Brooks was one of the most distinguished
poets in the country at the time. And to have
that person who represents the pinnacle of you know, of
a literary position, have a meeting arguably the best college
(00:32):
basketball player in the United States at the time. I mean,
that's remarkable, isn't.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
There were these connections and political connections, cultural connections, social
connections that I had no idea about when I was
a kid. But once you started digging deeper into them,
do you realize that this may have been the most
impactful moment modern sports history.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
He was prepared to be, but.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
He's one of the more painful what if in.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
Pop culture history.
Speaker 6 (01:09):
It's called Home Court. It's a play about an inner
city family that's striving to beat the odds, which I
should notice not too loosely on the tragedy of of
lam bias.
Speaker 7 (01:21):
Just.
Speaker 8 (01:22):
Trying to jump to about it.
Speaker 9 (01:30):
I think it's not just me. I think it's just
like lam Bias Post nineteen eighty six overwhelms the narrative
of lam bias pre naty, pre overdose, and overwhelms it's
so much so that for me him as a basketball player,
has to constantly try to compete with his effect of
(01:50):
the culture in all of those other ways.
Speaker 10 (01:53):
In this episode of limb Bias the Mixed Legacy cultural Catalyst,
the impact of Bias' legacy on American culture.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
It must have been in the middle of May, no
more than a week or so before the end of term,
when I experienced a Len Bias surprise. I know it
was nineteen eighty six because I come to the University
of Maryland the fall before in order to help start
up a Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing.
(02:23):
Of course, I knew about the fine reputation of the
English department. What I was most familiar with from its
national reputation was Maryland's basketball team and its colorful coach,
Lefty Drizzel. Once on the Maryland campus, I followed Duzelle's
(02:44):
team with special interest. I say Drisell's team, when what
I mean is the team of Len Bias, the All
America forward who was by acclamation, the best basketball player
in the country, A player like the great ones, who
could dominate the other team all by himself in any
(03:06):
number of ways.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Those are the words of Stanley Plumbley, one of the
country's prize writers Plumbly arrived in the University of Maryland
in nineteen eighty five and started writing program for graduate students.
He was Maryland's Poet Laureate from two thousand and nine
to twenty eighteen. As a youth, his two obsessions were
reading in basketball.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I remember thinking that he played like a professional. His
skill and size, speed and quickness, grace, and aggressiveness set
him apart. Yet for all his talent, he was also
a quiet player, no show, voting, no display, all business.
(03:50):
He was what might be called a working class player.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
More worth than Plumbly, but that was not his voice.
Plumbly passed away in twenty nineteen. His words were read
by Michael Collier, a colleague of Plumbley at Maryland. Collier's
creative thoughts were often intertwined with those of Plumbley. For
good reason. Colley has started working at Maryland a year
before Plumbley. He helped Plumby build the creative writing program
(04:18):
for much more than three decades at Maryland. Their officers
were adjacent to each other, and Callier was also Maryland's
Poet Laureate from two thousand and one to two thousand
and four. They talked often about len Bias, his Collier's
in his own words.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
You know, len Bias was on everybody's mind. You know,
Stanley was a basketball player. He played basketball, I think
in college. When he would come over to my house,
we often shot baskets in the driveway because I had
a hoop for my sons.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Plumbley soft tuss extended to his writings. The words of
Plumby read by Calia, first appeared in a forward in
the book Born Ready, The Mixed Legacy of len Bias,
and it is one example of how the legacy of
len Bias is reflected in American culture even today. In
this podcast series about the vast and mixed legacy of
(05:10):
len Bias, we have explained how its death has impacted
society in profoundly different ways. Maryland Athletics, his friends and family,
mandatory minimum prison sentences, the Celtics, the NBA, his teammates,
his family. In this episode, we examine lens legacy through
a cultural lens. We focus on the impact of his
(05:32):
legacy on race and social justice, how it influenced music
and how it connected to literature, how it was presented
in the theater, and how it has even recently been
referenced in popular television series. In life, len Bias was
a transformative basketball player. In death, He's a cautionary tale,
(05:53):
an iconic symbol of poor decision making. Len Bias is
also a cultural catalyst. In this episode, Unstorian legacy adjuxtapose
with those many important figures in American cultural history, Emmat
Till's Terrible Tale and racial injustice, the tragic young death
of rapper Biggie Small's, the Black folklore fable of John Henry.
(06:16):
His legacy is reflected in the writings of contemporary black culture,
included by Reginald Dwayne Betts and Justin Tinseley. The impact
of his death is even woven in the storyline of
TV series Snowfall, about the drug culture of the eighties.
The debut of the show's fifth season in February of
twenty twenty two begin with a recreation of Bias collapsing
(06:39):
in his Maryland dorm room on the morning of June nineteenth,
nineteen eighty six. There are references to Bias and his
death in later episodes. For Stanley Plumley, Bias represents both
a heroic and tragic figure, and is forward in the
book Born Ready, The mixed legacy of Lembias. Plumbley re
(07:00):
accounted the day he met Bias while working at Maryland.
It was part of an event hosted by his department.
Callia picks up the story from there.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
I was asked by the Dean's Office Arts and Humanities
to introduce Gwendolen Brooks, the National Poet Laureate who in
nineteen fifty became the first black poet to win the
Pulitzer Prize. I remember asking her to read one or
two particular favorites of mine, one of which is her
(07:30):
signature poem We Real Cool, We Real Cool, We left.
Speaker 7 (07:37):
School Light Wait stright straight, Wait thing Cima wait, Jim
jee Jim wait die.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Call you, continues this narration of the forward written by Plumbly.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
The structure of the event called for the Dean to
introduce me, followed by my introduction of Brooks. For a moment,
Brooks and I were standing there together when suddenly, from
the opposite side of the stage, there arrives a very
tall young man bearing a large bouquet of red roses.
(08:18):
It was Len Bias, whose presence came at the request
of Joyce, and Joyce, a professor of Afro American Literature
at Maryland. Bias took Joyce's class in the nineteen eighty
three fall semester, and, as Joyce explained it, graciously earned
(08:38):
a D grade, despite the fact he missed classes frequently
and flunked the two assignments he completed. It was not
her policy to flunk athletes. Joyce developed a friendship with
Bias and considered him sweet and thoughtful. Joyce arranged the
(08:59):
reading by Brooks and asks Bias if he would present
Brooks with a bouquet of flowers. She thought Bias's gesture
would help show a link between the excellence of black
basketball players and black poets and showcase the artistry of both.
(09:19):
She had hoped that Bias's participation could translate to increased
respect for poetry to the level students respect basketball players.
The Maryland basketball banquet was being held at the same
time at the Stamp Student Union, about a half mile away,
(09:42):
but that did not stop Bias from surprising Brooks and
everyone else attending the event. He shakes my hand and
then embraces the diminutive Brooks and places the great flowers
into her open arms. The audience goes slightly wild. I
(10:05):
can see the tears in Brooks's eyes, and everyone can
see the smile on len Bias's face. At the reception,
we all talked, but who knows what about likely? We
talked about the future, notably the future of the basketball star.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
It is not often a prominent athlete connects with the
icon of poetry for such a rare event. That fact
was not lost on Klia. He reflected on significance of
Bias meeting Brooks.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Gwenoln Brooks was one of the most distinguished poets in
the country at the time, and she was finishing her
stint as a poetry consultant to the Library of Congress,
a position that's now known as the US Poet Laureate.
And to have that person who represents the pinnacle of
(11:05):
you know, of a literary position have a meeting with
arguably the best college basketball player in the United States
at the time. I mean, that's remarkable, isn't it. That
doesn't First of all, athletes and poets don't get together
(11:27):
like that in a public way.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
They really don't.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
And it meant to me the coming together of two cultures,
you know, the literary humanities culture and the student athlete culture.
And that doesn't happen in that way in a public
way very often, and it seemed clear to me that
Len Bias recognized the importance of the moment, and so
(11:56):
I also I also thought that that was some very
honorable and what you might not expect out of a
student athlete.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Many years later, call You was compelled to write a
poem about Brooks meeting Bias, in the form of something
called a golden shovel, a poetic style that pays homage
to Brooks by incorporating a line from one of her poems.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I chose two lines from the Gwendolyn Brooks poem titled
the Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till. And
we all know who Emmett Till is, a fourteen year
old African American young man who was lynched in Money, Mississippi,
(12:48):
in nineteen fifty five. These are the lines that I
chose for my golden shovel. She kisses her killed boy,
and she is sorry.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Klia nar rates the poem he wrote about Brooks and Bias.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
It's called then Bias a bouquet of flowers and ms Brooks.
He arrives in the middle of her reading. She has
to stop and taking the flowers he's brought, kisses the
beautiful young man whose yellow socks are her dowdy sweaters. Antithesis.
(13:37):
What said between them is killed by applause, but not
his smile, which is the smile of a boy standing
in the silence he's created, and not her magnified stare,
(13:57):
which says she understands why he's arrived late, he is
already leaving, and that he is sorry. It's the only
poem I've ever written about an experience I had at
the University of Maryland. I've never written about anything that
(14:21):
happened at the University of Maryland, and yet when I
was given this assignment, this moment immediately came back to
me in a really powerful way. And it was a
kind of coincidence that I came across these lines in
the last quatrain from the ballot of Emmett Till. But
(14:43):
they seem to fit perfectly.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Call youa sees a connection between bias until that includes
a maternal extension.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
And I think too, there's a kind of congruence not perfect,
between Emmett Till and Len Bias. There are definitely connections
that you can make between their their deaths, and Mattill
was a complete victim of a moment, uh and in
(15:12):
a moment defined by American culture, American racist culture. And
you know, we're not we're not over that. And len Bias,
I think you can say not in that, not in
the same way. But he is a kind of of
(15:33):
I don't like the word victim, but but I but
I see Bias as as a kind of his death
as a kind of tragedy that was also a way
of reading it into a national tragedy, into narratives American
narratives that follow national tragedies after his death. There were
(15:58):
so many things that were racialized about it for me,
a kind of terrifying poignancy to it.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
The other thing too, that connects him is the role
that that mother's played, their mother's played in their deaths,
because Len Bias's mother was and has been very forceful,
and of course Emmett Till's mother did that almost unbelievable
(16:28):
thing of allowing Emmett to be in an open casket
and and also allowing the photographer to come in and
and and and take a series of of pictures of
him in the autopsy room. But as a way of
(16:57):
not allowing his death to go you know, unnoticed that
it would, that it could help.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
People.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
And what it helped was, you know, directly, someone like
Rosa Parks make a decision to stay on, to stay
in the seat at the front of the bus rather
go to the back. There's a direct connection there. So
he his death was not in vain, to use a cliche,
and the mother was behind that very eloquently and movingly.
(17:32):
One of the things that allowed other people to learn
from deaths, let's say not was the mothers. The mothers.
It's kind of interesting, huh.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Ronald Dealy was inspired to write a song about Bias
after he heard the news about his death in nineteen
eighty six. He was living in Washington, DC area and
was a big fan of Lembias.
Speaker 8 (17:57):
Often a Marilyn fan for quite three years.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
I used to live right across.
Speaker 8 (18:01):
From the campus, a little town called Lekeland.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
I used to go to the games.
Speaker 8 (18:06):
Back, you know, when I graduated from high school back
in nineteen sixties, three sixty four, somewhere in there, you know,
but only went to one of them, Bias and games,
you know how popular he was. I just wanted to
see him play because I heard a lot about him,
you know how good he was, And I told him,
(18:28):
my son, let's go up and see, you know how.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
Great that is.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Daily played in a band called the Chang Band in
the nineteen sixties and seventies. He also tried songwriting. It
took the death of Bias to convince Daly to write
a song about him, and for Delhi to finally record
a song that he had written. At the time, he
was working for an electric company that he partially owned.
Speaker 8 (18:51):
Yes, I was driving down the road and I was
on delivery and I heard the news on the radio
about his death, and I just said, this is really
really sad. I said, I want to write a song
about this guy, you know, I said, because he's so great.
I just I just started, you know, singing. I said,
(19:13):
by h he was Marilon scuperstar. And it took me
about today to really write the song.
Speaker 11 (19:22):
He was superstar. He wasn't pretty, just one other st
this guy.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
You ever seen.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
I played it for.
Speaker 8 (19:44):
I then biased his father for Father's Day, I dedicated
to to him, Yeah, for Father's Day.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Delhi was living at the time in a town called Bladensburg,
about five miles from where Baia's family lived. He sent
the producers of this podcast. There is a copy of
a picture of him posing with Lindy's Bias and others
in the Bias house.
Speaker 8 (20:05):
At that time, they didn't really know of me, and
I wanted to meet the family. That was the first
time I met the family, you know, with my kids
and my sons, and they were sitting in Letting Biases
chair and all that. It was really beautiful, you know,
Li Bias told me I was like part of the
family tree because of you know, how close that I was,
(20:29):
you know, writing this song, and how fast I've done it,
you know, in two days, and you know, she got
a copy of the song. I wanted some proceeds to
(21:01):
go to the Bias family. I didn't want to do
that just for myself. I just wanted to do it
for the Bias family, which I would like to see
a movie downe of Len Bias and you know, use
my song as a soundtrack. And this is the purpose
of me, you know, going this far with it.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
You can listen to the song in its entirety at
the end of this episode.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
This is dedicated so the greatest it never was.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Other musicians have also memorialized Biased. Some thirty years after
his death of Biased, rap artists whose musical name is
mc long Shot released a song simply called len Bias.
It lasts just under four minutes and it's a part
of a three song album called Instant for Eternity. The
other two songs on the album about domestic abuse and
(22:11):
romantic breakup. It was written and produced by Chad Heaslip.
He was born in Chicago South Side. He released his
first single in two thousand and two. You've heard clips
of the song throughout this podcast series. Now we play
for you in its entirety.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
It's just dedicated.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
So the greatest it never was.
Speaker 12 (22:47):
Yeah, so friend or a fly minutes so sad when
a young ace in he had it all strong, quick
(23:07):
and he was sol They called him Frosty because he
was cool. When he fall jump Shot hurt because so
pure it be fall, just.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
The for greatness of loss.
Speaker 12 (23:14):
Let you know them all other memories remember me. I
hope they do the same. As for Lena the best
ever it never became. You could try to blame but
the fact that he died and with nobody's fault for
his own because he tried something and they cried them.
But before that he was tears to show he was
the boy. You wouldn't doubt that he was gonna make it.
That's the number two pick by the Boston substitute. Would
(23:35):
have been so sick. Battle Liber Jordan for the scorpron
in the East.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
They did it once.
Speaker 13 (23:40):
In college.
Speaker 12 (23:40):
Lenny Fights was the beast from the streets of landover
to the A C.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
C Unanimous all world.
Speaker 12 (23:46):
He was prepared to be, but they had another player
for the brother man. They say, what was to catch
me out coming out of Maryland? He's saying proof you
can't get too high. At the funeral, his mama ain't cried,
and the people said the.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Boy on the brind the boy would fly man.
Speaker 12 (24:00):
It's so sad when the young Grace Dye second shoulder
in the game, he made them a name. This the
story of the best. It never became, I said the
bud and Rim, the boy of a flying man. It's
so sad with a young grades Dye second sholder in
the game.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
He made them a name.
Speaker 12 (24:16):
It's the story of the best.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
It never became.
Speaker 12 (24:18):
I guess the lesson that learned is blaming by your
get burned when it comes that if everybody get a turn,
such a blessing and the curse would limb by slept
the earth. He gave the world a wake up, calling
its fight a bunch of cherchs with the war on drugs,
and like the war wrong Browns with gold chains and beakers.
They thought they keep us on the ground and behind Boss.
We all should find God and live it to the limit.
Because Lynny defied us. Despite the fact that you never
(24:40):
saw twenty three, he was the best never saw since
twenty three. Then I saw the open wounds, his baby
brother saw the tomb, and.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
That's start of the war.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Wrong guns, y'all would assume, But no, they knew.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
What's all the same.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
If you shot and you're.
Speaker 12 (24:53):
Black, you're just a part of the game. But if
you shoot and you're black, you're a part of the blame.
But in the end, man, they all get paid trying
to pay respect to one of the greatest ever never.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
They see it's like for food for the better.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
He's starting proof you can't be too dope because in
the end and you just might choke.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
And the people say the boy the bream, the boy
would fly.
Speaker 12 (25:13):
Man, it's so sad when the young Grace die second
shoulder the game.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
He made him a name.
Speaker 12 (25:18):
This is the story of the best never became, I said.
The bove the brim, the boy ever flies man. It's
so sad when the young grades die second Sholl in
the game.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
He made him a name. This the story of.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
The best and never became. I said, this is the
story of the best ever.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
I said, this the story of the blessing never became.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
I said the bull, the brim, the boy would fly man.
Speaker 12 (25:45):
It's so sad when the young Grace died, second shroller
the game.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
He made him the name.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
This story of the best never became.
Speaker 6 (25:55):
It's called Home Court. It's a play about an inner
city family that's striving to beat the odds, which I
should notice face not too loosely on the tragedy of Lambias.
The play spans eight years of his life, you know,
till the time that he makes it to the pros
and by the time that he makes it and he
goes through drug abuse.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
That's Brian Gumbel, a former host of The Today Show
on NBC. He's talking during the broadcast in nineteen eighty
eight with Eugene Key, an actor who plays the character
based on Lambias in a play called Home Court. Here's
Eugene Key talking again, this time in an interview more
than thirty years later.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
We were trying to portray.
Speaker 14 (26:37):
The character that's having a lot of pressure being put
on it, you know, as being this perfect person. This
is what my character a Damien, kind of fell into.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
The play. Is another example connecting the Bias story to
American culture. The format of expression was the theater. Home
Court was created by the Creative Arts Team, then a
part of the Educational Theater Company in New York University.
The team uses theater an interactive drama to address social
and academic issues. Jim Maroney, a co founder of the
(27:16):
Creative Arts Team, was its playwright in residence. He started
developing the play in the summer of nineteen eighty six,
shortly after Bias died his Maroney talking after the play
was performed in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 15 (27:30):
The phenomenon Crack, which eclipsed in New York City around
June of last year, along with the death of then Bias,
became an inspiration to develop a play that wasn't a lecture,
but it was the best of drama with a message.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Here, Maroney during the interview in twenty twenty when Glenn.
Speaker 16 (27:48):
Died, that was an extraordinary event which caught my attention.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
The Creative Arts Team still exists today. Since its inception
in nineteen seventy four, it has tried to force the
creativity and critically engage with the world a focus his
youth facing challenges in their lives. His Maroney again in
twenty twenty.
Speaker 16 (28:10):
The majority of our contracts dealt with substance abuse prevention
from the city and at risk youth and conflict resolution.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
This seems to be a very good.
Speaker 16 (28:25):
Model for what we could do in the schools because
every middle school student high school student knew about lend bias,
and the play was a natural. The subject matter was
a natural for that to happen, and so it just
took off like a rocket for our purposes. We couldn't
(28:47):
find a better subject matter that would hit it that
age group.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
During his four year run, Home Court appeared in school
districts throughout the United States, including New York City Public schools.
Also had runs at festivals and in theaters in Seattle, Dallas, Houston,
and even in Scotland.
Speaker 16 (29:06):
We would have wracked up at least twenty five thirty shows,
maybe even more forty shows per season.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
The Today's Show feature created quite a buzz about the
play and extended the cultural reach of the bias Starry.
Speaker 16 (29:22):
When it was shown on Today's Show, we were inundated
by requests.
Speaker 17 (29:27):
That's when the league called up to be a part
of their rookie transition program.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
That's Zach Miner, an executive coach focused on life skills.
When the Today's Show featured Home Court, Mina was working
with the creative Arts team. The lead he was referring
to is the National Basketball Association. Mina help adapt the
show to have more of an impact on NBA players.
Speaker 17 (29:52):
I know that, unfortunately, the league was developing a bad
reputation of you know, the celebrities, sex, drugs, and rock
and roll. You know, when we did that show, it
had such an impact that they felt that that was
a very important part of the story to go along
(30:14):
with how do you become successful? How do you fight
some of the challenges that you may have grown up
with in order to achieve success in basketball or in
any other sport.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Home Court was part of the NBA's rookie orientation program
for a few years. Minor worked as a facilitator during
the show for the NBA Rookies, he talked to the
audience acted as a catalyst for discussion.
Speaker 17 (30:39):
What drama actually does is allow them to talk objectively
about what they see and.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
What's going on.
Speaker 17 (30:45):
And of course as they speak objectively, they're also coming
up with their own feelings and emotions about situations and
sometimes revealing some of what they are going through. We
presented the show, we then did break out groups and
had q and as with the players at that time,
(31:06):
and of course the league actually used that show as
a as to create talking points for.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
For the situation.
Speaker 17 (31:16):
You know, once they saw that drama had the effect
that it has, we then created other, uh, not necessarily shows,
but the stage presentations that would reflect some of the
situations that young athletes would go through upon entering the league.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
You know, whether it was.
Speaker 17 (31:39):
With agents, how to manage the agent responsibility, how to
manage family, friends and family became a big part of
that program, you know, talking about that, and that's I
think a part of that was where land Biss's mom
(31:59):
came and s because it was very important that these
young men understood that family could be a challenge as well.
Speaker 5 (32:08):
The family could be a support.
Speaker 17 (32:10):
As Lynn Bias's mom was, and family could be a
challenge as we've seen in other situations.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
What the students saw in the play was not a
complete representation of Bias, but there are some similarities between
Bias and Damien, the character based on Bias. Eugene Key
played the role of Damien.
Speaker 14 (32:29):
We had it in the script that his brother was,
you know, kind of the problem kid, and Damien, which
was the Lynn Bias character, was the one who had
the talent that was so successful, and the younger brother
was the one who was always the one.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
That was in trouble. So he was the one that
was in the drugs and everything.
Speaker 11 (32:50):
Well, my man, love with me.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
What's up?
Speaker 3 (32:52):
And nothing you can help you with?
Speaker 5 (32:54):
Oh yeah, come on.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Later on, I got caught shot.
Speaker 12 (33:01):
If it didn't sneaking what it all happened so fast,
I was in the store of mine, in my own
business with crystalies.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
He cleaned himself up.
Speaker 14 (33:10):
Apparently by that time, Damien, the Limbia's character was on
the move with with high school and college.
Speaker 11 (33:22):
Day he's learning from the hospital the vision it's here.
I'm hoping it, dear mister Washington, based on your Scholasticphy,
Achievement and your proficiency A center for Junior high school
seventy eight. You have a seen a two year starship
(33:44):
of George Cows.
Speaker 14 (33:51):
Now he's got the NBA knocking on his door and
his brother comes back out of rehab and notice that
there's changes in his.
Speaker 5 (34:01):
Brother that he didn't recognize before.
Speaker 14 (34:03):
But then he recognized that he's doing drugs because of course.
Speaker 5 (34:06):
He can recognize the signs.
Speaker 14 (34:08):
And not only that he's doing crack at this point,
he's also drinking and everything. But try to tell his brother,
look this, I've been there. This is not the road
to go down. And my character Damien based on the
bias and throwing the mine own business.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
I got this. I can take care of it. Say
you're you're the junkie, You're the.
Speaker 8 (34:32):
One that failed the family.
Speaker 5 (34:35):
I'm the one that's going to be successful, just like
you're doing that.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Don't you try to jump to league.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
You were jumpy, all right.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
And what I do is killing And unfortunately he passes
away over the overdose he had.
Speaker 11 (34:52):
The time was going his way, he was on his
way to the very to.
Speaker 14 (35:00):
And when we were doing it in a lot of
different neighborhoods.
Speaker 5 (35:03):
They're not afraid to.
Speaker 14 (35:06):
Uh voice their opinions even while you're doing the show.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
So when when they see me take out a quack pipe.
Speaker 14 (35:16):
And I'm blowing it up, you know, and smoking and everything,
you can just hear some of the gaps in the audience.
It's like, oh my god, he's doing right now?
Speaker 5 (35:25):
What?
Speaker 7 (35:26):
What?
Speaker 5 (35:26):
How did that happen? You know, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Some students offered their thoughts about the play's message. Their
comments come from local news reports.
Speaker 8 (35:35):
It's a drama called Home Court, and it's playing the
pop school auditoriums all around the city.
Speaker 6 (35:40):
As mister G found out from the beginning, the play
touches on some raw nerves.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
The audience, eighty ninth graders hang on every word.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
If you knew what drugs could do to you, why
did you start in the first place?
Speaker 5 (35:52):
And I guess it was that I had to make
for myself.
Speaker 16 (35:54):
I guess I.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Told you when you experiment with John said, you come in.
Speaker 5 (36:01):
Tell you anything about drugs?
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (36:03):
What was it telling? It tells me not to take
it because then you think you're all right, but then
I'll take it too far.
Speaker 13 (36:08):
And the adventure to your dang.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Reginald Betts was only six years old when Lenn Bias died,
but he grew up in the same Prince George's County
community as Bias. He eventually began hearing stories from his
father and others about Bias that he might have rivaled
Michael Jordan had he lived. Bets was more familiar with
the tragic story of Reggie Lewis, who, like Bias, was
(36:37):
a first round picked by the Celtics in nineteen eighty seven,
one year after the Celtics picked Bias.
Speaker 9 (36:44):
You know, it's hard to recognize the tragedy of Reggie
Lewis and then recognized the tragedy of Linn Bias.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Lewis died of a heart condition when Betts was thirteen
years old. Soon after he began to hear more about Bias.
Speaker 9 (36:58):
And recognized Limbias his tragedy connected to the drug trade,
connected to what was going on with prison and incarceration
in the early nineties. It was impossible for me to
really think about that as a thirteen year old, you know,
I was I was trying to figure out how to
be a seventh grader, how to be a eighth grader.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
A bad decision by Bets when he was sixteen led
him to learning even more about bias. He was an
honor roll student and class treasurer at Suitland High in
District Heights, Maryland. Bets joined some friends for a night out.
A group carjacked the man who had fallen asleep in
his car outside the mall in North Virginia. It was
the first time Bets broke the law, much less held
(37:39):
a gun. He served eight years of a nine year
prison sentence for a conviction of armed carjacking.
Speaker 9 (37:45):
I'm sixteen, and I'm in prison, and in some real way,
you know, my life feels like it's cut short, in
some profoundly tragic way. And I think you begin to understand.
I begin to understand and think differently about limbias is death.
But also because I began to think differently about the
(38:06):
war on drugs, I began to think differently about mass
incarceration as a thing, you know, And so that just
forced me to consider him as a figure on top
of change in sports. I didn't really know who he
was until I went to prison, and so then by
the time I get to prison, he just becomes not
(38:26):
a footnote, because it's not fair to say he's a footnote,
but he becomes an explanation for something, and he becomes
an explanation for why. It's just like the fucking dual
tragedy of drugs, right. It's the fact that they actually
do ruin our community and the fact that, like you
(38:47):
think that the punishment that comes out of the response
to bias is death is as disastrous as as the death.
So you know, if you say, you know, like, how
did he come up the poem? I mean, honestly, he
comes up in a poem because he's just always dead.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Betts left prison with a General Education Development degree or GED.
He went on to earn an undergraduate degree in creative
writing from the University of Maryland. Betts was the student
speaker at his commencement. He later taught poetry at the university.
Betts earned a law degree at Yale and later passed
requirements to practice law in Connecticut. He has given elections
(39:30):
on topics ranged from mass incarceration to contemporary poetry, and
the intersection of literature and advocacy. Betts has earned several
prestigious fellowships, including the Gugenheim. He served as President Obama's
counsel for Juvenile Justice and delinquency prevention. Betts wrote a
memoir that focused on his time in prison in Virginia.
(39:53):
He also won a National Magazine Award for the story,
published in the New York Time magazine. Betts has written
books on poetry, one called The Baskets of the Reagan Era.
It won him a New England Poetry Award, and that
book is a palm night of living base heads. Here's
bath to Reading parts of.
Speaker 9 (40:12):
The Palm Spike had us on edge near ready to
toss a trash can through the city. Lin Bias was
dead and we was lamping stone cold, lamping pockets fat
because we were entrepreneurs back then it was always winter,
always cold in the street. My mind Rabbit would want
for equity for Dookie, go change Jordan's more. The hustle
(40:36):
courted us and we were down. It'll take you to ruin.
Moms will say, as if disaster wasn't that damn place,
those afternoons and all that Soireirns Blair. A mandatory minimum
of years with home becomes God's nightmare, our curse. And
(40:58):
so the way you see by come up in that
poem is the way Bias would have came up in
my life is it's just a marker for the tragedy,
just like somebody recounting how they came up and how
they got involved with drugs and bias. It's that marker
and a complicated marker too, because people so dope knowing
(41:21):
about the tragedy of bias, and he's so dope the
other folks knowing about the tragedy to bias. And that's
what I was trying to The whole poem is trying
to get at that that that that conflict that goes
on in somebody's mind where they're forced to be in
the spot in prison. So the way length Bias operated
in my head was almost like a fucking ghost.
Speaker 5 (41:42):
You know.
Speaker 9 (41:43):
If you say, you know, like how did he come
up in a poem? I mean, honestly, he comes up
in a poem because he's just always there, and that
poem is written from the perspective of the dude that's
selling drugs. But when you put Linn at the center
of it, I mean the real tragedy is that, like
now forever, to put Lynn at the center of any conversation,
(42:06):
it's also to put cocaine at the center of it.
And that's how powerful the drug was, is that once
you introduce it into a story, it's a co star,
and Lynn's life makes it forever a kind of co star.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
Culturally speaking, what could this guy have been? You know,
who would he have become in the league. How my
career arts and paths have been different had Lynn Bias
stayed running.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
That's Justin Tinsley, an ESPN commentator and a senior culture
and sports reporter for The Undefeated, just like Dwayne Betts.
Justin Tinsley was very young when Len Bias died. He
was only four months old. Tinsley first heard about Bias
in the mid nineteen nineties from his uncle, who lived
in the Washington, DC area. His uncle was a Len
(42:59):
Bias fan.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
May have been like nine, nine or ten, and we
were talking about basketball and I really wish Michael Jordan
would come back, and you know, I miss watching him
play basketball. He was like, yeah, I wish Lyn Bias
would have been around to play Mike, you know, with
the Celtics and see how that would have played out.
Kind of like a John Henry type guy for my generations.
Speaker 13 (43:23):
He took John Henry to the tunnel, include him in
the lead to drive John Henry.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
John Henry was a folk hero in black culture. According
to his legend, he was a steel driver. Henry helped
hammer through rock to build railways through the mountains of
West Virginia in the eighteen hundreds. He symbolizes the hard
work of many African Americans who helped build and maintain
the round at a time when black people in America
(44:03):
were slowly earning more rights and liberties. Tinsley sees a
parallel between John Henry and Bias, and.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
So he's a tall tale, but he's also even more
so a cautionary tale for my generation.
Speaker 13 (44:16):
John Henry the found the mountains and his hammer was
stracking fire. He hamm't soon that he Brew.
Speaker 11 (44:27):
Is handing down down Henry.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
According to legend, Henry died from a broken heart, a
victim of exhaustion. In real life, Bias died of a
heart attack after abusing an excessive amount of pure cocaine.
Tinsley has been working on a book about the nineteen
nineties rap artist Biggie Smalls. Like Bias, Smalls died too early.
(44:56):
He was gunned down to twenty five. In the book,
tensely connects Biggie's life with the War on drugs and
mandatory minimum sentences, among other issues of that time, Tensely
sees parallels between the story of both Biggie and Bias.
Speaker 4 (45:14):
Talks about being neck deep in the drug game and
understanding that like if I walk around this corner, if
I sell to the wrong person, like that could be
the end of me, whether whether I'm killed or whether I.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
Go to jail for a long time.
Speaker 4 (45:26):
So when we talk about these mandatory minimums, and we
talk about this life or death experience in the streets
selling drugs and being caught with even a small amount
of a paraphernalia on at that point in the late
eighties and early nineties to lead to a long trip
up state. And so when we talk about that, you
could piece it back to lin Bias. It may not
(45:47):
be Biggie saying, oh, making a rhyme about Linn Bias,
but you know when he was, you know when he
talks about the streets is a shortstop either you slinging
crack rock where you gotta win the jump shot. You
know you can piece that Ba to somebody like a
limb Bias, because that death changed everything. When we talk
about Limbias, culturally, we talk talk about how his death
(46:10):
in so many ways an overreaction by the federal government,
and that overreaction directly impacted our community. And you know
people who look like that. So in my generation especially, now,
there there's this there's this emphasis, and there's this thirst,
and there's this intersection of sports and in wider culture
(46:33):
and history and why why these things all matter? Like
when we talk about we talk about Kareem Abdul Jabbar,
we're not just talking about the fact he's the most
decorated basketball player of all time, where he has more
points than anybody who's ever played in the NBA. No,
we talk about Kareem about by we measure him obviously
(46:53):
by his skills on the corporate but we also measure
him by his impact on society at large.
Speaker 5 (46:58):
Limbias is the same.
Speaker 4 (46:59):
He never scored a basket in the NBA, but his
impact again on society at large is massive. When you
mentioned somebody like len Bias's name to people in my
generation is always like, yeah, he could have been something
we were robbed of seeing a potentially all time great.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Talent, unlike Dwayne Betts and Justin Tenseley, Michael winrib was
old enough to understand the impact of the death of
Lambias when it happened. He was thirteen years old when
Len Bias died. While living in State College, Pennsylvania. Winrib
was a huge fan of college basketball. He was well
(47:43):
aware of who Bias was. Wineribber journalist, author of four books,
and a screenwriter. His focus is sports, American culture in
the twentieth century history. He's written for The Ringer, The Athletic,
grant Land, and Bleacher Report. In two thousand and eight,
wrote an essay about bias legacy for ESPN, the magazine
(48:04):
title The Day Innocent Died. The story presented a sweeping
look at the death of Bias and its impact on society.
It also helped Convince podcast producer Dave Ungrady to look
even deeper into the ln Biased legacy, a result on
Grady's book Born Ready, The Mixed Legacy of Lent Bias.
(48:26):
This podcast series is based.
Speaker 5 (48:28):
On the book.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Wine Rib believes the Biased story has few rivals in history.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Once I dove into it and started to look back
at it, there were these connections political connections, cultural connections,
social connections that I had no idea about when I
was a kid, But once you start digging deeper into them,
do you realize that this may have been the most
(48:55):
impactful moment in modern sports history just because of the
impact it had on politics, on culture, on a generation
of African Americans.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
It's a wine with the issue that still plagues race
relations in this country today have a direct tie to
the death of Led Bias.
Speaker 18 (49:13):
Yeah, I think it's become more and more relevant over
the course of time as we've realized what we were
fifty years into the drug war and.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
It's obviously been a colossal failure. I think I think
everybody on both sides of the political aisle would probably
admit that at this point, and Bias, I think stands out.
His story just stands out as an exemplar of that
failure and how all of the policies that were attempted
(49:44):
to further the war on drugs, nearly all of them
have failed. And this, this what happened in the wake
of his death, is kind of the prototypical example of that.
And when you sort of realize the impact that it's
had on.
Speaker 19 (50:03):
A generation, particularly of African Americans, who have been imprisoned
because of the laws that were passed in his name.
It's just it really kind of puts into perspective everything
that we've been talking about in America for the last year,
(50:25):
or even for the last fifty years.
Speaker 20 (50:41):
Greetings everyone, This is Dave Ungrady, the executive producer of
this podcast series. This episode concludes the narrative portion of
the series. We have presented an unprecedented review of the
rich and complex legacy of Len Bias, some six hundred
minutes of total content. I thank all of those who
(51:03):
have joined us so far in this unique journey, but
there is more up.
Speaker 21 (51:09):
Next is what I like to call a functional epilogue,
a mini series of episodes that focuses on decision making.
In its essence, the Len biased legacy was shaped largely
by the fact that Len made a poor decision to
abuse drugs, and as we all know, it killed him.
(51:29):
The epilogue will help you learn how to make the
right decision. There are tools you can use, and the
Decision episodes will tell you about them in the context
of real life stories. In the epilogue, we will discuss
decisions made by five people. They all face challenges as
a result of these decisions. They include one of the
(51:52):
top high school basketball coaches in the country, Glen Ferrello,
also Travis Garrison, a former Mayora and basketball star and
Olympic sprint champion Justin Gatlin. We also talk with students
Zach Reid and Ben Kotoko. Our discussion is ably anchored
by Chris Spetsler, an expert on decision making. Chris is
(52:17):
the executive director of the Decision Education Foundation, a partner
in a thirty four plus one campaign and this podcast series.
The decision focused episodes will give you some practical takeaways
from the series and we urge you to tune in soon.
For more information, go to Gogradymedia dot com. That's Gogradymedia
(52:41):
dot com.
Speaker 10 (52:47):
This podcast series is based on the book Born Ready,
The Mixed Legacy of Lumby's, published.
Speaker 5 (52:52):
By go Grady Media.
Speaker 10 (52:53):
The series is produced by Go Grady Media in partnership
with Octagon Entertainment. This segment was produced by Daveon Grady
and Don Marcus. It was written by Davon Grady and
edited by Don Marcus. Narration by John Sallims with additional
narration by Jamal Williams. Technical production was provided by Octagon Entertainment.
Production assistance was produced by Kevin McNulty, Tino Quagliata, Lauren Rosh,
(53:16):
Georgia Brown, Casey Fair, Jamal Williams, Kelsey Mannox and enzol
Al Varenda Social Media Assistance. Special thanks to the University
of Maryland and American University for providing Inside the Decision.
Education Foundation is a content and promotional partner of this
podcast series. For more information, go to go Gradymedia dot com.
(53:39):
This has been a production of Go grading Media and
The Eighth Side Network.
Speaker 11 (54:11):
Yes, he was Furless superstar. He was the greatest one fault.
He was so full of Sandregie one of the strongest
gods you well the seen imagine to play on Hi TV.
Speaker 22 (54:37):
Now I can only see his memory.
Speaker 11 (54:43):
I remember when.
Speaker 5 (54:46):
He made his Fati.
Speaker 11 (54:49):
The man thoughted him on.
Speaker 12 (54:52):
That position.
Speaker 11 (54:55):
So many that Jackie his off.
Speaker 5 (54:59):
But the it must pay them.
Speaker 11 (55:03):
This master dog, he and his team Comptory.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
As well.
Speaker 22 (55:13):
Mastory never free, not free my camel. He have published
one of pain.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
It didn't even that.
Speaker 11 (55:38):
He'll always be a p a, a Less member before
we can even say that was on her Less history.
He'll always be your name card. There's not a certifore.
Speaker 1 (55:58):
Lindsay.
Speaker 11 (56:02):
He was so strong and physical. Still then will have
is it able? He has been agree.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
Love my mother.
Speaker 11 (56:58):
One of his thankle.
Speaker 22 (57:04):
It is even always, I thought, as well as how
morea we can even say?
Speaker 1 (57:14):
He started Erlands destory.
Speaker 11 (57:19):
Hello, they've thought about the number thirty four. Then he lies.
He was so strong and thankful, still letting the talk.
Speaker 5 (57:37):
He's in the.
Speaker 11 (57:41):
Always the populous, there's.
Speaker 5 (57:45):
Number thirty four. He was so short and.
Speaker 11 (57:56):
Still let the.
Speaker 1 (58:04):
Take on the.
Speaker 11 (58:14):
So stop tempt.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
Still in the closer, take on.
Speaker 5 (58:28):
The pas
Speaker 11 (58:31):
Tenif so stop temperati
Yeah, because Gwennolen Brooks was one of the most distinguished
poets in the country at the time. And to have
that person who represents the pinnacle of you know, of
a literary position, have a meeting arguably the best college
(00:32):
basketball player in the United States at the time. I mean,
that's remarkable, isn't.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
There were these connections and political connections, cultural connections, social
connections that I had no idea about when I was
a kid. But once you started digging deeper into them,
do you realize that this may have been the most
impactful moment modern sports history.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
He was prepared to be, but.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
He's one of the more painful what if in.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
Pop culture history.
Speaker 6 (01:09):
It's called Home Court. It's a play about an inner
city family that's striving to beat the odds, which I
should notice not too loosely on the tragedy of of
lam bias.
Speaker 7 (01:21):
Just.
Speaker 8 (01:22):
Trying to jump to about it.
Speaker 9 (01:30):
I think it's not just me. I think it's just
like lam Bias Post nineteen eighty six overwhelms the narrative
of lam bias pre naty, pre overdose, and overwhelms it's
so much so that for me him as a basketball player,
has to constantly try to compete with his effect of
(01:50):
the culture in all of those other ways.
Speaker 10 (01:53):
In this episode of limb Bias the Mixed Legacy cultural Catalyst,
the impact of Bias' legacy on American culture.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
It must have been in the middle of May, no
more than a week or so before the end of term,
when I experienced a Len Bias surprise. I know it
was nineteen eighty six because I come to the University
of Maryland the fall before in order to help start
up a Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing.
(02:23):
Of course, I knew about the fine reputation of the
English department. What I was most familiar with from its
national reputation was Maryland's basketball team and its colorful coach,
Lefty Drizzel. Once on the Maryland campus, I followed Duzelle's
(02:44):
team with special interest. I say Drisell's team, when what
I mean is the team of Len Bias, the All
America forward who was by acclamation, the best basketball player
in the country, A player like the great ones, who
could dominate the other team all by himself in any
(03:06):
number of ways.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Those are the words of Stanley Plumbley, one of the
country's prize writers Plumbly arrived in the University of Maryland
in nineteen eighty five and started writing program for graduate students.
He was Maryland's Poet Laureate from two thousand and nine
to twenty eighteen. As a youth, his two obsessions were
reading in basketball.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I remember thinking that he played like a professional. His
skill and size, speed and quickness, grace, and aggressiveness set
him apart. Yet for all his talent, he was also
a quiet player, no show, voting, no display, all business.
(03:50):
He was what might be called a working class player.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
More worth than Plumbly, but that was not his voice.
Plumbly passed away in twenty nineteen. His words were read
by Michael Collier, a colleague of Plumbley at Maryland. Collier's
creative thoughts were often intertwined with those of Plumbley. For
good reason. Colley has started working at Maryland a year
before Plumbley. He helped Plumby build the creative writing program
(04:18):
for much more than three decades at Maryland. Their officers
were adjacent to each other, and Callier was also Maryland's
Poet Laureate from two thousand and one to two thousand
and four. They talked often about len Bias, his Collier's
in his own words.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
You know, len Bias was on everybody's mind. You know,
Stanley was a basketball player. He played basketball, I think
in college. When he would come over to my house,
we often shot baskets in the driveway because I had
a hoop for my sons.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Plumbley soft tuss extended to his writings. The words of
Plumby read by Calia, first appeared in a forward in
the book Born Ready, The Mixed Legacy of len Bias,
and it is one example of how the legacy of
len Bias is reflected in American culture even today. In
this podcast series about the vast and mixed legacy of
(05:10):
len Bias, we have explained how its death has impacted
society in profoundly different ways. Maryland Athletics, his friends and family,
mandatory minimum prison sentences, the Celtics, the NBA, his teammates,
his family. In this episode, we examine lens legacy through
a cultural lens. We focus on the impact of his
(05:32):
legacy on race and social justice, how it influenced music
and how it connected to literature, how it was presented
in the theater, and how it has even recently been
referenced in popular television series. In life, len Bias was
a transformative basketball player. In death, He's a cautionary tale,
(05:53):
an iconic symbol of poor decision making. Len Bias is
also a cultural catalyst. In this episode, Unstorian legacy adjuxtapose
with those many important figures in American cultural history, Emmat
Till's Terrible Tale and racial injustice, the tragic young death
of rapper Biggie Small's, the Black folklore fable of John Henry.
(06:16):
His legacy is reflected in the writings of contemporary black culture,
included by Reginald Dwayne Betts and Justin Tinseley. The impact
of his death is even woven in the storyline of
TV series Snowfall, about the drug culture of the eighties.
The debut of the show's fifth season in February of
twenty twenty two begin with a recreation of Bias collapsing
(06:39):
in his Maryland dorm room on the morning of June nineteenth,
nineteen eighty six. There are references to Bias and his
death in later episodes. For Stanley Plumley, Bias represents both
a heroic and tragic figure, and is forward in the
book Born Ready, The mixed legacy of Lembias. Plumbley re
(07:00):
accounted the day he met Bias while working at Maryland.
It was part of an event hosted by his department.
Callia picks up the story from there.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
I was asked by the Dean's Office Arts and Humanities
to introduce Gwendolen Brooks, the National Poet Laureate who in
nineteen fifty became the first black poet to win the
Pulitzer Prize. I remember asking her to read one or
two particular favorites of mine, one of which is her
(07:30):
signature poem We Real Cool, We Real Cool, We left.
Speaker 7 (07:37):
School Light Wait stright straight, Wait thing Cima wait, Jim
jee Jim wait die.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Call you, continues this narration of the forward written by Plumbly.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
The structure of the event called for the Dean to
introduce me, followed by my introduction of Brooks. For a moment,
Brooks and I were standing there together when suddenly, from
the opposite side of the stage, there arrives a very
tall young man bearing a large bouquet of red roses.
(08:18):
It was Len Bias, whose presence came at the request
of Joyce, and Joyce, a professor of Afro American Literature
at Maryland. Bias took Joyce's class in the nineteen eighty
three fall semester, and, as Joyce explained it, graciously earned
(08:38):
a D grade, despite the fact he missed classes frequently
and flunked the two assignments he completed. It was not
her policy to flunk athletes. Joyce developed a friendship with
Bias and considered him sweet and thoughtful. Joyce arranged the
(08:59):
reading by Brooks and asks Bias if he would present
Brooks with a bouquet of flowers. She thought Bias's gesture
would help show a link between the excellence of black
basketball players and black poets and showcase the artistry of both.
(09:19):
She had hoped that Bias's participation could translate to increased
respect for poetry to the level students respect basketball players.
The Maryland basketball banquet was being held at the same
time at the Stamp Student Union, about a half mile away,
(09:42):
but that did not stop Bias from surprising Brooks and
everyone else attending the event. He shakes my hand and
then embraces the diminutive Brooks and places the great flowers
into her open arms. The audience goes slightly wild. I
(10:05):
can see the tears in Brooks's eyes, and everyone can
see the smile on len Bias's face. At the reception,
we all talked, but who knows what about likely? We
talked about the future, notably the future of the basketball star.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
It is not often a prominent athlete connects with the
icon of poetry for such a rare event. That fact
was not lost on Klia. He reflected on significance of
Bias meeting Brooks.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Gwenoln Brooks was one of the most distinguished poets in
the country at the time, and she was finishing her
stint as a poetry consultant to the Library of Congress,
a position that's now known as the US Poet Laureate.
And to have that person who represents the pinnacle of
(11:05):
you know, of a literary position have a meeting with
arguably the best college basketball player in the United States
at the time. I mean, that's remarkable, isn't it. That
doesn't First of all, athletes and poets don't get together
(11:27):
like that in a public way.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
They really don't.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
And it meant to me the coming together of two cultures,
you know, the literary humanities culture and the student athlete culture.
And that doesn't happen in that way in a public
way very often, and it seemed clear to me that
Len Bias recognized the importance of the moment, and so
(11:56):
I also I also thought that that was some very
honorable and what you might not expect out of a
student athlete.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Many years later, call You was compelled to write a
poem about Brooks meeting Bias, in the form of something
called a golden shovel, a poetic style that pays homage
to Brooks by incorporating a line from one of her poems.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I chose two lines from the Gwendolyn Brooks poem titled
the Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till. And
we all know who Emmett Till is, a fourteen year
old African American young man who was lynched in Money, Mississippi,
(12:48):
in nineteen fifty five. These are the lines that I
chose for my golden shovel. She kisses her killed boy,
and she is sorry.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Klia nar rates the poem he wrote about Brooks and Bias.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
It's called then Bias a bouquet of flowers and ms Brooks.
He arrives in the middle of her reading. She has
to stop and taking the flowers he's brought, kisses the
beautiful young man whose yellow socks are her dowdy sweaters. Antithesis.
(13:37):
What said between them is killed by applause, but not
his smile, which is the smile of a boy standing
in the silence he's created, and not her magnified stare,
(13:57):
which says she understands why he's arrived late, he is
already leaving, and that he is sorry. It's the only
poem I've ever written about an experience I had at
the University of Maryland. I've never written about anything that
(14:21):
happened at the University of Maryland, and yet when I
was given this assignment, this moment immediately came back to
me in a really powerful way. And it was a
kind of coincidence that I came across these lines in
the last quatrain from the ballot of Emmett Till. But
(14:43):
they seem to fit perfectly.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Call youa sees a connection between bias until that includes
a maternal extension.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
And I think too, there's a kind of congruence not perfect,
between Emmett Till and Len Bias. There are definitely connections
that you can make between their their deaths, and Mattill
was a complete victim of a moment, uh and in
(15:12):
a moment defined by American culture, American racist culture. And
you know, we're not we're not over that. And len Bias,
I think you can say not in that, not in
the same way. But he is a kind of of
(15:33):
I don't like the word victim, but but I but
I see Bias as as a kind of his death
as a kind of tragedy that was also a way
of reading it into a national tragedy, into narratives American
narratives that follow national tragedies after his death. There were
(15:58):
so many things that were racialized about it for me,
a kind of terrifying poignancy to it.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
The other thing too, that connects him is the role
that that mother's played, their mother's played in their deaths,
because Len Bias's mother was and has been very forceful,
and of course Emmett Till's mother did that almost unbelievable
(16:28):
thing of allowing Emmett to be in an open casket
and and also allowing the photographer to come in and
and and and take a series of of pictures of
him in the autopsy room. But as a way of
(16:57):
not allowing his death to go you know, unnoticed that
it would, that it could help.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
People.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
And what it helped was, you know, directly, someone like
Rosa Parks make a decision to stay on, to stay
in the seat at the front of the bus rather
go to the back. There's a direct connection there. So
he his death was not in vain, to use a cliche,
and the mother was behind that very eloquently and movingly.
(17:32):
One of the things that allowed other people to learn
from deaths, let's say not was the mothers. The mothers.
It's kind of interesting, huh.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Ronald Dealy was inspired to write a song about Bias
after he heard the news about his death in nineteen
eighty six. He was living in Washington, DC area and
was a big fan of Lembias.
Speaker 8 (17:57):
Often a Marilyn fan for quite three years.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
I used to live right across.
Speaker 8 (18:01):
From the campus, a little town called Lekeland.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
I used to go to the games.
Speaker 8 (18:06):
Back, you know, when I graduated from high school back
in nineteen sixties, three sixty four, somewhere in there, you know,
but only went to one of them, Bias and games,
you know how popular he was. I just wanted to
see him play because I heard a lot about him,
you know how good he was, And I told him,
(18:28):
my son, let's go up and see, you know how.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
Great that is.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Daily played in a band called the Chang Band in
the nineteen sixties and seventies. He also tried songwriting. It
took the death of Bias to convince Daly to write
a song about him, and for Delhi to finally record
a song that he had written. At the time, he
was working for an electric company that he partially owned.
Speaker 8 (18:51):
Yes, I was driving down the road and I was
on delivery and I heard the news on the radio
about his death, and I just said, this is really
really sad. I said, I want to write a song
about this guy, you know, I said, because he's so great.
I just I just started, you know, singing. I said,
(19:13):
by h he was Marilon scuperstar. And it took me
about today to really write the song.
Speaker 11 (19:22):
He was superstar. He wasn't pretty, just one other st
this guy.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
You ever seen.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
I played it for.
Speaker 8 (19:44):
I then biased his father for Father's Day, I dedicated
to to him, Yeah, for Father's Day.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Delhi was living at the time in a town called Bladensburg,
about five miles from where Baia's family lived. He sent
the producers of this podcast. There is a copy of
a picture of him posing with Lindy's Bias and others
in the Bias house.
Speaker 8 (20:05):
At that time, they didn't really know of me, and
I wanted to meet the family. That was the first
time I met the family, you know, with my kids
and my sons, and they were sitting in Letting Biases
chair and all that. It was really beautiful, you know,
Li Bias told me I was like part of the
family tree because of you know, how close that I was,
(20:29):
you know, writing this song, and how fast I've done it,
you know, in two days, and you know, she got
a copy of the song. I wanted some proceeds to
(21:01):
go to the Bias family. I didn't want to do
that just for myself. I just wanted to do it
for the Bias family, which I would like to see
a movie downe of Len Bias and you know, use
my song as a soundtrack. And this is the purpose
of me, you know, going this far with it.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
You can listen to the song in its entirety at
the end of this episode.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
This is dedicated so the greatest it never was.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Other musicians have also memorialized Biased. Some thirty years after
his death of Biased, rap artists whose musical name is
mc long Shot released a song simply called len Bias.
It lasts just under four minutes and it's a part
of a three song album called Instant for Eternity. The
other two songs on the album about domestic abuse and
(22:11):
romantic breakup. It was written and produced by Chad Heaslip.
He was born in Chicago South Side. He released his
first single in two thousand and two. You've heard clips
of the song throughout this podcast series. Now we play
for you in its entirety.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
It's just dedicated.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
So the greatest it never was.
Speaker 12 (22:47):
Yeah, so friend or a fly minutes so sad when
a young ace in he had it all strong, quick
(23:07):
and he was sol They called him Frosty because he
was cool. When he fall jump Shot hurt because so
pure it be fall, just.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
The for greatness of loss.
Speaker 12 (23:14):
Let you know them all other memories remember me. I
hope they do the same. As for Lena the best
ever it never became. You could try to blame but
the fact that he died and with nobody's fault for
his own because he tried something and they cried them.
But before that he was tears to show he was
the boy. You wouldn't doubt that he was gonna make it.
That's the number two pick by the Boston substitute. Would
(23:35):
have been so sick. Battle Liber Jordan for the scorpron
in the East.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
They did it once.
Speaker 13 (23:40):
In college.
Speaker 12 (23:40):
Lenny Fights was the beast from the streets of landover
to the A C.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
C Unanimous all world.
Speaker 12 (23:46):
He was prepared to be, but they had another player
for the brother man. They say, what was to catch
me out coming out of Maryland? He's saying proof you
can't get too high. At the funeral, his mama ain't cried,
and the people said the.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Boy on the brind the boy would fly man.
Speaker 12 (24:00):
It's so sad when the young Grace Dye second shoulder
in the game, he made them a name. This the
story of the best. It never became, I said the
bud and Rim, the boy of a flying man. It's
so sad with a young grades Dye second sholder in
the game.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
He made them a name.
Speaker 12 (24:16):
It's the story of the best.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
It never became.
Speaker 12 (24:18):
I guess the lesson that learned is blaming by your
get burned when it comes that if everybody get a turn,
such a blessing and the curse would limb by slept
the earth. He gave the world a wake up, calling
its fight a bunch of cherchs with the war on drugs,
and like the war wrong Browns with gold chains and beakers.
They thought they keep us on the ground and behind Boss.
We all should find God and live it to the limit.
Because Lynny defied us. Despite the fact that you never
(24:40):
saw twenty three, he was the best never saw since
twenty three. Then I saw the open wounds, his baby
brother saw the tomb, and.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
That's start of the war.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Wrong guns, y'all would assume, But no, they knew.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
What's all the same.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
If you shot and you're.
Speaker 12 (24:53):
Black, you're just a part of the game. But if
you shoot and you're black, you're a part of the blame.
But in the end, man, they all get paid trying
to pay respect to one of the greatest ever never.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
They see it's like for food for the better.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
He's starting proof you can't be too dope because in
the end and you just might choke.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
And the people say the boy the bream, the boy
would fly.
Speaker 12 (25:13):
Man, it's so sad when the young Grace die second
shoulder the game.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
He made him a name.
Speaker 12 (25:18):
This is the story of the best never became, I said.
The bove the brim, the boy ever flies man. It's
so sad when the young grades die second Sholl in
the game.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
He made him a name. This the story of.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
The best and never became. I said, this is the
story of the best ever.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
I said, this the story of the blessing never became.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
I said the bull, the brim, the boy would fly man.
Speaker 12 (25:45):
It's so sad when the young Grace died, second shroller
the game.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
He made him the name.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
This story of the best never became.
Speaker 6 (25:55):
It's called Home Court. It's a play about an inner
city family that's striving to beat the odds, which I
should notice face not too loosely on the tragedy of Lambias.
The play spans eight years of his life, you know,
till the time that he makes it to the pros
and by the time that he makes it and he
goes through drug abuse.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
That's Brian Gumbel, a former host of The Today Show
on NBC. He's talking during the broadcast in nineteen eighty
eight with Eugene Key, an actor who plays the character
based on Lambias in a play called Home Court. Here's
Eugene Key talking again, this time in an interview more
than thirty years later.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
We were trying to portray.
Speaker 14 (26:37):
The character that's having a lot of pressure being put
on it, you know, as being this perfect person. This
is what my character a Damien, kind of fell into.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
The play. Is another example connecting the Bias story to
American culture. The format of expression was the theater. Home
Court was created by the Creative Arts Team, then a
part of the Educational Theater Company in New York University.
The team uses theater an interactive drama to address social
and academic issues. Jim Maroney, a co founder of the
(27:16):
Creative Arts Team, was its playwright in residence. He started
developing the play in the summer of nineteen eighty six,
shortly after Bias died his Maroney talking after the play
was performed in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 15 (27:30):
The phenomenon Crack, which eclipsed in New York City around
June of last year, along with the death of then Bias,
became an inspiration to develop a play that wasn't a lecture,
but it was the best of drama with a message.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Here, Maroney during the interview in twenty twenty when Glenn.
Speaker 16 (27:48):
Died, that was an extraordinary event which caught my attention.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
The Creative Arts Team still exists today. Since its inception
in nineteen seventy four, it has tried to force the
creativity and critically engage with the world a focus his
youth facing challenges in their lives. His Maroney again in
twenty twenty.
Speaker 16 (28:10):
The majority of our contracts dealt with substance abuse prevention
from the city and at risk youth and conflict resolution.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
This seems to be a very good.
Speaker 16 (28:25):
Model for what we could do in the schools because
every middle school student high school student knew about lend bias,
and the play was a natural. The subject matter was
a natural for that to happen, and so it just
took off like a rocket for our purposes. We couldn't
(28:47):
find a better subject matter that would hit it that
age group.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
During his four year run, Home Court appeared in school
districts throughout the United States, including New York City Public schools.
Also had runs at festivals and in theaters in Seattle, Dallas, Houston,
and even in Scotland.
Speaker 16 (29:06):
We would have wracked up at least twenty five thirty shows,
maybe even more forty shows per season.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
The Today's Show feature created quite a buzz about the
play and extended the cultural reach of the bias Starry.
Speaker 16 (29:22):
When it was shown on Today's Show, we were inundated
by requests.
Speaker 17 (29:27):
That's when the league called up to be a part
of their rookie transition program.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
That's Zach Miner, an executive coach focused on life skills.
When the Today's Show featured Home Court, Mina was working
with the creative Arts team. The lead he was referring
to is the National Basketball Association. Mina help adapt the
show to have more of an impact on NBA players.
Speaker 17 (29:52):
I know that, unfortunately, the league was developing a bad
reputation of you know, the celebrities, sex, drugs, and rock
and roll. You know, when we did that show, it
had such an impact that they felt that that was
a very important part of the story to go along
(30:14):
with how do you become successful? How do you fight
some of the challenges that you may have grown up
with in order to achieve success in basketball or in
any other sport.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Home Court was part of the NBA's rookie orientation program
for a few years. Minor worked as a facilitator during
the show for the NBA Rookies, he talked to the
audience acted as a catalyst for discussion.
Speaker 17 (30:39):
What drama actually does is allow them to talk objectively
about what they see and.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
What's going on.
Speaker 17 (30:45):
And of course as they speak objectively, they're also coming
up with their own feelings and emotions about situations and
sometimes revealing some of what they are going through. We
presented the show, we then did break out groups and
had q and as with the players at that time,
(31:06):
and of course the league actually used that show as
a as to create talking points for.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
For the situation.
Speaker 17 (31:16):
You know, once they saw that drama had the effect
that it has, we then created other, uh, not necessarily shows,
but the stage presentations that would reflect some of the
situations that young athletes would go through upon entering the league.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
You know, whether it was.
Speaker 17 (31:39):
With agents, how to manage the agent responsibility, how to
manage family, friends and family became a big part of
that program, you know, talking about that, and that's I
think a part of that was where land Biss's mom
(31:59):
came and s because it was very important that these
young men understood that family could be a challenge as well.
Speaker 5 (32:08):
The family could be a support.
Speaker 17 (32:10):
As Lynn Bias's mom was, and family could be a
challenge as we've seen in other situations.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
What the students saw in the play was not a
complete representation of Bias, but there are some similarities between
Bias and Damien, the character based on Bias. Eugene Key
played the role of Damien.
Speaker 14 (32:29):
We had it in the script that his brother was,
you know, kind of the problem kid, and Damien, which
was the Lynn Bias character, was the one who had
the talent that was so successful, and the younger brother
was the one who was always the one.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
That was in trouble. So he was the one that
was in the drugs and everything.
Speaker 11 (32:50):
Well, my man, love with me.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
What's up?
Speaker 3 (32:52):
And nothing you can help you with?
Speaker 5 (32:54):
Oh yeah, come on.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Later on, I got caught shot.
Speaker 12 (33:01):
If it didn't sneaking what it all happened so fast,
I was in the store of mine, in my own
business with crystalies.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
He cleaned himself up.
Speaker 14 (33:10):
Apparently by that time, Damien, the Limbia's character was on
the move with with high school and college.
Speaker 11 (33:22):
Day he's learning from the hospital the vision it's here.
I'm hoping it, dear mister Washington, based on your Scholasticphy,
Achievement and your proficiency A center for Junior high school
seventy eight. You have a seen a two year starship
(33:44):
of George Cows.
Speaker 14 (33:51):
Now he's got the NBA knocking on his door and
his brother comes back out of rehab and notice that
there's changes in his.
Speaker 5 (34:01):
Brother that he didn't recognize before.
Speaker 14 (34:03):
But then he recognized that he's doing drugs because of course.
Speaker 5 (34:06):
He can recognize the signs.
Speaker 14 (34:08):
And not only that he's doing crack at this point,
he's also drinking and everything. But try to tell his brother,
look this, I've been there. This is not the road
to go down. And my character Damien based on the
bias and throwing the mine own business.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
I got this. I can take care of it. Say
you're you're the junkie, You're the.
Speaker 8 (34:32):
One that failed the family.
Speaker 5 (34:35):
I'm the one that's going to be successful, just like
you're doing that.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Don't you try to jump to league.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
You were jumpy, all right.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
And what I do is killing And unfortunately he passes
away over the overdose he had.
Speaker 11 (34:52):
The time was going his way, he was on his
way to the very to.
Speaker 14 (35:00):
And when we were doing it in a lot of
different neighborhoods.
Speaker 5 (35:03):
They're not afraid to.
Speaker 14 (35:06):
Uh voice their opinions even while you're doing the show.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
So when when they see me take out a quack pipe.
Speaker 14 (35:16):
And I'm blowing it up, you know, and smoking and everything,
you can just hear some of the gaps in the audience.
It's like, oh my god, he's doing right now?
Speaker 5 (35:25):
What?
Speaker 7 (35:26):
What?
Speaker 5 (35:26):
How did that happen? You know, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Some students offered their thoughts about the play's message. Their
comments come from local news reports.
Speaker 8 (35:35):
It's a drama called Home Court, and it's playing the
pop school auditoriums all around the city.
Speaker 6 (35:40):
As mister G found out from the beginning, the play
touches on some raw nerves.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
The audience, eighty ninth graders hang on every word.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
If you knew what drugs could do to you, why
did you start in the first place?
Speaker 5 (35:52):
And I guess it was that I had to make
for myself.
Speaker 16 (35:54):
I guess I.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Told you when you experiment with John said, you come in.
Speaker 5 (36:01):
Tell you anything about drugs?
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (36:03):
What was it telling? It tells me not to take
it because then you think you're all right, but then
I'll take it too far.
Speaker 13 (36:08):
And the adventure to your dang.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Reginald Betts was only six years old when Lenn Bias died,
but he grew up in the same Prince George's County
community as Bias. He eventually began hearing stories from his
father and others about Bias that he might have rivaled
Michael Jordan had he lived. Bets was more familiar with
the tragic story of Reggie Lewis, who, like Bias, was
(36:37):
a first round picked by the Celtics in nineteen eighty seven,
one year after the Celtics picked Bias.
Speaker 9 (36:44):
You know, it's hard to recognize the tragedy of Reggie
Lewis and then recognized the tragedy of Linn Bias.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Lewis died of a heart condition when Betts was thirteen
years old. Soon after he began to hear more about Bias.
Speaker 9 (36:58):
And recognized Limbias his tragedy connected to the drug trade,
connected to what was going on with prison and incarceration
in the early nineties. It was impossible for me to
really think about that as a thirteen year old, you know,
I was I was trying to figure out how to
be a seventh grader, how to be a eighth grader.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
A bad decision by Bets when he was sixteen led
him to learning even more about bias. He was an
honor roll student and class treasurer at Suitland High in
District Heights, Maryland. Bets joined some friends for a night out.
A group carjacked the man who had fallen asleep in
his car outside the mall in North Virginia. It was
the first time Bets broke the law, much less held
(37:39):
a gun. He served eight years of a nine year
prison sentence for a conviction of armed carjacking.
Speaker 9 (37:45):
I'm sixteen, and I'm in prison, and in some real way,
you know, my life feels like it's cut short, in
some profoundly tragic way. And I think you begin to understand.
I begin to understand and think differently about limbias is death.
But also because I began to think differently about the
(38:06):
war on drugs, I began to think differently about mass
incarceration as a thing, you know, And so that just
forced me to consider him as a figure on top
of change in sports. I didn't really know who he
was until I went to prison, and so then by
the time I get to prison, he just becomes not
(38:26):
a footnote, because it's not fair to say he's a footnote,
but he becomes an explanation for something, and he becomes
an explanation for why. It's just like the fucking dual
tragedy of drugs, right. It's the fact that they actually
do ruin our community and the fact that, like you
(38:47):
think that the punishment that comes out of the response
to bias is death is as disastrous as as the death.
So you know, if you say, you know, like, how
did he come up the poem? I mean, honestly, he
comes up in a poem because he's just always dead.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Betts left prison with a General Education Development degree or GED.
He went on to earn an undergraduate degree in creative
writing from the University of Maryland. Betts was the student
speaker at his commencement. He later taught poetry at the university.
Betts earned a law degree at Yale and later passed
requirements to practice law in Connecticut. He has given elections
(39:30):
on topics ranged from mass incarceration to contemporary poetry, and
the intersection of literature and advocacy. Betts has earned several
prestigious fellowships, including the Gugenheim. He served as President Obama's
counsel for Juvenile Justice and delinquency prevention. Betts wrote a
memoir that focused on his time in prison in Virginia.
(39:53):
He also won a National Magazine Award for the story,
published in the New York Time magazine. Betts has written
books on poetry, one called The Baskets of the Reagan Era.
It won him a New England Poetry Award, and that
book is a palm night of living base heads. Here's
bath to Reading parts of.
Speaker 9 (40:12):
The Palm Spike had us on edge near ready to
toss a trash can through the city. Lin Bias was
dead and we was lamping stone cold, lamping pockets fat
because we were entrepreneurs back then it was always winter,
always cold in the street. My mind Rabbit would want
for equity for Dookie, go change Jordan's more. The hustle
(40:36):
courted us and we were down. It'll take you to ruin.
Moms will say, as if disaster wasn't that damn place,
those afternoons and all that Soireirns Blair. A mandatory minimum
of years with home becomes God's nightmare, our curse. And
(40:58):
so the way you see by come up in that
poem is the way Bias would have came up in
my life is it's just a marker for the tragedy,
just like somebody recounting how they came up and how
they got involved with drugs and bias. It's that marker
and a complicated marker too, because people so dope knowing
(41:21):
about the tragedy of bias, and he's so dope the
other folks knowing about the tragedy to bias. And that's
what I was trying to The whole poem is trying
to get at that that that that conflict that goes
on in somebody's mind where they're forced to be in
the spot in prison. So the way length Bias operated
in my head was almost like a fucking ghost.
Speaker 5 (41:42):
You know.
Speaker 9 (41:43):
If you say, you know, like how did he come
up in a poem? I mean, honestly, he comes up
in a poem because he's just always there, and that
poem is written from the perspective of the dude that's
selling drugs. But when you put Linn at the center
of it, I mean the real tragedy is that, like
now forever, to put Lynn at the center of any conversation,
(42:06):
it's also to put cocaine at the center of it.
And that's how powerful the drug was, is that once
you introduce it into a story, it's a co star,
and Lynn's life makes it forever a kind of co star.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
Culturally speaking, what could this guy have been? You know,
who would he have become in the league. How my
career arts and paths have been different had Lynn Bias
stayed running.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
That's Justin Tinsley, an ESPN commentator and a senior culture
and sports reporter for The Undefeated, just like Dwayne Betts.
Justin Tinsley was very young when Len Bias died. He
was only four months old. Tinsley first heard about Bias
in the mid nineteen nineties from his uncle, who lived
in the Washington, DC area. His uncle was a Len
(42:59):
Bias fan.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
May have been like nine, nine or ten, and we
were talking about basketball and I really wish Michael Jordan
would come back, and you know, I miss watching him
play basketball. He was like, yeah, I wish Lyn Bias
would have been around to play Mike, you know, with
the Celtics and see how that would have played out.
Kind of like a John Henry type guy for my generations.
Speaker 13 (43:23):
He took John Henry to the tunnel, include him in
the lead to drive John Henry.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
John Henry was a folk hero in black culture. According
to his legend, he was a steel driver. Henry helped
hammer through rock to build railways through the mountains of
West Virginia in the eighteen hundreds. He symbolizes the hard
work of many African Americans who helped build and maintain
the round at a time when black people in America
(44:03):
were slowly earning more rights and liberties. Tinsley sees a
parallel between John Henry and Bias, and.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
So he's a tall tale, but he's also even more
so a cautionary tale for my generation.
Speaker 13 (44:16):
John Henry the found the mountains and his hammer was
stracking fire. He hamm't soon that he Brew.
Speaker 11 (44:27):
Is handing down down Henry.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
According to legend, Henry died from a broken heart, a
victim of exhaustion. In real life, Bias died of a
heart attack after abusing an excessive amount of pure cocaine.
Tinsley has been working on a book about the nineteen
nineties rap artist Biggie Smalls. Like Bias, Smalls died too early.
(44:56):
He was gunned down to twenty five. In the book,
tensely connects Biggie's life with the War on drugs and
mandatory minimum sentences, among other issues of that time, Tensely
sees parallels between the story of both Biggie and Bias.
Speaker 4 (45:14):
Talks about being neck deep in the drug game and
understanding that like if I walk around this corner, if
I sell to the wrong person, like that could be
the end of me, whether whether I'm killed or whether I.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
Go to jail for a long time.
Speaker 4 (45:26):
So when we talk about these mandatory minimums, and we
talk about this life or death experience in the streets
selling drugs and being caught with even a small amount
of a paraphernalia on at that point in the late
eighties and early nineties to lead to a long trip
up state. And so when we talk about that, you
could piece it back to lin Bias. It may not
(45:47):
be Biggie saying, oh, making a rhyme about Linn Bias,
but you know when he was, you know when he
talks about the streets is a shortstop either you slinging
crack rock where you gotta win the jump shot. You
know you can piece that Ba to somebody like a
limb Bias, because that death changed everything. When we talk
about Limbias, culturally, we talk talk about how his death
(46:10):
in so many ways an overreaction by the federal government,
and that overreaction directly impacted our community. And you know
people who look like that. So in my generation especially, now,
there there's this there's this emphasis, and there's this thirst,
and there's this intersection of sports and in wider culture
(46:33):
and history and why why these things all matter? Like
when we talk about we talk about Kareem Abdul Jabbar,
we're not just talking about the fact he's the most
decorated basketball player of all time, where he has more
points than anybody who's ever played in the NBA. No,
we talk about Kareem about by we measure him obviously
(46:53):
by his skills on the corporate but we also measure
him by his impact on society at large.
Speaker 5 (46:58):
Limbias is the same.
Speaker 4 (46:59):
He never scored a basket in the NBA, but his
impact again on society at large is massive. When you
mentioned somebody like len Bias's name to people in my
generation is always like, yeah, he could have been something
we were robbed of seeing a potentially all time great.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Talent, unlike Dwayne Betts and Justin Tenseley, Michael winrib was
old enough to understand the impact of the death of
Lambias when it happened. He was thirteen years old when
Len Bias died. While living in State College, Pennsylvania. Winrib
was a huge fan of college basketball. He was well
(47:43):
aware of who Bias was. Wineribber journalist, author of four books,
and a screenwriter. His focus is sports, American culture in
the twentieth century history. He's written for The Ringer, The Athletic,
grant Land, and Bleacher Report. In two thousand and eight,
wrote an essay about bias legacy for ESPN, the magazine
(48:04):
title The Day Innocent Died. The story presented a sweeping
look at the death of Bias and its impact on society.
It also helped Convince podcast producer Dave Ungrady to look
even deeper into the ln Biased legacy, a result on
Grady's book Born Ready, The Mixed Legacy of Lent Bias.
(48:26):
This podcast series is based.
Speaker 5 (48:28):
On the book.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Wine Rib believes the Biased story has few rivals in history.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Once I dove into it and started to look back
at it, there were these connections political connections, cultural connections,
social connections that I had no idea about when I
was a kid, But once you start digging deeper into them,
do you realize that this may have been the most
(48:55):
impactful moment in modern sports history just because of the
impact it had on politics, on culture, on a generation
of African Americans.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
It's a wine with the issue that still plagues race
relations in this country today have a direct tie to
the death of Led Bias.
Speaker 18 (49:13):
Yeah, I think it's become more and more relevant over
the course of time as we've realized what we were
fifty years into the drug war and.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
It's obviously been a colossal failure. I think I think
everybody on both sides of the political aisle would probably
admit that at this point, and Bias, I think stands out.
His story just stands out as an exemplar of that
failure and how all of the policies that were attempted
(49:44):
to further the war on drugs, nearly all of them
have failed. And this, this what happened in the wake
of his death, is kind of the prototypical example of that.
And when you sort of realize the impact that it's
had on.
Speaker 19 (50:03):
A generation, particularly of African Americans, who have been imprisoned
because of the laws that were passed in his name.
It's just it really kind of puts into perspective everything
that we've been talking about in America for the last year,
(50:25):
or even for the last fifty years.
Speaker 20 (50:41):
Greetings everyone, This is Dave Ungrady, the executive producer of
this podcast series. This episode concludes the narrative portion of
the series. We have presented an unprecedented review of the
rich and complex legacy of Len Bias, some six hundred
minutes of total content. I thank all of those who
(51:03):
have joined us so far in this unique journey, but
there is more up.
Speaker 21 (51:09):
Next is what I like to call a functional epilogue,
a mini series of episodes that focuses on decision making.
In its essence, the Len biased legacy was shaped largely
by the fact that Len made a poor decision to
abuse drugs, and as we all know, it killed him.
(51:29):
The epilogue will help you learn how to make the
right decision. There are tools you can use, and the
Decision episodes will tell you about them in the context
of real life stories. In the epilogue, we will discuss
decisions made by five people. They all face challenges as
a result of these decisions. They include one of the
(51:52):
top high school basketball coaches in the country, Glen Ferrello,
also Travis Garrison, a former Mayora and basketball star and
Olympic sprint champion Justin Gatlin. We also talk with students
Zach Reid and Ben Kotoko. Our discussion is ably anchored
by Chris Spetsler, an expert on decision making. Chris is
(52:17):
the executive director of the Decision Education Foundation, a partner
in a thirty four plus one campaign and this podcast series.
The decision focused episodes will give you some practical takeaways
from the series and we urge you to tune in soon.
For more information, go to Gogradymedia dot com. That's Gogradymedia
(52:41):
dot com.
Speaker 10 (52:47):
This podcast series is based on the book Born Ready,
The Mixed Legacy of Lumby's, published.
Speaker 5 (52:52):
By go Grady Media.
Speaker 10 (52:53):
The series is produced by Go Grady Media in partnership
with Octagon Entertainment. This segment was produced by Daveon Grady
and Don Marcus. It was written by Davon Grady and
edited by Don Marcus. Narration by John Sallims with additional
narration by Jamal Williams. Technical production was provided by Octagon Entertainment.
Production assistance was produced by Kevin McNulty, Tino Quagliata, Lauren Rosh,
(53:16):
Georgia Brown, Casey Fair, Jamal Williams, Kelsey Mannox and enzol
Al Varenda Social Media Assistance. Special thanks to the University
of Maryland and American University for providing Inside the Decision.
Education Foundation is a content and promotional partner of this
podcast series. For more information, go to go Gradymedia dot com.
(53:39):
This has been a production of Go grading Media and
The Eighth Side Network.
Speaker 11 (54:11):
Yes, he was Furless superstar. He was the greatest one fault.
He was so full of Sandregie one of the strongest
gods you well the seen imagine to play on Hi TV.
Speaker 22 (54:37):
Now I can only see his memory.
Speaker 11 (54:43):
I remember when.
Speaker 5 (54:46):
He made his Fati.
Speaker 11 (54:49):
The man thoughted him on.
Speaker 12 (54:52):
That position.
Speaker 11 (54:55):
So many that Jackie his off.
Speaker 5 (54:59):
But the it must pay them.
Speaker 11 (55:03):
This master dog, he and his team Comptory.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
As well.
Speaker 22 (55:13):
Mastory never free, not free my camel. He have published
one of pain.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
It didn't even that.
Speaker 11 (55:38):
He'll always be a p a, a Less member before
we can even say that was on her Less history.
He'll always be your name card. There's not a certifore.
Speaker 1 (55:58):
Lindsay.
Speaker 11 (56:02):
He was so strong and physical. Still then will have
is it able? He has been agree.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
Love my mother.
Speaker 11 (56:58):
One of his thankle.
Speaker 22 (57:04):
It is even always, I thought, as well as how
morea we can even say?
Speaker 1 (57:14):
He started Erlands destory.
Speaker 11 (57:19):
Hello, they've thought about the number thirty four. Then he lies.
He was so strong and thankful, still letting the talk.
Speaker 5 (57:37):
He's in the.
Speaker 11 (57:41):
Always the populous, there's.
Speaker 5 (57:45):
Number thirty four. He was so short and.
Speaker 11 (57:56):
Still let the.
Speaker 1 (58:04):
Take on the.
Speaker 11 (58:14):
So stop tempt.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
Still in the closer, take on.
Speaker 5 (58:28):
The pas
Speaker 11 (58:31):
Tenif so stop temperati
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