January 10, 2022 • 41 mins
The death of Len Bias devastated the Maryland basketball program. In this episode, Tragedy to Triumph, coach Gary Williams and others explain how Maryland endured sanctions and other challenges to win its only national title.
About the narrator: Rich Daniel is a 1985 graduate of the University of Maryland. He covered Len’s story as a television sports producer in the Washington, D.C. area.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast is based in large part of the book
Born Ready, The Mixed Legacy of Lembis. Some quotes are
narrated by Davon Grady, a podcast producer and the author
of the book, from interviews done for the book. Recordings
for these comments were not available. Yeah, I'm next in
Lembis A Mixed Legacy. I'm tragedy to triumph Maryland basketball
(00:22):
after the death of Lambias. Well, I mean, Maryland suffered
an unspeakable trauma with Bias's death, and the reaction was
swift and far reaching, and it was a trauma that
lasted for a long long time. From the beginning, Bob
(00:44):
Wade was the higher Chancellor John Slaughter. He did not
go John Slaughter did not go through the usual channels
to Higher Bob Wade. We tried to make overtures he
was to him and talk to him and make it
to help him out, and he would come in and
(01:06):
go to his office, and we just never saw it.
I enjoyed playing with my teammate, but far as that
game being fun, he wasn't for me personally or whatever.
It wasn't. It wasn't it wasn't fun. It was desastic.
It really was That's the only word I could use.
(01:27):
You know, we're at the bottom of the pile and
trying to look up and see how you you you
could not just past six other really good teams, but
to be competitive with Duke and North Carolina. I wanted
to be a good player at home. I wanted my
favorite friends to see me. I wanted to show that
I can't have the same impact as then. Some days
(01:50):
he just come in there shaking his head. He says,
I don't know where we're gonna get this thing turned around.
You know, this is such a mess. Gerry William was
probably one of the few people in the country who
had the intestinal fortitude to endure the dark days of
basketball and to bring Maryland's program out of that. Ritson
(02:14):
fires up to the top of the Georgia and the
kids have done it. Blond Webster first ever national champions
And you just apported a game with you sit and
you black, you apported. On the day Lefty Griselle became
Maryland's head coach in nineteen sixty nine, he boasted that
(02:34):
he would turn the terms into the u c l
A of the East. He didn't quite reach that lofty goal,
but Griselle did revive a program that when it's only
a SEC tournament title in nineteen fifty eight and struggle
through the nineteen sixties. In the nineteen seventies, Grizel had
(02:54):
one of the best teams in the country, but for
most of the decade, only the conference tournament champion advanced
to the n C Double A Tournament. The best he
could do was leading Maryland to the n C Double
A Tournament Elite eight one time. Two and a half
years later, some five months after Lenn Bias died, Drizzle
(03:15):
was out as Maryland's coach. It was not by his
own preference. No college basketball program in the country fell
and rose again as dramatically as Maryland. It took Gary
Williams five years to get Maryland back into the n
C Double A Tournament. In two thousand one, Maryland played
(03:36):
in their first Final four, and the next year it
won its only national championship. J Billis played against Bias
for four years during his college career at Duke. Billis
was an assistant coach for Duke and the early nineteen nineties,
and he's now a provocative basketball analyst for ESPN. Maryland
(03:58):
suffered an unspeakable trauma with biases, death, and the reaction
was swift and far reaching. A lot of people lost
their careers over that, at least had their careers derailed
and sent in a completely different direction. And it was
a trauma that lasted for a long long time. You know,
(04:21):
they were in a hole and they started digging once
they got in it. Bob Wade was introduced as Maryland's
head coach on October, one day after Lefty Drizzle resigned.
It was an historic day. Wade was the first black
head coach hired by an Atlantic Coast Conference basketball program.
(04:42):
It's something we look forward to all all of our
lives and anytime a person loves to work with youngsters
and loves to coach basketball, I think of no other
uh I opportunity, or none other opportunity could exist into
(05:03):
uh to beginning the opportunity to coach on the next
level at the University of Maryland. Wade left Dunbar High
School in Baltimore, where he was working as the school's
football coach. He was also the school's basketball coach. That's
what made him an attraction to Maryland. In his ten
years as Dunbar's basketball coach, Wade won three mythical National
(05:27):
Basketball Championships. Players on those teams included Muggsy Bogs, Reggie Williams,
and David Wingate, all future NBA players. His teams lost
only twenty five games in ten years. Molly Glassman covered
Wade at Dunbar as a high school reporter for the
Baltimore Evening Sun. By the time Wade became Maryland's coach,
(05:50):
she moved on to the Maryland Athletics beat Glassman fields.
The hiring of Wade by Chancellor John Slaughter was motivated
by a need for dramatic change in the program. One
area of interests was the athletic department's fundraising group, the
Terrapin Club. He really was trying to get away from
(06:10):
that culture of having the Terrapin Club be supportive of
things um. He wanted to create a whole different atmosphere
at a Maryland and Bob Wade was his tool to
do that. John Slaughter did not go through the usual
(06:31):
channels to hire Bob Wade. I'm sure he didn't seek
counsel from the Athletic department because the department was crumbling.
Slaughter claimed he did his due diligence and haring Wade.
He consulted such prominent coaches as Georgetown's John Thompson, North
(06:53):
Carolina's Dean Smith in North Carolina State's Jim Valvano. The
coaches supported choosing Wade. Slaughter told me, to a person,
they had nothing but quality things to say. Some had
coached with him at summer camps. Balvano's and Bob's wife
were close friends. It was not a spur of the
(07:14):
moment decision. Slaughter liked that Wade was considered a strict
disciplinarian and made sure his players studied further. He liked
that Wade had strong connections to Baltimore, Maryland struggled to
recruit top talent from that city, only a half hour
from College Park. Sue Tyler was an assistant athletic director
(07:35):
when Wade took over. She recalls Wade appeared to be
reluctant to fit into what remained of that Maryland family. Well,
first of all, I think it was a really tough
situation for him to walk into, and I believe a
few of my friends with coaching staff, we tried to
make overtures to him and talk to him and to
(07:56):
help him out, and we just never saw it. He
would come in, go to practice, do his thing, and
then leave or go to his office, and he didn't
come to any meetings. He had other people do um
all the other things that coaches have to do about,
you know, signing out money and signing out getting things
(08:17):
from the equipment rooms and talking to equipment people. He
did none of the day to day things. He had
other people do all of that, and he was pretty
much strictly the coach. Wade was named coached two weeks
after the traditional starting date for teams to practice. Slaughter
decided to move back the opening game until early December.
(08:39):
The challenges on the court were many. The team had
six new players, only five players returned from the previous year.
One was sophomore John Johnson. He struggled to adjust to
wade style. It was, you know, I enjoyed playing my teammates,
(09:01):
but they wouldn't be for me personally. It wasn't It wasn't,
it wasn't fun. You picked the wrong man to come
in at whatever and at a time when we need
somebody to spot. Derrick Lewis had played for Wade before.
When Wade coach the McDonald's All American High school team.
(09:24):
He was a junior that first year under Wade. I
think anyone coming in with the situation with the bias
is going to be as far as that situation. As
far as coaching, I mean, he was, he gave, He
was giving a team and nothing. Maryland finished the season
nine and seventeen. That matched its previous worst record from
(09:45):
the nineteen sixty three sixty four season, and for the
first time since the ninety one season, Maryland failed to
win a conference game. Molly Glassman was not surprised about
the way that season had Yeah, I did talk to Wade,
and um, I think, as I recall, he was very
(10:14):
certain of his ability to recruit at the college level.
He knew the college recruiting game inside enough from from
the high school's perspectives. The the on the court coaching
was a big question mark. Wade's second season ended differently.
(10:38):
Maryland finished six and eight in the conference but eighteen
and thirteen overall. The Terms lost in the second round
of the n c Double A Tournament to Kentucky. It
helped that Tony Massenberg and Keith Gatlin, both suspended during
the prior season, rejoined the team. Gatlin finished the season
with a twelve point one points per game average, the
(11:01):
best of his career, and he was comfortable playing with Wade.
Keith Gatlin told me I didn't have a problem with
him at all. Bob was good to me. He was
in a tough situation. He could never do the things
he wanted to do. When we played for coach Brazil,
we always got the gym whenever we wanted it. Whatever
(11:22):
he said we got. When coach Wade came in the
women's team had more pool than he did. It was unfortunate.
I never thought the university gave him a fair shot.
Coach Wade didn't have a chance in hell to survive
at Maryland. Wade's recruiting acumen that Glassman mentioned paid off
in his second year. Brian Williams, a third team Parade
(11:45):
All American, came in as a freshman. He averaged twelve
points and six rebounds that year. Wade's third year started
to fall apart well before Maryland started pre season practice
due to graduation, transfers, a red shirt, and academic problems.
Eight players failed to return from the prior year. One
(12:07):
transfer was Williams, who left for Arizona. He blamed communication
problems in the program and said that he could not
improve sufficiently under Wade. Williams later played eight seasons in
the NBA and won a league title with the Bulls.
In Wade's third year was disastrous. Maryland endured a nine
(12:29):
game losing streak and one just one a c C game.
It was their second worst conference record in history. They
finished nine and twenty overall. As a senior, Johnson had
his best year, averaging some fifteen points a game. Still,
he almost quit the team, but me, I was done
(12:51):
with it all was I was reading packing and I'm
a going to graduate. In the end, Johnson decided to
finish out his career after talking with athletic director Lou Perkins.
He told Johnson that quitting would set Maryland basketball back years.
(13:12):
Wade admitted to breaking several n C Double A rules,
and he resigned in mid May. Chuck Walsh was the
team's media relations director at the time. He claims that
several people within Maryland's athletic department told him that Wade
began breaking nc double A violations his first day on
(13:32):
the job. As Walsh saw it, Wade didn't intend to
break the rules. He just didn't know enough about the
rules to avoid violating them. Sue Tyler, an assistant athletic
director at the time, was among those who tried to
help him. We tried to help him out because the
rules and regulations and are quite different than they are
(13:55):
in high school, and they're very complex and it's very
difficult to navigate some of the things, even in the university.
So we wanted to reach out to her, and Uh,
he didn't seem to want to be you know, I
wouldn't want to be helped. I want I didn't want
to be around us. Is he was kind of um.
(14:16):
He was besieged by the press, and any time the
press was around, they were almost chasing him to talk
to him. So I think he felt pursued and besieged
and pressured. So he had a tough spot, a really
tough spot. Not that everyone would have been supportive. Bentley's
Restaurant has been in College Sparks since the late nineteen seventies.
(14:38):
Its founder and owner, John Brown developed a strong friendship
with Wade and his family. The team often dined at
the restaurant. Brown recalled the time the Terrapin Club called
a meeting for Maryland's coaches, but Wade was not invited
at the urging of Wade's wife. Brown, the next day
stopped by Wade's house to visit a sobbing. Wade asked
(15:02):
Brown why he was not included. Brown replied he did
not know, but he should have been. Brown told me
it seemed to go more and more like that. Him
not doing what they wanted Bob made it difficult. If
you didn't know him, he could be aloof It was
a divide. They hung him out to dry when double
(15:23):
A violations came up. Like bias, Wade's legacy at Maryland
is mixed. His n C double A violations will be
remembered for helping set back the basketball program for years.
Wade called the group of men's basketball coaches in the
conference an old boys network and a Charlotte Observer report.
He added that his time in the a SEC was difficult.
(15:46):
Even John Slaughter, who hired Wade, ultimately questioned the wisdom
of the move. In retrospect, it might have been an
impossible situation for Bob, he told The Washington Post in
January nine ninety. Bob followed a coaching legend. He was black,
He was appointed by a black chancellor. He was from
(16:07):
a High School. He's hired one day before practice begins,
and the players have gone through hell after Leonard's death.
Throwing Bob in the middle of that was like throwing
a piece of raw meat to a pack of lions.
You're going to get chewed up if you don't do
things perfectly. I don't think Bob got the support he
needed from many people. There were people within the athletic
(16:28):
department as well as outside the department who did not
want him to succeed. Wade resigned on May twelve, nine.
He received a settlement that included a hundred and twenty
thousand dollars in cash over two years. Wade did not
attend the press conference announcing his departure. He instead lay
(16:48):
in a hospital bed recovering from back surgery. Wade expressed
his frustrations from three years at Maryland and a Boston
Globe story in nine Here's what he said it. If
I had to do it again, I would insist on
bringing in my own people. I wanted my own assistance,
but I was told by the administrations they didn't have
the money. I had to keep lefties guys Ron Bradley
(17:11):
and Oliver Purnell one minute. They are loyal to him,
and the next day they have to be loyal to me.
It just doesn't work that way. I never felt comfortable.
I didn't trust them, he added. Lefty's office was close
to mine. I'd tell guys to do something one way,
Lefty would tell them something else. I heard. He would
(17:32):
ask the guys, what's he running? What's he running? It
was tough being there after Lambias. Wade departed Maryland with
a thirty six and fifty record in March nine nine,
the n C Double A imposed sanctions that would greatly
impact Way's successor Gary Williams. At that time in um,
(17:55):
you know, I was young in coaching, and uh I
I just thought we could win, and you know, kind
of like a blanket thing where it didn't matter if
unbiased died or whatever. We were going to win. Gary
Williams came back to Maryland to coach it's men's basketball
team for only one reason. Although he had been gone
(18:18):
for some two decades, it's still pulled at his heart strings.
Here's an emotional Williams commenting at the press conference introducing
him as Maryland's coaching It's great to be here. It's
great to see some old friends and I'm looking forward
(18:38):
to taking some new friends also certainly a big day.
And uh, do you have any questions, I'd be glad
to try to answer. I mean, for you now. But
I never thought I'd have the opportunity to come back
and coach in Maryland because you very rarely get the
(19:03):
opportunity to do that as a coach. It wasn't the
easiest transition. After the team went nineteen and fourteen his
first season, the terms were handed the toughest n C
Double A sanctions since it suspended s m us football
team in for payments made the players. It had to
(19:24):
do with the rules that were broken under Wade and
the lack of institutional control by the school's athletic director,
Lou Perkins. Perkins had hired Williams away from Ohio State
and told him that the program was only going to
get a slap on the wrist. I left the University
of Girland as a basketball player to go coach j
(19:44):
V basketball and Camden, New Jersey. So there was no
way when I left Maryland that I'd ever have any
thought of going back to be the head coach. And
you know, things just went the way they did and
all of a sudden, here I am coming back, and uh,
it is probably when I got to Maryland and found
out more about the situation it was. It was probably
(20:07):
the toughest period of my coaching career, from say eight
nine to Maryland finished sixteen and twelve during William's second season.
They then had losing records the next two seasons as
the sanctions kicked in. They were the only losing seasons
under Williams. He knew he had to turn things around quickly.
(20:29):
You know, people have short memories and they wouldn't remember
the sanctions and things like that, and all of a sudden,
if we did not start to win, um, you know,
maybe looking somewhere else for basketball coaching. Bonnie Bernstein is
(20:49):
a Maryland graduate and a former terms gymnast. She enjoyed
a unique perspective of Maryland's path to a national title.
Gary william was probably one of the few people in
the country who had the intestinal fortitude to endure the
dark days of basketball and to bring Maryland's program out
(21:12):
of that. And when I reflect back on that, particularly
because I had the chance to cover every single one
of the team's games and route to the two thousand
Championship as part of the CBS team doing the broadcast.
I mean, it's it's hard not to get emotional about it.
The disjointed journey to college basketball utopia for Williams took
(21:35):
a detour in Columbos, Ohio, in when Lenn Bias died.
Gary Williams was preparing for his first season as coach
of the Ohio State buck Eyes. Along with the rest
of the nation, Williams had watched the devastating news of
bias death. He had empathy for what was happening at
(21:55):
his alma mater. I had a lot of friends in Maryland,
and you know, they just the tragedy for the area,
the way that so many kids looked up to Bias
as their hero. UM heard a lot of things in
the community, but on campus had also hurt the campus
because the people that really aren't into basketball that only
(22:18):
you know, pick up on, uh, you know, a spectacular things.
They they felt, well that this is what's wrong with
college basketball in general and Maryland basketball partricularly. And you know,
I thought, I really hurt the basketball program at that time.
The fallout from Wade's tenure was almost immediate for Williams.
(22:39):
The first year I was there, they were taking people
out of practice and interviewing them concerning um, what was
going on there at Maryland with the previous administration. More
intense pain for Williams and Maryland basketball came towards the
end of his first year as coach. Maryland finished the
regular season eighteen and two of heading into the a
(23:01):
C C Tournament that included a late season road win
in North Carolina. Maryland had hoped for an n C
Double A bid, which would have been a remarkable achievement
at the time, but a few days before the start
of the a SEC Tournament, Maryland announced its n C
Double A sanctions related to the tenure of Bob Wade Um.
(23:24):
It was devastating, It really was. That's the only word
I could use. The sanctions included no postseason play for
two years, three years probation, no television for a year,
and a fine of close to a half a million dollars.
You know, it made it very difficult to recruit, and
you know, I think the faculty took that instead of
(23:44):
fighting it. They took it to me, Well, we deserved
the penalty. Will will We'll see where basketball is after
the next couple of years after receiving the news, Maryland
lost its first round game in the a CEC Tournament
to Duke. Maryland then endured two losing seasons among its
(24:05):
next three. During that time, one player has been credited
with keeping the program afloat. Walt Williams grew up in
Prince George's County, in some ten miles from where Lan
Bias grew up. Not surprisingly, he was a big Lan
Bias fan. He chose to play for Maryland because Bias
played there. I had the opportunity to see Laan Bias. Man,
(24:29):
I'm watching the game, and I saw this dude raise
up and shoot that jump, and it was the most
beautiful thing I had ever seen. I just found myself
starting to, you know, watching Maryland games more. We'll look
for the highlights to see Maryland. And all of a sudden,
I wasn't watching Georgetown anymore. I was watching him, uh,
Laan Bias, And we would go out in the back
(24:50):
of Benjamin started middle school and play pickup games. You know,
you know how it is, before the game started, you
yet out somebody named who You're gonna pretend to be
you that day? And I always, I always would Yellow
Lam bias man, and when it came time for me
to make a decision, those type of things. I remember
those things, uh. I remember the impact that he had
(25:12):
or not only me, but my community, and I wanted
to have that same effect. I wanted, you know, the
kids around the way to when they playing pickup games,
I wanted them to pretend like they were met just
like I did Lambias, you know. And so I thought
that the only way after achieve that is to following
his footsteps and play at the University of Maryland. So
(25:32):
Lan Bias is a huge reason why I went to
the University of Maryland. After the sanctions were announced following
a sophomore year in nine something, thought he would transfer.
Here's Gary Williams. So what happens when you get sanctions
against you? By the age they at least back then,
you were allowed to transfer to any school you wanted
to and play right away. You know, he had come
(25:54):
off a very good sophomore year my first year there,
so he could go anywhere he wanted you to play,
and he could be in the office One day right
after Caesar's over started talking and he really believed, you know,
that he could be a great player. That he could
be an NBA player, and and Walt put it on me.
(26:15):
He said, well, well, how how are you going to
make that happen if I stay? And I said, We're
gonna get a chance to play the point guard. You're
going to handle the ball, You're going to be able
to really look for trees. And you know, nobody has
been a better diplomat for the school UH than what
Williams has over the years since he he's finished playing.
(26:36):
Williams finished his four years at Maryland and surpassed the
single season scoring record set by Bias. Perhaps more importantly,
he secured a legacy as one of the most revered
players in Maryland basketball history. Coach Williams talked about how
he was surround UH that I will be a focal
(26:58):
point for the team and how he felt that he
could help me get UM be the best player that
I could be. UM. He talked about possibly me playing
at the next level. I wanted to be a good
player at home. I wanted my family and friends to
see me. I wanted to show that UM, I can't
have the same impact as La Bias. I can't inspire
(27:19):
to to be that level of playing. Dan Bonner believes
that the Maryland program benefited from the prolonged presence of
Walt Williams. Now, I can tell you exactly when it changed,
and that is when Gary Williams and Uh, Walt Williams
showed up. Uh. There was a game that I did.
Gary was the coach, and I believe it was his
(27:39):
first year as the coach. It was like it had
been before, and the fans were going crazy. The band
was going on, and I turned to Mike Patrick. He
and I were doing the game together, and I said,
Maryland's back. Uh. And so that's that's the time it was.
They didn't get out from Unner until Gary Williams showed up.
Walt Williams was the seventh overall pick in the NBA draft.
(28:01):
He played eleven seasons in the league. The following season,
with Walt Williams gone, Gary Williams was trying to forget
about the previous two consecutive losing seasons. J. J. Bush
returned as the head trainer for men's basketball at the
start of the nine three season. They soon developed a
(28:23):
close relationship. Gary and I would talk, you know, a lot,
and you know, he just some days he just come
in there shaking his head. He says, I don't know
where we're going to get this thing turned around. You know,
this is such a mess. And you know, I come
in here, I gave up a good job at Ohio State,
and you know, we got everybody says everything will be fine,
and then we get slapped, I mean slapped over the
(28:46):
head with a sledgehammer. Uh, cut back our recruiting, couldn't
have any games on TV, and so on and so
on and so forth. So it really was tough on him.
People were really suspicious of the University of Maryland and
basketball programs. First of all, we you had to get
(29:06):
people to believe that we were going to do it
the right way. The problem was the school had tightened
it up, and all of a sudden, we had two
great players get turned down for missions that both went
to college and graduated in four years. It was very
hard for me not to really question, you know, you know,
what I was doing, because it didn't look good for
(29:29):
a long time. ESPN analyst J Billis feels Maryland basketball
approved gradually once Williams ramped up his recruiting. When Gary
Williams came in, you had somebody who was clear eyed
and had a mission and understood the issue and and
it was a It was a wonderful, UM, a wonderful
(29:50):
job that he did of establishing Maryland as a national
power UH in a in a league full of entrenched power.
So he put the program on a better footing than
it had ever been on before, and it had been
on a pretty darn good footing in the in the
seventies and eighties. Still the ghost of Bias lingered for years.
(30:13):
Billows can recall how overly sensitive the administration that Maryland
was when the Bias name was mentioned during a broadcast
some fifteen years after Lenn had died. Maryland was not
fond of a person like me mentioning Lenn Bias on
the air. And I actually had some media relations people
(30:37):
come to me and said, we'd really appreciate it if
you wouldn't wouldn't talk about Bias on the air. They
didn't want it, they didn't want to discuss. It was
still an open wound, UH for for the university in
the program, and it was UM even though it had
been so many years, UM, it was still something they
felt like was UH dragged people's lines to an area.
(31:00):
They didn't want it to be in and and I
said no, I mean I talked, I mentioned it or
talked about bias or whatever where it was appropriate. And uh,
and so I'm not. I mean, you can, you can
certainly ask me not to do it, but I'm I'm doing.
I'm gonna say what I want to say. And if
you got a problem with that, you talked to my bosses. Um,
(31:21):
that really pissed me off. Billis says the request was
coming from a good place and that it showed why
Bias didn't get inducted into Maryland's Athletic Hall of Fame
until I think it went deeper than they were embarrassed
about it. I think it went more to um, you know,
the fact that they wanted to separate from it. There
(31:43):
were so many people that were injured by it, and
the trauma kept going and it was like a again.
There were tentacles of it that grabbed everyone and uh
and took a lot of people down as a result.
Is profoundly sad. Maryland changed the course of its basketball
(32:06):
history and its first game of the nineteen season, it
was an overtime win over fifteen rank Georgetown. It comes
rank time. Yes, Oh, what a big win. For Gerry
(32:28):
Williams won a terrific win for him. The Terms back.
Maryland finished the season fifth in the A C C
and advanced to the third round of the n C
Double A Tournament. It was their first tournament appearance since
Williams choked up at the podium talking to reporters. Shortly
(32:50):
after the game, it was announced that the Terms were
returning to the n C Double A Tournament. Yeah. I'll
never forget. We went into the basketball lounge on selection
Sunday when we got selected to go to the n
C A A Tournament. Once the selection committee called our name,
(33:12):
I left the room. I went back into the training room,
which he goes through the locker room, and Gary had
was standing out in the hall and he had tears
in his eyes because it's like, oh my gosh, thank god,
we finally got through all this mess and we're back
where I wanted to be in the first place. And
it was like a huge weight off his shoulders and
(33:33):
the rest it was pretty much history. Maryland was back
on the national basketball map, helped in large part by
Joe Smith and Keith Booth. Smith played for just two
years from Maryland. He was the first team All American
and was the NBA's top pick that year. Smith played
(33:54):
fifteen seasons in the NBA. Here's Gary Williams. We went
through the Sweet sixteen adding Joe Smith and Keith Booth,
so we started to freshman free, soft worse and that
that group was the group that got us going where
we could be competitive on national level. Keith Booth grew
(34:15):
up in Baltimore, a big Len Bias fan. When he
was ten years old, he met Bias during her promotion
at a sandwich shop in the city. When he met Bias,
he told him that he would play hard and one
day be a terrapiant just like his idol. Booth used
the death of Bias as a reminder to stay focused
(34:38):
on basketball and his grades and to avoid drug abuse.
Keith Booth told me, once I understood how it happened
that he died, it made me never want to touch
a drug ever where because my body. It affected my
life to help me become the person and man I
am today. But like Bias, Booth came in All American,
(35:01):
and like Bias, his jersey hangs in the rafters at
Xfinity Center, Maryland's home arena. Booth won an NBA championship
with the Chicago Bulls. In his memories of Bias, playing
with relentless passion and ferocity helped shape his career at Maryland,
(35:21):
Booth told me it reinforced the impact his death has
had on me and the player I remember I fell
in love with growing up. From four to two thousand,
Maryland advanced to the Sweet sixteen four times. During that time,
the Terms never missed the n c Double A tournament,
and two thousand one, Maryland advanced to its first Final four,
(35:45):
losing to Duke in a semifinal on the way to
its first national title. In two thousand two, Maryland lost
just one conference game. They finished the season thirty two
and four. I know where Gary started and how difficult
it was for him to ultimately get that team to
the promised Land. That's Bonnie Bernstein, the former Maryland gymnasts
(36:09):
who competed through the lean years of Maryland athletics in
the late nineteen eighties and early nineteen nineties. As a
reporter for CBS Sports. She covered Maryland's run to the
national title for the network that included a halftime interview
during the national championship game. I remember watching that postgame
interview that Jim mansoned Billy Parker. We're doing with Gary
(36:32):
holding his grandson in his arm. Thank you, Gregg, And
I think Gary you'd agree. There are moments that define
your life, and this has gotta be it for you.
You're surrounded by your team, you've got your grandson in
your hands and your daughter at your side, and you've
taken your Alma monterit to the national championship. How did
you guys do it? It's a great thrill. We had
to really grind it because I was standing right there
and I just remember looking up at the ceilings and
(36:55):
trying to hold back the tears because I was there
during those dark days. I know what it was like
for Gary to raise that team from the ashes and
get to how many Sweet sixteen only to not advanced,
and to get to the Semis the year before, and
for Duke to take us down again and to see
(37:19):
him there as a champion, and then watching the kids
get up on the podium and watch one shining moment,
and dang, it was so hard not to cry. How
Gary Williams came in the door just a few years
after Len Biases tragic death to try to pick the
team up out of the hell hole that Bob Wade
(37:40):
created and to take us to a national championship. It
was just like such an incredible crowning achievement. Williams stayed
on as Maryland's head coach through the seasons. It was
a twenty two year coaching career with Maryland Basketball, a
vision he had when he accepted the job in nine
(38:00):
This to me is a career decision. In other words,
I don't anticipate having to go anywhere else to be
a coach, and I think it's about time I established
some roots and this is certainly a great opportunity to
do it. That was Williams at the press conference that
introduced him. Williams was inducted into the Nami Memorial Basketball
(38:21):
Hall of Fame, and it's the highest honor a coach
can achieve. Williams is now Senior Managing Director for Alumni
Relations and Athletic Development. Over the last decade, he has
seen the university more willingly accept the complex legacy of bias.
The acceptance included lens induction and to the Maryland Athletics
(38:42):
Hall of Fame. And but I think for most Maryland people, um,
they they hope that to kind of put things to rest.
You know that that that was part of our legacy.
You know what what happened with Lenn bias, and but
we we can't keep living um in a tragedy. We
(39:03):
we we have to move on. He was going to
make it as the number two makes about it up
next on Lunn by some Mixed Legacy, A dark client.
Maryland is one of them huzzling situations. Have ever seen
one thing that really as Maryland to this day because
(39:25):
there's no institutional memory and one of the and without
institutional memory, you can't understand what got you there and
what you need to focus on that to keep you
at the top. It's just unbelievable. I mean how it
(39:45):
affected it. It changed the entire university for Mega's year,
and the just the attitude around the athletic compartment was
uh just not the same. To get it. I think
back then it was how how could this have happened?
(40:06):
But now it's like, we can all see how this
could happen, This could have happened to any of us.
What happened tragic, Let's make sure it never happens again.
This podcast series is based on the book Born Ready
Mixed Legacy of Lembi published like Go Grady Media, The
series is produced by Go Grady Media and partnership with
(40:26):
Octagon Entertainment. This segment was produced by Dave and Grady
and Don Marcus. It was written by Dave and Grady
and edited by Don Marcus. The narrator was Rich Danny,
the additional narration by Jamal Williams. Technical production was provided
by Octagon Entertainment. Production assistance was produced by Kevin McNalty,
Tino Quagliato, Lauren Ross, Georgia Brown, Casey Fair, Jamal Williams,
(40:49):
Kelsey Mannix and Enzo Alvarin. Matt Dewversus providing the social
media special thanks to the University of Maryland and American
University Copying. The Decision Education Foundation is a content and
promotional partner of this podcast series. More information go to
do graded Media dot com. This has been a production
(41:12):
of Go Graded Media in the eight Side network. You
Know
This podcast is based in large part of the book
Born Ready, The Mixed Legacy of Lembis. Some quotes are
narrated by Davon Grady, a podcast producer and the author
of the book, from interviews done for the book. Recordings
for these comments were not available. Yeah, I'm next in
Lembis A Mixed Legacy. I'm tragedy to triumph Maryland basketball
(00:22):
after the death of Lambias. Well, I mean, Maryland suffered
an unspeakable trauma with Bias's death, and the reaction was
swift and far reaching, and it was a trauma that
lasted for a long long time. From the beginning, Bob
(00:44):
Wade was the higher Chancellor John Slaughter. He did not
go John Slaughter did not go through the usual channels
to Higher Bob Wade. We tried to make overtures he
was to him and talk to him and make it
to help him out, and he would come in and
(01:06):
go to his office, and we just never saw it.
I enjoyed playing with my teammate, but far as that
game being fun, he wasn't for me personally or whatever.
It wasn't. It wasn't it wasn't fun. It was desastic.
It really was That's the only word I could use.
(01:27):
You know, we're at the bottom of the pile and
trying to look up and see how you you you
could not just past six other really good teams, but
to be competitive with Duke and North Carolina. I wanted
to be a good player at home. I wanted my
favorite friends to see me. I wanted to show that
I can't have the same impact as then. Some days
(01:50):
he just come in there shaking his head. He says,
I don't know where we're gonna get this thing turned around.
You know, this is such a mess. Gerry William was
probably one of the few people in the country who
had the intestinal fortitude to endure the dark days of
basketball and to bring Maryland's program out of that. Ritson
(02:14):
fires up to the top of the Georgia and the
kids have done it. Blond Webster first ever national champions
And you just apported a game with you sit and
you black, you apported. On the day Lefty Griselle became
Maryland's head coach in nineteen sixty nine, he boasted that
(02:34):
he would turn the terms into the u c l
A of the East. He didn't quite reach that lofty goal,
but Griselle did revive a program that when it's only
a SEC tournament title in nineteen fifty eight and struggle
through the nineteen sixties. In the nineteen seventies, Grizel had
(02:54):
one of the best teams in the country, but for
most of the decade, only the conference tournament champion advanced
to the n C Double A Tournament. The best he
could do was leading Maryland to the n C Double
A Tournament Elite eight one time. Two and a half
years later, some five months after Lenn Bias died, Drizzle
(03:15):
was out as Maryland's coach. It was not by his
own preference. No college basketball program in the country fell
and rose again as dramatically as Maryland. It took Gary
Williams five years to get Maryland back into the n
C Double A Tournament. In two thousand one, Maryland played
(03:36):
in their first Final four, and the next year it
won its only national championship. J Billis played against Bias
for four years during his college career at Duke. Billis
was an assistant coach for Duke and the early nineteen nineties,
and he's now a provocative basketball analyst for ESPN. Maryland
(03:58):
suffered an unspeakable trauma with biases, death, and the reaction
was swift and far reaching. A lot of people lost
their careers over that, at least had their careers derailed
and sent in a completely different direction. And it was
a trauma that lasted for a long long time. You know,
(04:21):
they were in a hole and they started digging once
they got in it. Bob Wade was introduced as Maryland's
head coach on October, one day after Lefty Drizzle resigned.
It was an historic day. Wade was the first black
head coach hired by an Atlantic Coast Conference basketball program.
(04:42):
It's something we look forward to all all of our
lives and anytime a person loves to work with youngsters
and loves to coach basketball, I think of no other
uh I opportunity, or none other opportunity could exist into
(05:03):
uh to beginning the opportunity to coach on the next
level at the University of Maryland. Wade left Dunbar High
School in Baltimore, where he was working as the school's
football coach. He was also the school's basketball coach. That's
what made him an attraction to Maryland. In his ten
years as Dunbar's basketball coach, Wade won three mythical National
(05:27):
Basketball Championships. Players on those teams included Muggsy Bogs, Reggie Williams,
and David Wingate, all future NBA players. His teams lost
only twenty five games in ten years. Molly Glassman covered
Wade at Dunbar as a high school reporter for the
Baltimore Evening Sun. By the time Wade became Maryland's coach,
(05:50):
she moved on to the Maryland Athletics beat Glassman fields.
The hiring of Wade by Chancellor John Slaughter was motivated
by a need for dramatic change in the program. One
area of interests was the athletic department's fundraising group, the
Terrapin Club. He really was trying to get away from
(06:10):
that culture of having the Terrapin Club be supportive of
things um. He wanted to create a whole different atmosphere
at a Maryland and Bob Wade was his tool to
do that. John Slaughter did not go through the usual
(06:31):
channels to hire Bob Wade. I'm sure he didn't seek
counsel from the Athletic department because the department was crumbling.
Slaughter claimed he did his due diligence and haring Wade.
He consulted such prominent coaches as Georgetown's John Thompson, North
(06:53):
Carolina's Dean Smith in North Carolina State's Jim Valvano. The
coaches supported choosing Wade. Slaughter told me, to a person,
they had nothing but quality things to say. Some had
coached with him at summer camps. Balvano's and Bob's wife
were close friends. It was not a spur of the
(07:14):
moment decision. Slaughter liked that Wade was considered a strict
disciplinarian and made sure his players studied further. He liked
that Wade had strong connections to Baltimore, Maryland struggled to
recruit top talent from that city, only a half hour
from College Park. Sue Tyler was an assistant athletic director
(07:35):
when Wade took over. She recalls Wade appeared to be
reluctant to fit into what remained of that Maryland family. Well,
first of all, I think it was a really tough
situation for him to walk into, and I believe a
few of my friends with coaching staff, we tried to
make overtures to him and talk to him and to
(07:56):
help him out, and we just never saw it. He
would come in, go to practice, do his thing, and
then leave or go to his office, and he didn't
come to any meetings. He had other people do um
all the other things that coaches have to do about,
you know, signing out money and signing out getting things
(08:17):
from the equipment rooms and talking to equipment people. He
did none of the day to day things. He had
other people do all of that, and he was pretty
much strictly the coach. Wade was named coached two weeks
after the traditional starting date for teams to practice. Slaughter
decided to move back the opening game until early December.
(08:39):
The challenges on the court were many. The team had
six new players, only five players returned from the previous year.
One was sophomore John Johnson. He struggled to adjust to
wade style. It was, you know, I enjoyed playing my teammates,
(09:01):
but they wouldn't be for me personally. It wasn't It wasn't,
it wasn't fun. You picked the wrong man to come
in at whatever and at a time when we need
somebody to spot. Derrick Lewis had played for Wade before.
When Wade coach the McDonald's All American High school team.
(09:24):
He was a junior that first year under Wade. I
think anyone coming in with the situation with the bias
is going to be as far as that situation. As
far as coaching, I mean, he was, he gave, He
was giving a team and nothing. Maryland finished the season
nine and seventeen. That matched its previous worst record from
(09:45):
the nineteen sixty three sixty four season, and for the
first time since the ninety one season, Maryland failed to
win a conference game. Molly Glassman was not surprised about
the way that season had Yeah, I did talk to Wade,
and um, I think, as I recall, he was very
(10:14):
certain of his ability to recruit at the college level.
He knew the college recruiting game inside enough from from
the high school's perspectives. The the on the court coaching
was a big question mark. Wade's second season ended differently.
(10:38):
Maryland finished six and eight in the conference but eighteen
and thirteen overall. The Terms lost in the second round
of the n c Double A Tournament to Kentucky. It
helped that Tony Massenberg and Keith Gatlin, both suspended during
the prior season, rejoined the team. Gatlin finished the season
with a twelve point one points per game average, the
(11:01):
best of his career, and he was comfortable playing with Wade.
Keith Gatlin told me I didn't have a problem with
him at all. Bob was good to me. He was
in a tough situation. He could never do the things
he wanted to do. When we played for coach Brazil,
we always got the gym whenever we wanted it. Whatever
(11:22):
he said we got. When coach Wade came in the
women's team had more pool than he did. It was unfortunate.
I never thought the university gave him a fair shot.
Coach Wade didn't have a chance in hell to survive
at Maryland. Wade's recruiting acumen that Glassman mentioned paid off
in his second year. Brian Williams, a third team Parade
(11:45):
All American, came in as a freshman. He averaged twelve
points and six rebounds that year. Wade's third year started
to fall apart well before Maryland started pre season practice
due to graduation, transfers, a red shirt, and academic problems.
Eight players failed to return from the prior year. One
(12:07):
transfer was Williams, who left for Arizona. He blamed communication
problems in the program and said that he could not
improve sufficiently under Wade. Williams later played eight seasons in
the NBA and won a league title with the Bulls.
In Wade's third year was disastrous. Maryland endured a nine
(12:29):
game losing streak and one just one a c C game.
It was their second worst conference record in history. They
finished nine and twenty overall. As a senior, Johnson had
his best year, averaging some fifteen points a game. Still,
he almost quit the team, but me, I was done
(12:51):
with it all was I was reading packing and I'm
a going to graduate. In the end, Johnson decided to
finish out his career after talking with athletic director Lou Perkins.
He told Johnson that quitting would set Maryland basketball back years.
(13:12):
Wade admitted to breaking several n C Double A rules,
and he resigned in mid May. Chuck Walsh was the
team's media relations director at the time. He claims that
several people within Maryland's athletic department told him that Wade
began breaking nc double A violations his first day on
(13:32):
the job. As Walsh saw it, Wade didn't intend to
break the rules. He just didn't know enough about the
rules to avoid violating them. Sue Tyler, an assistant athletic
director at the time, was among those who tried to
help him. We tried to help him out because the
rules and regulations and are quite different than they are
(13:55):
in high school, and they're very complex and it's very
difficult to navigate some of the things, even in the university.
So we wanted to reach out to her, and Uh,
he didn't seem to want to be you know, I
wouldn't want to be helped. I want I didn't want
to be around us. Is he was kind of um.
(14:16):
He was besieged by the press, and any time the
press was around, they were almost chasing him to talk
to him. So I think he felt pursued and besieged
and pressured. So he had a tough spot, a really
tough spot. Not that everyone would have been supportive. Bentley's
Restaurant has been in College Sparks since the late nineteen seventies.
(14:38):
Its founder and owner, John Brown developed a strong friendship
with Wade and his family. The team often dined at
the restaurant. Brown recalled the time the Terrapin Club called
a meeting for Maryland's coaches, but Wade was not invited
at the urging of Wade's wife. Brown, the next day
stopped by Wade's house to visit a sobbing. Wade asked
(15:02):
Brown why he was not included. Brown replied he did
not know, but he should have been. Brown told me
it seemed to go more and more like that. Him
not doing what they wanted Bob made it difficult. If
you didn't know him, he could be aloof It was
a divide. They hung him out to dry when double
(15:23):
A violations came up. Like bias, Wade's legacy at Maryland
is mixed. His n C double A violations will be
remembered for helping set back the basketball program for years.
Wade called the group of men's basketball coaches in the
conference an old boys network and a Charlotte Observer report.
He added that his time in the a SEC was difficult.
(15:46):
Even John Slaughter, who hired Wade, ultimately questioned the wisdom
of the move. In retrospect, it might have been an
impossible situation for Bob, he told The Washington Post in
January nine ninety. Bob followed a coaching legend. He was black,
He was appointed by a black chancellor. He was from
(16:07):
a High School. He's hired one day before practice begins,
and the players have gone through hell after Leonard's death.
Throwing Bob in the middle of that was like throwing
a piece of raw meat to a pack of lions.
You're going to get chewed up if you don't do
things perfectly. I don't think Bob got the support he
needed from many people. There were people within the athletic
(16:28):
department as well as outside the department who did not
want him to succeed. Wade resigned on May twelve, nine.
He received a settlement that included a hundred and twenty
thousand dollars in cash over two years. Wade did not
attend the press conference announcing his departure. He instead lay
(16:48):
in a hospital bed recovering from back surgery. Wade expressed
his frustrations from three years at Maryland and a Boston
Globe story in nine Here's what he said it. If
I had to do it again, I would insist on
bringing in my own people. I wanted my own assistance,
but I was told by the administrations they didn't have
the money. I had to keep lefties guys Ron Bradley
(17:11):
and Oliver Purnell one minute. They are loyal to him,
and the next day they have to be loyal to me.
It just doesn't work that way. I never felt comfortable.
I didn't trust them, he added. Lefty's office was close
to mine. I'd tell guys to do something one way,
Lefty would tell them something else. I heard. He would
(17:32):
ask the guys, what's he running? What's he running? It
was tough being there after Lambias. Wade departed Maryland with
a thirty six and fifty record in March nine nine,
the n C Double A imposed sanctions that would greatly
impact Way's successor Gary Williams. At that time in um,
(17:55):
you know, I was young in coaching, and uh I
I just thought we could win, and you know, kind
of like a blanket thing where it didn't matter if
unbiased died or whatever. We were going to win. Gary
Williams came back to Maryland to coach it's men's basketball
team for only one reason. Although he had been gone
(18:18):
for some two decades, it's still pulled at his heart strings.
Here's an emotional Williams commenting at the press conference introducing
him as Maryland's coaching It's great to be here. It's
great to see some old friends and I'm looking forward
(18:38):
to taking some new friends also certainly a big day.
And uh, do you have any questions, I'd be glad
to try to answer. I mean, for you now. But
I never thought I'd have the opportunity to come back
and coach in Maryland because you very rarely get the
(19:03):
opportunity to do that as a coach. It wasn't the
easiest transition. After the team went nineteen and fourteen his
first season, the terms were handed the toughest n C
Double A sanctions since it suspended s m us football
team in for payments made the players. It had to
(19:24):
do with the rules that were broken under Wade and
the lack of institutional control by the school's athletic director,
Lou Perkins. Perkins had hired Williams away from Ohio State
and told him that the program was only going to
get a slap on the wrist. I left the University
of Girland as a basketball player to go coach j
(19:44):
V basketball and Camden, New Jersey. So there was no
way when I left Maryland that I'd ever have any
thought of going back to be the head coach. And
you know, things just went the way they did and
all of a sudden, here I am coming back, and uh,
it is probably when I got to Maryland and found
out more about the situation it was. It was probably
(20:07):
the toughest period of my coaching career, from say eight
nine to Maryland finished sixteen and twelve during William's second season.
They then had losing records the next two seasons as
the sanctions kicked in. They were the only losing seasons
under Williams. He knew he had to turn things around quickly.
(20:29):
You know, people have short memories and they wouldn't remember
the sanctions and things like that, and all of a sudden,
if we did not start to win, um, you know,
maybe looking somewhere else for basketball coaching. Bonnie Bernstein is
(20:49):
a Maryland graduate and a former terms gymnast. She enjoyed
a unique perspective of Maryland's path to a national title.
Gary william was probably one of the few people in
the country who had the intestinal fortitude to endure the
dark days of basketball and to bring Maryland's program out
(21:12):
of that. And when I reflect back on that, particularly
because I had the chance to cover every single one
of the team's games and route to the two thousand
Championship as part of the CBS team doing the broadcast.
I mean, it's it's hard not to get emotional about it.
The disjointed journey to college basketball utopia for Williams took
(21:35):
a detour in Columbos, Ohio, in when Lenn Bias died.
Gary Williams was preparing for his first season as coach
of the Ohio State buck Eyes. Along with the rest
of the nation, Williams had watched the devastating news of
bias death. He had empathy for what was happening at
(21:55):
his alma mater. I had a lot of friends in Maryland,
and you know, they just the tragedy for the area,
the way that so many kids looked up to Bias
as their hero. UM heard a lot of things in
the community, but on campus had also hurt the campus
because the people that really aren't into basketball that only
(22:18):
you know, pick up on, uh, you know, a spectacular things.
They they felt, well that this is what's wrong with
college basketball in general and Maryland basketball partricularly. And you know,
I thought, I really hurt the basketball program at that time.
The fallout from Wade's tenure was almost immediate for Williams.
(22:39):
The first year I was there, they were taking people
out of practice and interviewing them concerning um, what was
going on there at Maryland with the previous administration. More
intense pain for Williams and Maryland basketball came towards the
end of his first year as coach. Maryland finished the
regular season eighteen and two of heading into the a
(23:01):
C C Tournament that included a late season road win
in North Carolina. Maryland had hoped for an n C
Double A bid, which would have been a remarkable achievement
at the time, but a few days before the start
of the a SEC Tournament, Maryland announced its n C
Double A sanctions related to the tenure of Bob Wade Um.
(23:24):
It was devastating, It really was. That's the only word
I could use. The sanctions included no postseason play for
two years, three years probation, no television for a year,
and a fine of close to a half a million dollars.
You know, it made it very difficult to recruit, and
you know, I think the faculty took that instead of
(23:44):
fighting it. They took it to me, Well, we deserved
the penalty. Will will We'll see where basketball is after
the next couple of years after receiving the news, Maryland
lost its first round game in the a CEC Tournament
to Duke. Maryland then endured two losing seasons among its
(24:05):
next three. During that time, one player has been credited
with keeping the program afloat. Walt Williams grew up in
Prince George's County, in some ten miles from where Lan
Bias grew up. Not surprisingly, he was a big Lan
Bias fan. He chose to play for Maryland because Bias
played there. I had the opportunity to see Laan Bias. Man,
(24:29):
I'm watching the game, and I saw this dude raise
up and shoot that jump, and it was the most
beautiful thing I had ever seen. I just found myself
starting to, you know, watching Maryland games more. We'll look
for the highlights to see Maryland. And all of a sudden,
I wasn't watching Georgetown anymore. I was watching him, uh,
Laan Bias, And we would go out in the back
(24:50):
of Benjamin started middle school and play pickup games. You know,
you know how it is, before the game started, you
yet out somebody named who You're gonna pretend to be
you that day? And I always, I always would Yellow
Lam bias man, and when it came time for me
to make a decision, those type of things. I remember
those things, uh. I remember the impact that he had
(25:12):
or not only me, but my community, and I wanted
to have that same effect. I wanted, you know, the
kids around the way to when they playing pickup games,
I wanted them to pretend like they were met just
like I did Lambias, you know. And so I thought
that the only way after achieve that is to following
his footsteps and play at the University of Maryland. So
(25:32):
Lan Bias is a huge reason why I went to
the University of Maryland. After the sanctions were announced following
a sophomore year in nine something, thought he would transfer.
Here's Gary Williams. So what happens when you get sanctions
against you? By the age they at least back then,
you were allowed to transfer to any school you wanted
to and play right away. You know, he had come
(25:54):
off a very good sophomore year my first year there,
so he could go anywhere he wanted you to play,
and he could be in the office One day right
after Caesar's over started talking and he really believed, you know,
that he could be a great player. That he could
be an NBA player, and and Walt put it on me.
(26:15):
He said, well, well, how how are you going to
make that happen if I stay? And I said, We're
gonna get a chance to play the point guard. You're
going to handle the ball, You're going to be able
to really look for trees. And you know, nobody has
been a better diplomat for the school UH than what
Williams has over the years since he he's finished playing.
(26:36):
Williams finished his four years at Maryland and surpassed the
single season scoring record set by Bias. Perhaps more importantly,
he secured a legacy as one of the most revered
players in Maryland basketball history. Coach Williams talked about how
he was surround UH that I will be a focal
(26:58):
point for the team and how he felt that he
could help me get UM be the best player that
I could be. UM. He talked about possibly me playing
at the next level. I wanted to be a good
player at home. I wanted my family and friends to
see me. I wanted to show that UM, I can't
have the same impact as La Bias. I can't inspire
(27:19):
to to be that level of playing. Dan Bonner believes
that the Maryland program benefited from the prolonged presence of
Walt Williams. Now, I can tell you exactly when it changed,
and that is when Gary Williams and Uh, Walt Williams
showed up. Uh. There was a game that I did.
Gary was the coach, and I believe it was his
(27:39):
first year as the coach. It was like it had
been before, and the fans were going crazy. The band
was going on, and I turned to Mike Patrick. He
and I were doing the game together, and I said,
Maryland's back. Uh. And so that's that's the time it was.
They didn't get out from Unner until Gary Williams showed up.
Walt Williams was the seventh overall pick in the NBA draft.
(28:01):
He played eleven seasons in the league. The following season,
with Walt Williams gone, Gary Williams was trying to forget
about the previous two consecutive losing seasons. J. J. Bush
returned as the head trainer for men's basketball at the
start of the nine three season. They soon developed a
(28:23):
close relationship. Gary and I would talk, you know, a lot,
and you know, he just some days he just come
in there shaking his head. He says, I don't know
where we're going to get this thing turned around. You know,
this is such a mess. And you know, I come
in here, I gave up a good job at Ohio State,
and you know, we got everybody says everything will be fine,
and then we get slapped, I mean slapped over the
(28:46):
head with a sledgehammer. Uh, cut back our recruiting, couldn't
have any games on TV, and so on and so
on and so forth. So it really was tough on him.
People were really suspicious of the University of Maryland and
basketball programs. First of all, we you had to get
(29:06):
people to believe that we were going to do it
the right way. The problem was the school had tightened
it up, and all of a sudden, we had two
great players get turned down for missions that both went
to college and graduated in four years. It was very
hard for me not to really question, you know, you know,
what I was doing, because it didn't look good for
(29:29):
a long time. ESPN analyst J Billis feels Maryland basketball
approved gradually once Williams ramped up his recruiting. When Gary
Williams came in, you had somebody who was clear eyed
and had a mission and understood the issue and and
it was a It was a wonderful, UM, a wonderful
(29:50):
job that he did of establishing Maryland as a national
power UH in a in a league full of entrenched power.
So he put the program on a better footing than
it had ever been on before, and it had been
on a pretty darn good footing in the in the
seventies and eighties. Still the ghost of Bias lingered for years.
(30:13):
Billows can recall how overly sensitive the administration that Maryland
was when the Bias name was mentioned during a broadcast
some fifteen years after Lenn had died. Maryland was not
fond of a person like me mentioning Lenn Bias on
the air. And I actually had some media relations people
(30:37):
come to me and said, we'd really appreciate it if
you wouldn't wouldn't talk about Bias on the air. They
didn't want it, they didn't want to discuss. It was
still an open wound, UH for for the university in
the program, and it was UM even though it had
been so many years, UM, it was still something they
felt like was UH dragged people's lines to an area.
(31:00):
They didn't want it to be in and and I
said no, I mean I talked, I mentioned it or
talked about bias or whatever where it was appropriate. And uh,
and so I'm not. I mean, you can, you can
certainly ask me not to do it, but I'm I'm doing.
I'm gonna say what I want to say. And if
you got a problem with that, you talked to my bosses. Um,
(31:21):
that really pissed me off. Billis says the request was
coming from a good place and that it showed why
Bias didn't get inducted into Maryland's Athletic Hall of Fame
until I think it went deeper than they were embarrassed
about it. I think it went more to um, you know,
the fact that they wanted to separate from it. There
(31:43):
were so many people that were injured by it, and
the trauma kept going and it was like a again.
There were tentacles of it that grabbed everyone and uh
and took a lot of people down as a result.
Is profoundly sad. Maryland changed the course of its basketball
(32:06):
history and its first game of the nineteen season, it
was an overtime win over fifteen rank Georgetown. It comes
rank time. Yes, Oh, what a big win. For Gerry
(32:28):
Williams won a terrific win for him. The Terms back.
Maryland finished the season fifth in the A C C
and advanced to the third round of the n C
Double A Tournament. It was their first tournament appearance since
Williams choked up at the podium talking to reporters. Shortly
(32:50):
after the game, it was announced that the Terms were
returning to the n C Double A Tournament. Yeah. I'll
never forget. We went into the basketball lounge on selection
Sunday when we got selected to go to the n
C A A Tournament. Once the selection committee called our name,
(33:12):
I left the room. I went back into the training room,
which he goes through the locker room, and Gary had
was standing out in the hall and he had tears
in his eyes because it's like, oh my gosh, thank god,
we finally got through all this mess and we're back
where I wanted to be in the first place. And
it was like a huge weight off his shoulders and
(33:33):
the rest it was pretty much history. Maryland was back
on the national basketball map, helped in large part by
Joe Smith and Keith Booth. Smith played for just two
years from Maryland. He was the first team All American
and was the NBA's top pick that year. Smith played
(33:54):
fifteen seasons in the NBA. Here's Gary Williams. We went
through the Sweet sixteen adding Joe Smith and Keith Booth,
so we started to freshman free, soft worse and that
that group was the group that got us going where
we could be competitive on national level. Keith Booth grew
(34:15):
up in Baltimore, a big Len Bias fan. When he
was ten years old, he met Bias during her promotion
at a sandwich shop in the city. When he met Bias,
he told him that he would play hard and one
day be a terrapiant just like his idol. Booth used
the death of Bias as a reminder to stay focused
(34:38):
on basketball and his grades and to avoid drug abuse.
Keith Booth told me, once I understood how it happened
that he died, it made me never want to touch
a drug ever where because my body. It affected my
life to help me become the person and man I
am today. But like Bias, Booth came in All American,
(35:01):
and like Bias, his jersey hangs in the rafters at
Xfinity Center, Maryland's home arena. Booth won an NBA championship
with the Chicago Bulls. In his memories of Bias, playing
with relentless passion and ferocity helped shape his career at Maryland,
(35:21):
Booth told me it reinforced the impact his death has
had on me and the player I remember I fell
in love with growing up. From four to two thousand,
Maryland advanced to the Sweet sixteen four times. During that time,
the Terms never missed the n c Double A tournament,
and two thousand one, Maryland advanced to its first Final four,
(35:45):
losing to Duke in a semifinal on the way to
its first national title. In two thousand two, Maryland lost
just one conference game. They finished the season thirty two
and four. I know where Gary started and how difficult
it was for him to ultimately get that team to
the promised Land. That's Bonnie Bernstein, the former Maryland gymnasts
(36:09):
who competed through the lean years of Maryland athletics in
the late nineteen eighties and early nineteen nineties. As a
reporter for CBS Sports. She covered Maryland's run to the
national title for the network that included a halftime interview
during the national championship game. I remember watching that postgame
interview that Jim mansoned Billy Parker. We're doing with Gary
(36:32):
holding his grandson in his arm. Thank you, Gregg, And
I think Gary you'd agree. There are moments that define
your life, and this has gotta be it for you.
You're surrounded by your team, you've got your grandson in
your hands and your daughter at your side, and you've
taken your Alma monterit to the national championship. How did
you guys do it? It's a great thrill. We had
to really grind it because I was standing right there
and I just remember looking up at the ceilings and
(36:55):
trying to hold back the tears because I was there
during those dark days. I know what it was like
for Gary to raise that team from the ashes and
get to how many Sweet sixteen only to not advanced,
and to get to the Semis the year before, and
for Duke to take us down again and to see
(37:19):
him there as a champion, and then watching the kids
get up on the podium and watch one shining moment,
and dang, it was so hard not to cry. How
Gary Williams came in the door just a few years
after Len Biases tragic death to try to pick the
team up out of the hell hole that Bob Wade
(37:40):
created and to take us to a national championship. It
was just like such an incredible crowning achievement. Williams stayed
on as Maryland's head coach through the seasons. It was
a twenty two year coaching career with Maryland Basketball, a
vision he had when he accepted the job in nine
(38:00):
This to me is a career decision. In other words,
I don't anticipate having to go anywhere else to be
a coach, and I think it's about time I established
some roots and this is certainly a great opportunity to
do it. That was Williams at the press conference that
introduced him. Williams was inducted into the Nami Memorial Basketball
(38:21):
Hall of Fame, and it's the highest honor a coach
can achieve. Williams is now Senior Managing Director for Alumni
Relations and Athletic Development. Over the last decade, he has
seen the university more willingly accept the complex legacy of bias.
The acceptance included lens induction and to the Maryland Athletics
(38:42):
Hall of Fame. And but I think for most Maryland people, um,
they they hope that to kind of put things to rest.
You know that that that was part of our legacy.
You know what what happened with Lenn bias, and but
we we can't keep living um in a tragedy. We
(39:03):
we we have to move on. He was going to
make it as the number two makes about it up
next on Lunn by some Mixed Legacy, A dark client.
Maryland is one of them huzzling situations. Have ever seen
one thing that really as Maryland to this day because
(39:25):
there's no institutional memory and one of the and without
institutional memory, you can't understand what got you there and
what you need to focus on that to keep you
at the top. It's just unbelievable. I mean how it
(39:45):
affected it. It changed the entire university for Mega's year,
and the just the attitude around the athletic compartment was
uh just not the same. To get it. I think
back then it was how how could this have happened?
(40:06):
But now it's like, we can all see how this
could happen, This could have happened to any of us.
What happened tragic, Let's make sure it never happens again.
This podcast series is based on the book Born Ready
Mixed Legacy of Lembi published like Go Grady Media, The
series is produced by Go Grady Media and partnership with
(40:26):
Octagon Entertainment. This segment was produced by Dave and Grady
and Don Marcus. It was written by Dave and Grady
and edited by Don Marcus. The narrator was Rich Danny,
the additional narration by Jamal Williams. Technical production was provided
by Octagon Entertainment. Production assistance was produced by Kevin McNalty,
Tino Quagliato, Lauren Ross, Georgia Brown, Casey Fair, Jamal Williams,
(40:49):
Kelsey Mannix and Enzo Alvarin. Matt Dewversus providing the social
media special thanks to the University of Maryland and American
University Copying. The Decision Education Foundation is a content and
promotional partner of this podcast series. More information go to
do graded Media dot com. This has been a production
(41:12):
of Go Graded Media in the eight Side network. You
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