January 18, 2022 • 39 mins
Through the mid-1980s, those working in Maryland athletics considered themselves members of a big family. But with the death of Len Bias, that family imploded and the department struggled for years. Find out how in this episode, A Dark Cloud.
About the narrator: Don Markus is a retired, former sports reporter for the Baltimore Sun who covered Maryland athletics since 1985. He is an adjunct professor of Journalism at American University.
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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 Lembois. 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.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
This segment is dedicated to the memory of Russ Potts,
the pioneering sports marketer for Maryland Athletics, who passed away
in December. Potts is featured in several episodes of the series,
including this one. A short tribute to Potts can be
heard at the conclusion of this episode.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Maryland is one of the most puzzling situations I've ever seen.
There's no institutional memory, and without institutional memory you can't
understand what got you there and what you need to
focus on but to keep you to at the top.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
It was significant for the first year. I think it
was really oppressive on all of us for about a year.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
It's just unbelievable. I mean how it affected.
Speaker 6 (01:07):
It changed the entire university for for mega years.
Speaker 7 (01:12):
Nobody ms Weller had little in nine jobs for us
to do so we can generate money for the teams
to one time, Miss Waller tried to get us the
mow grass for people we don't know how to mow grap.
Speaker 8 (01:28):
So if you take out the track game pretty much
to eliminate my door sports we were we were in
for UH. I mean that's just say.
Speaker 9 (01:40):
A couple of years trying to fight off the UH
themost get or remind.
Speaker 10 (01:53):
I'll tell you how bad it was. I'm from Boston
and when I went home, if I wore anything that
said Maryland on it, I was a pariah.
Speaker 11 (02:07):
Doug Tessen was kind of laughed at by every university
in the country. And then when len Bias died, all
of a sudden it became more of just like any
other medical procedure. There's more checks and balances.
Speaker 12 (02:24):
I think back then it was how could this have happened?
But now it's like, we can all see how this
could happen. This could have happened to any of us.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
We've learned the lesson, but you have to move on.
Speaker 12 (02:40):
Now you've seen really like a full circle. We we
embrace it and we're proud of it. And Lenin is
a legend and an icon in the athletic department.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
Now I think the message is there. What happened tragic
let's make sure it never happens again.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Up next on Lundbia's and Mixed Legacy, A Dark Lass,
a game he made him a name at.
Speaker 13 (03:10):
In the last five months of nineteen eighty six, the
University of Maryland athletic department had been dramatically transformed. Its
athletic director was gone, so was its men's basketball coach
and football coach, all victims of the fallout from the
death of Lambias. At the time, Frank Costello was a
strength coach from Maryland. He was an All American high
(03:32):
jumper in the nineteen sixties and was the school's head
coach of the track and field team in the late
nineteen seventies. He saw firsthand how changes altered the character
of Maryland's athletic department.
Speaker 6 (03:44):
It was a job and a family kind of atmosphere
working at the university. But then after Lenny died, of
course you got this tragedy and like you said that
Dominos just fell. Plus you had this shadow of falling
over or what happened to Lenny, so it was a
lot different.
Speaker 13 (04:04):
Russ Potts was the athletic department's first marketing director.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Maryland needed a healer, They needed a person with compassion
and love and kindness and that kind of personality. And
I felt that they could have built on the people
who were loyal to the program and worked their way
out of that. But it has been one massive challenge
(04:33):
after another at Maryland, which saddens me. Saddens me a
great deal, and they've run through so many coaches and
so many administrators, many of whom don't have any idea
about the heritage there.
Speaker 13 (04:49):
Heritage was not on the mind of Robert Startz when
he took over as interim athletic director on November two,
nineteen eighty six. Starts worked previously as a university vice
chancellor for administrative affairs. A big part of his mission
was to suggest changes within the athletic department. Many were made.
(05:10):
By the end of January of nineteen eighty seven, seventeen
staff positions were eliminated. Those moves were a result of
an independent department review done by Michigan Athletic Director Don Cannam.
He focused on the department structure and efficiency. Among those
acts was Jim Deach, part of that Maryland family within
(05:30):
the department, he was a former Maryland athlete. Deitch was
also a lacrosse and soccer coach at Maryland. Further, he
led the academic support unit when Bias died and was
soon after moved to the ticket office. Also removed the
department's former marketing director, members of the sports information office
and maintenance staff. Sue Tyler was an assistant athletic director
(05:52):
at Maryland and a coach for women's field hockey lacrosse.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
During that first year ere it was just such a
crisis time. All worry about your own space, and so
we were all worried about our own team and our
own existence and our own survival for a little bit,
I would have waited about two and a half years.
Two years, I'd say it was significant for the first year.
I think it was really oppressive on all of us
(06:18):
for about a year.
Speaker 13 (06:21):
The moves helped the department deal with a one million
dollar deficit from that year. About a quarter of that
amount came from payouts to basketball coach left to Giuzel
and athletic director Dick Dahl. There was also a reduced
revenue for football and basketball games. Into that challenging environment,
step Bob Wade, Maryland's new basketball coach. Wade left one
(06:43):
of the best high school programs in the country. Dunbar
in Baltimore, Sue Tyler noticed the ghost of former coach
left to Gizelle lingered during the transition.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
I think it was a really tough situation for him
to walk into, And it was a tough situation coming
from such a high pro file high school program and
thinking that it's going to be similar to what you
had in high school and it's dramatically different. All the
things going on. There were people that were so still
(07:14):
behind Lefty that anybody the next anybody would have been,
had a tough time.
Speaker 13 (07:22):
Derek Lewis was a junior on the team that year
at Maryland.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
I think anyone coming in with the has situation with
em bias is going to be in over the head.
Speaker 13 (07:31):
Molly Glassman covered Wade as a high school coach and
at Maryland while she was a reporter for the Baltimore
Evening Sun.
Speaker 14 (07:38):
Bob is a very proud man, very strong in his
belief in himself. He accomplished a hell of a lot
at Dunbar, and I think as time went on at Maryland,
the frustration of not being his not being.
Speaker 15 (07:59):
In control of everything, did lead him to kind of,
you know, sequester himself apart from the rest of the department.
Speaker 13 (08:11):
Wades tumultuous three years at Maryland are explained in more
detail and segment two of section two in this series.
That segment explains the evolution of Maryland basketball, from the
tragedy of Lenbias's death to the triumph of the Turps
winning their first national title in two thousand and two.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
You're listening to Lemby's The Mixed Legacy on the Eighth
Side Network.
Speaker 13 (08:38):
A couple of months after Wade completed his first year
at Maryland, the athletic department had a new athletic director.
It was Low Perkins, and he appeared to be a
good fit. Perkins had served in the same role at
Wichita State University. There, he guided the program through an
NCAA probation caused by recruiting violations from its basketball teams.
When he was introduced as Maryland's new athletic director at
(09:01):
a press conference, Perkins said he planned to institute an
extensive policy manual for coaches to read and sign. Tyler
remembers that Perkins asked each coach to assign the manual
as an agreement that they understood its content.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Some people thought it was an annoyance, and then it
was a cost that wasn't necessary.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
It was a I think a couple hundred pages of
things how to how to navigate different issues. Here's an
outsider telling us how to operate. We've been operating here
for fifteen, twenty years or whatever. But I think all
in all it was a it was a good idea.
I think it pretty much laid it out very clearly,
(09:40):
so that if somebody didn't do a step, you could say, wow,
did you missed step three?
Speaker 5 (09:45):
Already missed?
Speaker 4 (09:46):
You missed step three, four and five.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
And you just went to the end.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Was very wordy and very long, but it means something
like that needed to happen.
Speaker 13 (09:54):
The manual was one of many changes instituted at Maryland
during Perkins's time as athletic director. Standards for current athletes
were tightened. Athletes had to maintain certain grade point averages
to remain eligible. Admission for athletes who were considered at
risk academically were cut by more than half. Further, the
ceiling for special admissions for football players was reduced from
(10:16):
thirty to ten. Restrictions were clearly affecting the quality of
players Maryland could recruit. The nineteen eighty seven season began
one of the worst stretches in the one hundred and
nineteen year history of Maryland football, with the Terrapins recording
a winning season just once in eight seasons. Podcast producer
dave Onngrady recalled the story that Joe Kreebak, who took
(10:38):
over as a team's football coach when Bobby Ross left
following the nineteen eighty seven season, told him for his
book about len Bias.
Speaker 16 (10:46):
Maryland prepared to play Penn State in early November in
nineteen ninety one. Penn State was ranked number nine in
the country at the time. It was during Kreevak's final
year as head coach. The Terms had a two and
six record. Krevak found out Monday before the game that
a few of his players had not maintained the grade
point average minimum. They were ruled ineligible. Krevak appealed to
(11:10):
athletic director Andy Geiger, he had replaced Perkins in nineteen
eighty nine. Krevac said, quote, I asked him, what are
we doing this for. It doesn't violate any NTAA rules,
He said, Coach, you just have to.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Live with it.
Speaker 16 (11:26):
But he didn't have to play the game on Saturday.
Maryland lost the game forty seven to seven, and then
they lost their last two games to finish two to nine.
It was Krevak's worst record as head coach.
Speaker 13 (11:39):
Tyler, the assistant athletic director, recalls a somber mood prevailing
within athletics during the early years of the transition.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
I know some folks did say that he felt like
they didn't want to go in any more.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Day to day.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
They just wanted to go to their field or the
jam and go home. We used to do a lot
of things as coaches together and that a while to
get that back of, you know, going someplace for a drink,
set up Halloween party one time and half the department
was there, and we have Christmas parties, and we didn't
(12:13):
do that. We didn't do that for a couple of years.
We did get together as coaches and party, we didn't
didn't get together. It just didn't happen. We just all
were doing our own thing. But prior to that, we
had we had been a good, fun, fun loving staff
and wed as I said, going to parties and had
parties and supported each other by going to each other's games.
(12:36):
I don't think that we went to other people's games.
Speaker 13 (12:39):
The somber mood extended to the athletes as well. Here's
as a Zugen outdoor rah Uf, a senior receiver on
the football team. The year after Bias died.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
You know, and the cartoon minus who walked around with
the cloud.
Speaker 7 (12:52):
That was it.
Speaker 5 (12:53):
That's what you felt like.
Speaker 13 (12:54):
As the football team struggled, the men's basketball team was
enduring NCAA sanctions caused by coach Bob Wade. The sanctions
took effect after Gary Williams's first season taking over from Wade,
and the Terps could not play in postseason games the
next two years. This, along with the football team's continued mediocrity,
reduced Athletic department revenue by nearly three million dollars. As
(13:17):
a result, the department endured a major restructuring, affecting mostly
non revenue sports. In May nineteen ninety, Perkins placed all
sports in four tiers. He also reduced scholarships in eight
of its twenty three varsity sports and reduced scholarship money
by seventy percent in five others. Perkins blamed the moves
on the NCAA sanctions against the men's basketball team.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Luper Perkins was hired because he had a background and
a knowledge of NCAA rules, regulations and academic support and
that he did that that was and he was also
given finances and resources in order to make those things happen.
(14:02):
And so the new academic support and the increase in
number of coaches of assistant athletic directors so that there
was more supervision of coaches, more supervision of student athletes,
more paperwork, but just more accountability.
Speaker 8 (14:23):
In general.
Speaker 13 (14:25):
The teams most affected with those in the lowest tier.
They included men's and women's indoor and outdoor track and field,
men's golf, women's gymnastics, and men's and women's tennis. Those
teams offered no scholarships and competed locally except for acc competition.
By this time, a once familiar mood within athletics was gone.
(14:46):
A sense of self preservation took over. Frank Costella was
Maryland's track coach in the mid and late nineteen seventies.
He was later Maryland's first strainth coach until nineteen ninety.
Speaker 6 (14:57):
It took years to get any type of smoothness going,
and the just the attitude around the athletic department was
just not the same well, maybe sadder or bleaker, or
just not as joyous to be around.
Speaker 13 (15:21):
Bob Nelligan, the head coach of women's gymnastics, remembered an
uncomfortable discussion with Perkins about the fate of his program.
Speaker 10 (15:29):
Louke Perkins called me in and said, you know what,
you're on contract through the next year. You don't have
to coach. I'll find something for you to do.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Just let it ride.
Speaker 10 (15:44):
And I said, I'll have to get back to you
on that, and the kids said, no, we're fighting.
Speaker 7 (15:52):
So that was.
Speaker 10 (15:55):
All of a sudden. This all the other teams jumped on.
Everybody started going around and lobbying.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
How close were you to losing the program.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
After lent two?
Speaker 10 (16:07):
That was with Perkins, and then when Geiger came in,
we were under the gun again.
Speaker 13 (16:15):
Nelligan is referring to Andy Geiger, who succeeded Perkins as
athletic director in the early nineteen nineties. Despite posting a
string of winning records, including his best team in nineteen
eighty nine, he and his gymnasts had to think of
clever ways to raise money and keep the program alive.
Speaker 10 (16:32):
We parked cars for football, We would go out in
the rain with flags and escort cards to this to
their spots.
Speaker 17 (16:47):
We cleaned cole Fieldhouse after every basketball game, and believe me,
when Nachos came on board, that was the worst ever.
Speaker 10 (17:02):
We we did everything that there was to do. I
can remember one year the football team had gone to
the Cherry Bowl all of these nylon jackets that had
Cherry Bowl on the chest, and they were smalls and
(17:26):
extra smalls, and he was, now, what the heck am
I supposed to do with these things? And we put
a big Maryland patch over the Cherry Bowl patch, and
my kids thought it was the greatest thing since slice bread.
That was a part of their warm up.
Speaker 13 (17:44):
Sports guester Bonnie Bernstein was an academic All American when
she competed on the gymnastics team from nineteen eighty eight
to nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 18 (17:53):
We didn't really think about how tedious some of the
tasks we were doing. We just knew that ultimately it
was helse in cash in the team's collective pocket that
we wouldn't have had otherwise, whether it was cleaning stadiums,
working parking lots, working NCAA tournament games at Colefield's house.
(18:15):
Whatever we needed to do to earn a little extra money,
we were going to do because it was really all
about teams.
Speaker 13 (18:22):
Bernstein felt the impact of the cuts directly. She made
the team as a walk on freshman and had hope
for scholarships soon after, and.
Speaker 18 (18:30):
That was all of a sudden off the table. I
had to figure out a way to make the finances work.
So I was working three different jobs and going to
school and competing.
Speaker 13 (18:40):
Bernstein considered transferring. Then she wrote a letter to athletic
director Andy Geiger.
Speaker 18 (18:45):
We went up there for a meeting and Andy said,
I read your letter. It's sitting here on my desk,
and I'm scared to death because I'm thinking he's going
to somehow take offense to my having to leave.
Speaker 7 (19:00):
And he said, You've.
Speaker 18 (19:01):
Got your scholarship. To this day, I have no idea
how it was funded, but it truly saved me from
having to transfer. It made it realize that we have
to find a way to survive, and the only way
to survive is to stick together and to be gwitty
(19:23):
and to be resourceful.
Speaker 13 (19:24):
Despite being in the top tier of the athletic program
in one of the country's perennial top twenty teams. Women's
basketball also needed to find creative ways to stay fully funded.
One was to have players sell programs at football games,
an idea that was not embraced by many members of
the team. Two top players transferred after their freshman year because,
according to coach Chris Weller, they felt the work was
(19:47):
beneath them. Vicky Bullet was an All American from Maryland.
She was among those on the team that referred to
themselves as survivors.
Speaker 7 (19:54):
Ms wellerhead little in nine jobs for us to do
so we can generate money for the team. Well, one time,
it's will to try to get us the mow grass
for people we don't know how to. She just wanted
us to get sweaty.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
And work out.
Speaker 13 (20:12):
Bill Goodman was an Atlantic Coast Conference triple jump champion
from Maryland in the mid nineteen seventies. Through that decade,
Maryland was the dominant program in the ACC, winning twenty
five consecutive conference titles. As a track and field coach,
after Bias died, Goodman was forced to lobby Perkins to
keep the team intact. To support his cause, he made
(20:33):
the point that there were more minority students on his
team than in any other non revenue sport.
Speaker 8 (20:39):
So if you take out the track team, pretty much
to eliminate minorities for non revenue sports, we were we
were hitting fats for I mean just just say a
couple of years, trying to just play off the most
you know, or resiminated. You know, it's like trying to
(21:04):
fight off a battle and you get rid of all
your change and then you get rid of all your prosucas,
and you get rid of all your rifles and found
the mission. You know, it's just you get worse and
worse and worse and worse.
Speaker 13 (21:18):
During the lean financial times and the restructuring after the
death of Bias, the mood of the coaches was a
stark departure from earlier times, and it reflected the mental
state department. Jack Jackson, Maryland's baseball coach for some three decades,
had a meeting with Perkins soon after he took over
as athletic director. Here's podcast producer Dave Ungrady we talked
(21:39):
with Jackson for his book about len Bias.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Jackson told me we started talking about loyalty. He said,
there ain't such a thing as loyalty. Anymore. He said,
anybody who stays at a job more than five years
is lazy. I said, how about the guy who likes
his job, what does he do?
Speaker 13 (21:59):
Jackson retired as coach in nineteen ninety. The wrestling team
failed to win the ACC title only once from nineteen
fifty four to nineteen seventy four, and was starting to
again show signs of prominence shortly after Bias died. The
nineteen eighty seventeen featured three All Americans. Still, the team
had its scholarship aid reduced by fifteen percent. John McHugh,
(22:22):
Marylyn wrestler, was the coach at the time.
Speaker 16 (22:25):
John McHugh told me we were finally rolling and able
to recruit the big time guys. Then all of a sudden,
they cut our legs out from under us. For three years,
I didn't sign anybody.
Speaker 13 (22:37):
Still, the team avoided a losing record in the early
nineteen nineties and finished second twice in the conference during
that time. The death of Bias also impacted the image
of Maryland athletics well beyond College Park. Gymnastics coach Bob
Nelligan recalled uncomfortable reactions he faced in his hometown.
Speaker 10 (22:55):
You've got to remember we were under the spotlight for
a long time. I'll tell you how bad it was.
I'm from Boston, and when I went home, if I
wore anything that said Maryland on it, I was a pariah.
(23:16):
Lenny Bias was the savior of the Boston Celtics. He
was the lifeblood that was going to hold that program
to national prominence. And they never let us forget that.
They would do everything but spit on you.
Speaker 9 (23:35):
What kind of.
Speaker 10 (23:35):
Drug school do you have going on down there? You know,
I just you know, tough stuff.
Speaker 13 (23:42):
At the time of Bias's death, scrutiny of jerky use
among athletes in the United States was escalating. The NCAA
announced its new drug testing plan in the summer of
nineteen eighty five. It began in the fall of nineteen
eighty six. Maryland had been testing its athletes since nineteen eighty.
JJ Bus, athletic trainer at Maryland since nineteen seventy two,
(24:03):
started the program along with the university's health center. They
copied protocols from programs at the University of Florida, among others.
Here's Bush.
Speaker 19 (24:12):
It was totally random. We just at the time, you know,
we just sort of gave every kid a number and
then picked the numbers out of a hat, and if
your number came up, your coach or in the basketball case,
our director of operations was sent.
Speaker 8 (24:34):
A list.
Speaker 19 (24:35):
So and so needs to report to the health center
between such and such a time on such and such
a date. If it was a positive, they would do
a second test to make sure sure it was not
a false positive. And then if the person was positive,
the coach was notified by the director of the health center.
(24:56):
The first positive, you had to go to a counseling session.
If you came up with a second positive, you had
to sit out a period of time from practice or
beat away from the team, maybe a week, I forget exactly.
And then the third time that was it.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
You know you were done.
Speaker 13 (25:15):
Bush recalls only one athlete testing positive amongst the four
teams he worked with after testing started. As he said
in Abdoor, Rohov played his final season with the Maryland
football team after Lenn Die. To him, the drug test
was not very complicated.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
I mean, there was a urine test.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
You go into bathroom and you bring a cup out
and you hand the two to the tester and you're
out of there.
Speaker 13 (25:38):
It's pretty simple. Former Maryland gymnast Bonnie Bernstein feels the
testing may have steered athletes away from abusing drugs.
Speaker 18 (25:45):
There was a lot of random drug testing going on.
The reality is when you're dealing with eighteen to twenty
two year old kids who are being independent and many
of whom who were away from home for the first time,
that you're gonna experiment and you're going to party and
you're gonna roll your eyes at a lot of the
(26:06):
coaches messaging about being clear of drugs, But the fact
that we always had to be on alert about random
drug tests, I think probably kept more student athletes honest
than you you might think.
Speaker 13 (26:19):
Gary Williams saw a change in drug testing procedures while
coaching at Ohio State. When Bias died.
Speaker 11 (26:24):
Drug testing was kind of laughed at by every university
in the country, and then when Len Bias died, all
of a sudden, it became more of a just like
any other medical procedure. There is more checks and balances
things like that on the procedure. You know, you're almost
forced into it if you're an NCAA Division one power
(26:47):
conference school. Because everybody saw what it did to the
University of Maryland and so obviously you want to avoid that.
So they really stepped it up, and I think that's
the biggest benefit to come out of the unbiased situation.
I'm sure that helped a lot of kids around that
(27:08):
time get on the proper path towards success.
Speaker 13 (27:12):
The death of bias and the fact that Marylyn was
drug testing as athletes also impacted recruiting for more than
a decade. Opposing coaches used bias as death as a
weapon to persuade parents just not send their children to
College Park. Here's Nelligan.
Speaker 10 (27:28):
It just was thrown at us. It was hard making
a positive as a coach and a recruiter. How do
I tell a parent that, oh, yeah, if your daughter
comes to my school, she's just going to be drug
(27:48):
tested several times a year. Why would I want to
send my kid there.
Speaker 13 (27:53):
According to Gary Williams, opposing coaches would make sure to
remind top players that Maryland was a school where it's
best basketball player died from drug abuse.
Speaker 11 (28:03):
It was a very difficult time and people were really
suspicious of the University of Maryland in basketball programs. So
you know, I know, recruits that we were trying to
recruit were made aware of just about every article that
was ever printed. You go into a home and there'd
be articles on the Washington Post in say North Carolina
(28:28):
or whatever, sitting on the coffee table, and obviously they
were sent by someone you were recruiting against another university.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
You're listening to lembis the Mixed Legacy on the Eighth
Side Network.
Speaker 13 (28:42):
Current Maryland head football coach Mike Losley grew up in Washington,
d C. He was a senior in high school when
Biased Die Locksley worked as an assistant to Ralph Frigent
in the early two thousands.
Speaker 20 (28:54):
And so, as what typically happens when there's tragedies and
there's corrections, sometimes you overcorrect. The tough part for us was,
you know, being able to get a marginal student in.
So now you're recruiting against other schools that don't have
these standards where they limit how many you know, marginal
(29:15):
students you can bring in. And for us, now it
makes recruiting that much harder because you have to recruit
a guy, but then you have to also find a
guy that has the grades to get in without you know,
being considered a marginal student, which would you know, then
put them in a place where they had to come
into it through a bridge program and take extra courses,
(29:36):
and there were a lot of people that were turned
away that were good players that we couldn't get into
school because of this. The how the standards had changed
to push our academic standards up a little bit.
Speaker 13 (29:50):
Still, Maryland Athletics has managed to thrive in many ways
in the decades following the death of Bias. Led by
combined twenty championships from field hockey and women's lacross turps,
teams have won twenty nine national championships since nineteen ninety two.
They include titles by men's and women's basketball, and a
few by the men's soccer team. It would take decades
(30:10):
for Maryland Athletics collectively to finally accept the legacy of Bias.
He was not inducted into Maryland's Athletics Hall of Fame
until twenty fourteen. We will explain that in more detail
in a later episode. Lefty Grizelle, Maryland's coach when Bias died,
finally earned his Maryland Athletics Hall of Fame honor in
two thousand and two. That was sixteen years after he
(30:32):
left the program. Maryland Athletics featured pictures of Bias on
promotional materials when it celebrated one hundred years of basketball
in twenty nineteen. That would have seemed unimaginable just ten
years earlier. Brett Nelligan was five years old when Bias died.
At the time, his father, Bob, was Maryland's gymnastics coach.
(30:53):
Brett returned to Maryland in two thousand and three as
an assistant to his father on the team. He took
over as head coach in two thousand and nine. He
has seen a transition to the acceptance of the Len
Biased legacy within Maryland Athletics.
Speaker 12 (31:07):
When I when I came back, it just wasn't spoken about,
you know, we just that was a part of our
history that was I think still difficult for us as
an athletic department, as a fan base, as a as
a community. It was just too hard for us to
really embrace to talk about. But now you've seen really
(31:29):
like a full circle. We we embrace it and we're
proud of it. And Len is a legend and an
icon in the athletic department now, and the bottom line
is he's still I think one of the greatest athletes
to ever wear Maryland jersey. And there's there's nothing that
can change that.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
What do you think changed it?
Speaker 16 (31:51):
Why all of a sudden did they start to accept it.
Speaker 12 (31:54):
I think back then it was how how could this
have happened? But now it's like, we can all see
how this could happen. This could have happened to any
of us. And that's my point to my team, is this,
this could have happened to anyone us. We all make mistakes.
There's no one that's immune to making mistakes in their life.
So I just think there's a greater level of understanding
(32:18):
in our world, on our society now.
Speaker 13 (32:20):
Johnny Holliday has been Maryland's played by play announcer for
forty years. A few others understand the transition toward acceptance
of Len's legacy within Maryland Athletics.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
And it's a whole new ballgame now, a whole new
generation of fans. I've got grandkids that never heard of
Lin Biaus and then they go to YouTube and watch
video highlights and they say.
Speaker 21 (32:40):
Ooh, he was pretty good. I say, yeah, a little
better than pretty good. Well, he could jump, he could shoot,
he could score, he could run. Yeah, And I think
that's the best tribute to him is to see people
walking around at games at other events with number thirty
four and by us from the back of their jersey.
Speaker 13 (33:02):
In early December, Maryland held Len Bias Knight during a
home game against Virginia Tech. It was the first time
Maryland dedicated one game to Bias. Thousands of free Len
Biased number thirty four jerseys were handed out to fans.
Thousands of number thirty four Len Biased jerseys filled Exfinity Center,
Maryland's home court, in a sea of yellow and red.
(33:24):
Bias's name adorned the backs of each jersey was.
Speaker 21 (33:29):
No longer, would the matter legacy forever.
Speaker 13 (33:38):
The Bias family was also recognized during the game.
Speaker 20 (33:42):
Jos on the more time christ the ram fires the.
Speaker 5 (33:48):
Money spiers, Who's.
Speaker 13 (33:55):
As he has done for Maryland since the late nineteen
seventies Johnny Holliday before radio play by play for that game, people.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
Learned the lesson.
Speaker 22 (34:05):
We know it's cost people jobs, we know it cost
a young man's life, but you have to move on,
and you move on by correcting mistakes that were done
years and years ago.
Speaker 5 (34:15):
I think the message is there. What happened tragic, Let's
make sure it never happens again.
Speaker 13 (34:24):
Next online bias and mixed legacy, mandatory minimums, and maximum impact.
Have the death of Bias affected a nation.
Speaker 5 (34:33):
The problem has become a cracked crisis and it's spreading nationwide.
Speaker 13 (34:37):
There was a misperception that crack cocaine was something different
chemically than what powder cocaine was.
Speaker 23 (34:44):
Yeah, before the rest my life was, I thought was perfect.
Everything I did, I did it with my children, boy scouts,
girl scouts, Uh, going to movies. I was working at
the hospital of the nurse, So you know, everything gets
went down a joint at that moment this story.
Speaker 24 (35:00):
There's no checks of balances. Once that prosecutor, prosecutor decides
you're the bad person, it's over for you. And so
that that really tilted the system in a way that
gave the prosecutor too much power.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
So the way lem Bias operated in my head was
it was almost like a fucking ghost. But I didn't
really know who he was until I went to prison.
Speaker 25 (35:23):
I concluded that len Bias's death was the single most
important date in the history of drugs in the United
States since the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in June of
nineteen thirty five.
Speaker 20 (35:39):
Doesn't save lives, doesn't reduce crime.
Speaker 13 (35:42):
So what does it do is passing. It wasn't just
a tragedy that we lost one great person. We lost
a lot of great people.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Respect of this is Dave Ungrady, executive user of this
podcast series US promised at the beginning of this episode,
here is a tribute to the late Russ Potts, who
was featured in this episode and others. It is presented
by Chip Zimmer, a former sports marketing director at Maryland
(36:16):
and the author of the book The Battle of the Potomac,
a century long football rivalry between the West Virginia Mountaineers
and the Maryland Terrapins. Zimmer was also my boss when
I worked as an intern in sports marketing at Maryland
in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 26 (36:34):
In the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies, Maryland's
new athletic director, Jim Keyo made some bold moves to
revive the urp's football and basketball programs. Football hadn't been
relevant since Jim Tatum left in nineteen fifty five, and
basketball had been floundering. New hires Jerry Claybourne and football
and left Uterzell and Basketball helped the programs achieve national prominence.
(36:55):
Within a decade, but perhaps as importantly, Keo in nineteen
seventy hired Russ Potts, a nineteen sixty four Maryland graduate,
as the NCAA's first sports promotion director. Potts became known
as an innovator, a pioneer, and a maverick. If Bill
Veck was the godfather of baseball promotions, then Russ Potts
was as equal for college promotions. He turned Maryland football
(37:17):
games into events for the entire family. Multiple giveaways by
corporate sponsors became the norm. Cannons were fired as the
terps ran onto the field. Paratroopers delivered game ball at
the fifty yard line. The programs resembled telephone books, chalk
full of advertisers, tens of thousands of red and white
go terps, go bumper sticker adorned auto bumpers throughout the
(37:38):
state of Maryland. Dozens of billboards, and hundreds of thousands
of pocket schedules blanketed the state. I had the monumental
task of succeeding Potts as a promotions director at Maryland.
In nineteen seventy nine, he left a poster in my
office that said, quote, something terrible happens when you don't
promote nothing unquote. It's something I'll never get and have
(38:01):
used my entire career.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
This podcast series is based on the book Born Ready
The Mixed Legacy of Lemby's, published by Go Grady Media.
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 Daveon Grady and
edited by Don Marcus. The narrator was Don Marcus, with
additional narration by Jamal Williams. Technical production was provided by
(38:31):
Octagon Entertainment. Production assistance was produced by Kevin mcnelty, Tino Quagliata,
Lauren Rosh, Georgia Brown, Casey Fair, Jamal Williams, Kelsey Mannox,
and enzol Al Varinga. Matt dehers is providing the social
media assistance special thanks to the University of Maryland and
American University.
Speaker 13 (38:50):
For providing inserts.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
The Decision Education Foundation is a content and promotional partner
of this podcast series. For more information, go to Grady
Media and the eighth side note, what was
This podcast is based in large part of the book
Born Ready, The Mixed Legacy of Lembois. 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.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
This segment is dedicated to the memory of Russ Potts,
the pioneering sports marketer for Maryland Athletics, who passed away
in December. Potts is featured in several episodes of the series,
including this one. A short tribute to Potts can be
heard at the conclusion of this episode.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Maryland is one of the most puzzling situations I've ever seen.
There's no institutional memory, and without institutional memory you can't
understand what got you there and what you need to
focus on but to keep you to at the top.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
It was significant for the first year. I think it
was really oppressive on all of us for about a year.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
It's just unbelievable. I mean how it affected.
Speaker 6 (01:07):
It changed the entire university for for mega years.
Speaker 7 (01:12):
Nobody ms Weller had little in nine jobs for us
to do so we can generate money for the teams
to one time, Miss Waller tried to get us the
mow grass for people we don't know how to mow grap.
Speaker 8 (01:28):
So if you take out the track game pretty much
to eliminate my door sports we were we were in
for UH. I mean that's just say.
Speaker 9 (01:40):
A couple of years trying to fight off the UH
themost get or remind.
Speaker 10 (01:53):
I'll tell you how bad it was. I'm from Boston
and when I went home, if I wore anything that
said Maryland on it, I was a pariah.
Speaker 11 (02:07):
Doug Tessen was kind of laughed at by every university
in the country. And then when len Bias died, all
of a sudden it became more of just like any
other medical procedure. There's more checks and balances.
Speaker 12 (02:24):
I think back then it was how could this have happened?
But now it's like, we can all see how this
could happen. This could have happened to any of us.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
We've learned the lesson, but you have to move on.
Speaker 12 (02:40):
Now you've seen really like a full circle. We we
embrace it and we're proud of it. And Lenin is
a legend and an icon in the athletic department.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
Now I think the message is there. What happened tragic
let's make sure it never happens again.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Up next on Lundbia's and Mixed Legacy, A Dark Lass,
a game he made him a name at.
Speaker 13 (03:10):
In the last five months of nineteen eighty six, the
University of Maryland athletic department had been dramatically transformed. Its
athletic director was gone, so was its men's basketball coach
and football coach, all victims of the fallout from the
death of Lambias. At the time, Frank Costello was a
strength coach from Maryland. He was an All American high
(03:32):
jumper in the nineteen sixties and was the school's head
coach of the track and field team in the late
nineteen seventies. He saw firsthand how changes altered the character
of Maryland's athletic department.
Speaker 6 (03:44):
It was a job and a family kind of atmosphere
working at the university. But then after Lenny died, of
course you got this tragedy and like you said that
Dominos just fell. Plus you had this shadow of falling
over or what happened to Lenny, so it was a
lot different.
Speaker 13 (04:04):
Russ Potts was the athletic department's first marketing director.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Maryland needed a healer, They needed a person with compassion
and love and kindness and that kind of personality. And
I felt that they could have built on the people
who were loyal to the program and worked their way
out of that. But it has been one massive challenge
(04:33):
after another at Maryland, which saddens me. Saddens me a
great deal, and they've run through so many coaches and
so many administrators, many of whom don't have any idea
about the heritage there.
Speaker 13 (04:49):
Heritage was not on the mind of Robert Startz when
he took over as interim athletic director on November two,
nineteen eighty six. Starts worked previously as a university vice
chancellor for administrative affairs. A big part of his mission
was to suggest changes within the athletic department. Many were made.
(05:10):
By the end of January of nineteen eighty seven, seventeen
staff positions were eliminated. Those moves were a result of
an independent department review done by Michigan Athletic Director Don Cannam.
He focused on the department structure and efficiency. Among those
acts was Jim Deach, part of that Maryland family within
(05:30):
the department, he was a former Maryland athlete. Deitch was
also a lacrosse and soccer coach at Maryland. Further, he
led the academic support unit when Bias died and was
soon after moved to the ticket office. Also removed the
department's former marketing director, members of the sports information office
and maintenance staff. Sue Tyler was an assistant athletic director
(05:52):
at Maryland and a coach for women's field hockey lacrosse.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
During that first year ere it was just such a
crisis time. All worry about your own space, and so
we were all worried about our own team and our
own existence and our own survival for a little bit,
I would have waited about two and a half years.
Two years, I'd say it was significant for the first year.
I think it was really oppressive on all of us
(06:18):
for about a year.
Speaker 13 (06:21):
The moves helped the department deal with a one million
dollar deficit from that year. About a quarter of that
amount came from payouts to basketball coach left to Giuzel
and athletic director Dick Dahl. There was also a reduced
revenue for football and basketball games. Into that challenging environment,
step Bob Wade, Maryland's new basketball coach. Wade left one
(06:43):
of the best high school programs in the country. Dunbar
in Baltimore, Sue Tyler noticed the ghost of former coach
left to Gizelle lingered during the transition.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
I think it was a really tough situation for him
to walk into, And it was a tough situation coming
from such a high pro file high school program and
thinking that it's going to be similar to what you
had in high school and it's dramatically different. All the
things going on. There were people that were so still
(07:14):
behind Lefty that anybody the next anybody would have been,
had a tough time.
Speaker 13 (07:22):
Derek Lewis was a junior on the team that year
at Maryland.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
I think anyone coming in with the has situation with
em bias is going to be in over the head.
Speaker 13 (07:31):
Molly Glassman covered Wade as a high school coach and
at Maryland while she was a reporter for the Baltimore
Evening Sun.
Speaker 14 (07:38):
Bob is a very proud man, very strong in his
belief in himself. He accomplished a hell of a lot
at Dunbar, and I think as time went on at Maryland,
the frustration of not being his not being.
Speaker 15 (07:59):
In control of everything, did lead him to kind of,
you know, sequester himself apart from the rest of the department.
Speaker 13 (08:11):
Wades tumultuous three years at Maryland are explained in more
detail and segment two of section two in this series.
That segment explains the evolution of Maryland basketball, from the
tragedy of Lenbias's death to the triumph of the Turps
winning their first national title in two thousand and two.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
You're listening to Lemby's The Mixed Legacy on the Eighth
Side Network.
Speaker 13 (08:38):
A couple of months after Wade completed his first year
at Maryland, the athletic department had a new athletic director.
It was Low Perkins, and he appeared to be a
good fit. Perkins had served in the same role at
Wichita State University. There, he guided the program through an
NCAA probation caused by recruiting violations from its basketball teams.
When he was introduced as Maryland's new athletic director at
(09:01):
a press conference, Perkins said he planned to institute an
extensive policy manual for coaches to read and sign. Tyler
remembers that Perkins asked each coach to assign the manual
as an agreement that they understood its content.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Some people thought it was an annoyance, and then it
was a cost that wasn't necessary.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
It was a I think a couple hundred pages of
things how to how to navigate different issues. Here's an
outsider telling us how to operate. We've been operating here
for fifteen, twenty years or whatever. But I think all
in all it was a it was a good idea.
I think it pretty much laid it out very clearly,
(09:40):
so that if somebody didn't do a step, you could say, wow,
did you missed step three?
Speaker 5 (09:45):
Already missed?
Speaker 4 (09:46):
You missed step three, four and five.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
And you just went to the end.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Was very wordy and very long, but it means something
like that needed to happen.
Speaker 13 (09:54):
The manual was one of many changes instituted at Maryland
during Perkins's time as athletic director. Standards for current athletes
were tightened. Athletes had to maintain certain grade point averages
to remain eligible. Admission for athletes who were considered at
risk academically were cut by more than half. Further, the
ceiling for special admissions for football players was reduced from
(10:16):
thirty to ten. Restrictions were clearly affecting the quality of
players Maryland could recruit. The nineteen eighty seven season began
one of the worst stretches in the one hundred and
nineteen year history of Maryland football, with the Terrapins recording
a winning season just once in eight seasons. Podcast producer
dave Onngrady recalled the story that Joe Kreebak, who took
(10:38):
over as a team's football coach when Bobby Ross left
following the nineteen eighty seven season, told him for his
book about len Bias.
Speaker 16 (10:46):
Maryland prepared to play Penn State in early November in
nineteen ninety one. Penn State was ranked number nine in
the country at the time. It was during Kreevak's final
year as head coach. The Terms had a two and
six record. Krevak found out Monday before the game that
a few of his players had not maintained the grade
point average minimum. They were ruled ineligible. Krevak appealed to
(11:10):
athletic director Andy Geiger, he had replaced Perkins in nineteen
eighty nine. Krevac said, quote, I asked him, what are
we doing this for. It doesn't violate any NTAA rules,
He said, Coach, you just have to.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Live with it.
Speaker 16 (11:26):
But he didn't have to play the game on Saturday.
Maryland lost the game forty seven to seven, and then
they lost their last two games to finish two to nine.
It was Krevak's worst record as head coach.
Speaker 13 (11:39):
Tyler, the assistant athletic director, recalls a somber mood prevailing
within athletics during the early years of the transition.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
I know some folks did say that he felt like
they didn't want to go in any more.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Day to day.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
They just wanted to go to their field or the
jam and go home. We used to do a lot
of things as coaches together and that a while to
get that back of, you know, going someplace for a drink,
set up Halloween party one time and half the department
was there, and we have Christmas parties, and we didn't
(12:13):
do that. We didn't do that for a couple of years.
We did get together as coaches and party, we didn't
didn't get together. It just didn't happen. We just all
were doing our own thing. But prior to that, we
had we had been a good, fun, fun loving staff
and wed as I said, going to parties and had
parties and supported each other by going to each other's games.
(12:36):
I don't think that we went to other people's games.
Speaker 13 (12:39):
The somber mood extended to the athletes as well. Here's
as a Zugen outdoor rah Uf, a senior receiver on
the football team. The year after Bias died.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
You know, and the cartoon minus who walked around with
the cloud.
Speaker 7 (12:52):
That was it.
Speaker 5 (12:53):
That's what you felt like.
Speaker 13 (12:54):
As the football team struggled, the men's basketball team was
enduring NCAA sanctions caused by coach Bob Wade. The sanctions
took effect after Gary Williams's first season taking over from Wade,
and the Terps could not play in postseason games the
next two years. This, along with the football team's continued mediocrity,
reduced Athletic department revenue by nearly three million dollars. As
(13:17):
a result, the department endured a major restructuring, affecting mostly
non revenue sports. In May nineteen ninety, Perkins placed all
sports in four tiers. He also reduced scholarships in eight
of its twenty three varsity sports and reduced scholarship money
by seventy percent in five others. Perkins blamed the moves
on the NCAA sanctions against the men's basketball team.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Luper Perkins was hired because he had a background and
a knowledge of NCAA rules, regulations and academic support and
that he did that that was and he was also
given finances and resources in order to make those things happen.
(14:02):
And so the new academic support and the increase in
number of coaches of assistant athletic directors so that there
was more supervision of coaches, more supervision of student athletes,
more paperwork, but just more accountability.
Speaker 8 (14:23):
In general.
Speaker 13 (14:25):
The teams most affected with those in the lowest tier.
They included men's and women's indoor and outdoor track and field,
men's golf, women's gymnastics, and men's and women's tennis. Those
teams offered no scholarships and competed locally except for acc competition.
By this time, a once familiar mood within athletics was gone.
(14:46):
A sense of self preservation took over. Frank Costella was
Maryland's track coach in the mid and late nineteen seventies.
He was later Maryland's first strainth coach until nineteen ninety.
Speaker 6 (14:57):
It took years to get any type of smoothness going,
and the just the attitude around the athletic department was
just not the same well, maybe sadder or bleaker, or
just not as joyous to be around.
Speaker 13 (15:21):
Bob Nelligan, the head coach of women's gymnastics, remembered an
uncomfortable discussion with Perkins about the fate of his program.
Speaker 10 (15:29):
Louke Perkins called me in and said, you know what,
you're on contract through the next year. You don't have
to coach. I'll find something for you to do.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Just let it ride.
Speaker 10 (15:44):
And I said, I'll have to get back to you
on that, and the kids said, no, we're fighting.
Speaker 7 (15:52):
So that was.
Speaker 10 (15:55):
All of a sudden. This all the other teams jumped on.
Everybody started going around and lobbying.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
How close were you to losing the program.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
After lent two?
Speaker 10 (16:07):
That was with Perkins, and then when Geiger came in,
we were under the gun again.
Speaker 13 (16:15):
Nelligan is referring to Andy Geiger, who succeeded Perkins as
athletic director in the early nineteen nineties. Despite posting a
string of winning records, including his best team in nineteen
eighty nine, he and his gymnasts had to think of
clever ways to raise money and keep the program alive.
Speaker 10 (16:32):
We parked cars for football, We would go out in
the rain with flags and escort cards to this to
their spots.
Speaker 17 (16:47):
We cleaned cole Fieldhouse after every basketball game, and believe me,
when Nachos came on board, that was the worst ever.
Speaker 10 (17:02):
We we did everything that there was to do. I
can remember one year the football team had gone to
the Cherry Bowl all of these nylon jackets that had
Cherry Bowl on the chest, and they were smalls and
(17:26):
extra smalls, and he was, now, what the heck am
I supposed to do with these things? And we put
a big Maryland patch over the Cherry Bowl patch, and
my kids thought it was the greatest thing since slice bread.
That was a part of their warm up.
Speaker 13 (17:44):
Sports guester Bonnie Bernstein was an academic All American when
she competed on the gymnastics team from nineteen eighty eight
to nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 18 (17:53):
We didn't really think about how tedious some of the
tasks we were doing. We just knew that ultimately it
was helse in cash in the team's collective pocket that
we wouldn't have had otherwise, whether it was cleaning stadiums,
working parking lots, working NCAA tournament games at Colefield's house.
(18:15):
Whatever we needed to do to earn a little extra money,
we were going to do because it was really all
about teams.
Speaker 13 (18:22):
Bernstein felt the impact of the cuts directly. She made
the team as a walk on freshman and had hope
for scholarships soon after, and.
Speaker 18 (18:30):
That was all of a sudden off the table. I
had to figure out a way to make the finances work.
So I was working three different jobs and going to
school and competing.
Speaker 13 (18:40):
Bernstein considered transferring. Then she wrote a letter to athletic
director Andy Geiger.
Speaker 18 (18:45):
We went up there for a meeting and Andy said,
I read your letter. It's sitting here on my desk,
and I'm scared to death because I'm thinking he's going
to somehow take offense to my having to leave.
Speaker 7 (19:00):
And he said, You've.
Speaker 18 (19:01):
Got your scholarship. To this day, I have no idea
how it was funded, but it truly saved me from
having to transfer. It made it realize that we have
to find a way to survive, and the only way
to survive is to stick together and to be gwitty
(19:23):
and to be resourceful.
Speaker 13 (19:24):
Despite being in the top tier of the athletic program
in one of the country's perennial top twenty teams. Women's
basketball also needed to find creative ways to stay fully funded.
One was to have players sell programs at football games,
an idea that was not embraced by many members of
the team. Two top players transferred after their freshman year because,
according to coach Chris Weller, they felt the work was
(19:47):
beneath them. Vicky Bullet was an All American from Maryland.
She was among those on the team that referred to
themselves as survivors.
Speaker 7 (19:54):
Ms wellerhead little in nine jobs for us to do
so we can generate money for the team. Well, one time,
it's will to try to get us the mow grass
for people we don't know how to. She just wanted
us to get sweaty.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
And work out.
Speaker 13 (20:12):
Bill Goodman was an Atlantic Coast Conference triple jump champion
from Maryland in the mid nineteen seventies. Through that decade,
Maryland was the dominant program in the ACC, winning twenty
five consecutive conference titles. As a track and field coach,
after Bias died, Goodman was forced to lobby Perkins to
keep the team intact. To support his cause, he made
(20:33):
the point that there were more minority students on his
team than in any other non revenue sport.
Speaker 8 (20:39):
So if you take out the track team, pretty much
to eliminate minorities for non revenue sports, we were we
were hitting fats for I mean just just say a
couple of years, trying to just play off the most
you know, or resiminated. You know, it's like trying to
(21:04):
fight off a battle and you get rid of all
your change and then you get rid of all your prosucas,
and you get rid of all your rifles and found
the mission. You know, it's just you get worse and
worse and worse and worse.
Speaker 13 (21:18):
During the lean financial times and the restructuring after the
death of Bias, the mood of the coaches was a
stark departure from earlier times, and it reflected the mental
state department. Jack Jackson, Maryland's baseball coach for some three decades,
had a meeting with Perkins soon after he took over
as athletic director. Here's podcast producer Dave Ungrady we talked
(21:39):
with Jackson for his book about len Bias.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Jackson told me we started talking about loyalty. He said,
there ain't such a thing as loyalty. Anymore. He said,
anybody who stays at a job more than five years
is lazy. I said, how about the guy who likes
his job, what does he do?
Speaker 13 (21:59):
Jackson retired as coach in nineteen ninety. The wrestling team
failed to win the ACC title only once from nineteen
fifty four to nineteen seventy four, and was starting to
again show signs of prominence shortly after Bias died. The
nineteen eighty seventeen featured three All Americans. Still, the team
had its scholarship aid reduced by fifteen percent. John McHugh,
(22:22):
Marylyn wrestler, was the coach at the time.
Speaker 16 (22:25):
John McHugh told me we were finally rolling and able
to recruit the big time guys. Then all of a sudden,
they cut our legs out from under us. For three years,
I didn't sign anybody.
Speaker 13 (22:37):
Still, the team avoided a losing record in the early
nineteen nineties and finished second twice in the conference during
that time. The death of Bias also impacted the image
of Maryland athletics well beyond College Park. Gymnastics coach Bob
Nelligan recalled uncomfortable reactions he faced in his hometown.
Speaker 10 (22:55):
You've got to remember we were under the spotlight for
a long time. I'll tell you how bad it was.
I'm from Boston, and when I went home, if I
wore anything that said Maryland on it, I was a pariah.
(23:16):
Lenny Bias was the savior of the Boston Celtics. He
was the lifeblood that was going to hold that program
to national prominence. And they never let us forget that.
They would do everything but spit on you.
Speaker 9 (23:35):
What kind of.
Speaker 10 (23:35):
Drug school do you have going on down there? You know,
I just you know, tough stuff.
Speaker 13 (23:42):
At the time of Bias's death, scrutiny of jerky use
among athletes in the United States was escalating. The NCAA
announced its new drug testing plan in the summer of
nineteen eighty five. It began in the fall of nineteen
eighty six. Maryland had been testing its athletes since nineteen eighty.
JJ Bus, athletic trainer at Maryland since nineteen seventy two,
(24:03):
started the program along with the university's health center. They
copied protocols from programs at the University of Florida, among others.
Here's Bush.
Speaker 19 (24:12):
It was totally random. We just at the time, you know,
we just sort of gave every kid a number and
then picked the numbers out of a hat, and if
your number came up, your coach or in the basketball case,
our director of operations was sent.
Speaker 8 (24:34):
A list.
Speaker 19 (24:35):
So and so needs to report to the health center
between such and such a time on such and such
a date. If it was a positive, they would do
a second test to make sure sure it was not
a false positive. And then if the person was positive,
the coach was notified by the director of the health center.
(24:56):
The first positive, you had to go to a counseling session.
If you came up with a second positive, you had
to sit out a period of time from practice or
beat away from the team, maybe a week, I forget exactly.
And then the third time that was it.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
You know you were done.
Speaker 13 (25:15):
Bush recalls only one athlete testing positive amongst the four
teams he worked with after testing started. As he said
in Abdoor, Rohov played his final season with the Maryland
football team after Lenn Die. To him, the drug test
was not very complicated.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
I mean, there was a urine test.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
You go into bathroom and you bring a cup out
and you hand the two to the tester and you're
out of there.
Speaker 13 (25:38):
It's pretty simple. Former Maryland gymnast Bonnie Bernstein feels the
testing may have steered athletes away from abusing drugs.
Speaker 18 (25:45):
There was a lot of random drug testing going on.
The reality is when you're dealing with eighteen to twenty
two year old kids who are being independent and many
of whom who were away from home for the first time,
that you're gonna experiment and you're going to party and
you're gonna roll your eyes at a lot of the
(26:06):
coaches messaging about being clear of drugs, But the fact
that we always had to be on alert about random
drug tests, I think probably kept more student athletes honest
than you you might think.
Speaker 13 (26:19):
Gary Williams saw a change in drug testing procedures while
coaching at Ohio State. When Bias died.
Speaker 11 (26:24):
Drug testing was kind of laughed at by every university
in the country, and then when Len Bias died, all
of a sudden, it became more of a just like
any other medical procedure. There is more checks and balances
things like that on the procedure. You know, you're almost
forced into it if you're an NCAA Division one power
(26:47):
conference school. Because everybody saw what it did to the
University of Maryland and so obviously you want to avoid that.
So they really stepped it up, and I think that's
the biggest benefit to come out of the unbiased situation.
I'm sure that helped a lot of kids around that
(27:08):
time get on the proper path towards success.
Speaker 13 (27:12):
The death of bias and the fact that Marylyn was
drug testing as athletes also impacted recruiting for more than
a decade. Opposing coaches used bias as death as a
weapon to persuade parents just not send their children to
College Park. Here's Nelligan.
Speaker 10 (27:28):
It just was thrown at us. It was hard making
a positive as a coach and a recruiter. How do
I tell a parent that, oh, yeah, if your daughter
comes to my school, she's just going to be drug
(27:48):
tested several times a year. Why would I want to
send my kid there.
Speaker 13 (27:53):
According to Gary Williams, opposing coaches would make sure to
remind top players that Maryland was a school where it's
best basketball player died from drug abuse.
Speaker 11 (28:03):
It was a very difficult time and people were really
suspicious of the University of Maryland in basketball programs. So
you know, I know, recruits that we were trying to
recruit were made aware of just about every article that
was ever printed. You go into a home and there'd
be articles on the Washington Post in say North Carolina
(28:28):
or whatever, sitting on the coffee table, and obviously they
were sent by someone you were recruiting against another university.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
You're listening to lembis the Mixed Legacy on the Eighth
Side Network.
Speaker 13 (28:42):
Current Maryland head football coach Mike Losley grew up in Washington,
d C. He was a senior in high school when
Biased Die Locksley worked as an assistant to Ralph Frigent
in the early two thousands.
Speaker 20 (28:54):
And so, as what typically happens when there's tragedies and
there's corrections, sometimes you overcorrect. The tough part for us was,
you know, being able to get a marginal student in.
So now you're recruiting against other schools that don't have
these standards where they limit how many you know, marginal
(29:15):
students you can bring in. And for us, now it
makes recruiting that much harder because you have to recruit
a guy, but then you have to also find a
guy that has the grades to get in without you know,
being considered a marginal student, which would you know, then
put them in a place where they had to come
into it through a bridge program and take extra courses,
(29:36):
and there were a lot of people that were turned
away that were good players that we couldn't get into
school because of this. The how the standards had changed
to push our academic standards up a little bit.
Speaker 13 (29:50):
Still, Maryland Athletics has managed to thrive in many ways
in the decades following the death of Bias. Led by
combined twenty championships from field hockey and women's lacross turps,
teams have won twenty nine national championships since nineteen ninety two.
They include titles by men's and women's basketball, and a
few by the men's soccer team. It would take decades
(30:10):
for Maryland Athletics collectively to finally accept the legacy of Bias.
He was not inducted into Maryland's Athletics Hall of Fame
until twenty fourteen. We will explain that in more detail
in a later episode. Lefty Grizelle, Maryland's coach when Bias died,
finally earned his Maryland Athletics Hall of Fame honor in
two thousand and two. That was sixteen years after he
(30:32):
left the program. Maryland Athletics featured pictures of Bias on
promotional materials when it celebrated one hundred years of basketball
in twenty nineteen. That would have seemed unimaginable just ten
years earlier. Brett Nelligan was five years old when Bias died.
At the time, his father, Bob, was Maryland's gymnastics coach.
(30:53):
Brett returned to Maryland in two thousand and three as
an assistant to his father on the team. He took
over as head coach in two thousand and nine. He
has seen a transition to the acceptance of the Len
Biased legacy within Maryland Athletics.
Speaker 12 (31:07):
When I when I came back, it just wasn't spoken about,
you know, we just that was a part of our
history that was I think still difficult for us as
an athletic department, as a fan base, as a as
a community. It was just too hard for us to
really embrace to talk about. But now you've seen really
(31:29):
like a full circle. We we embrace it and we're
proud of it. And Len is a legend and an
icon in the athletic department now, and the bottom line
is he's still I think one of the greatest athletes
to ever wear Maryland jersey. And there's there's nothing that
can change that.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
What do you think changed it?
Speaker 16 (31:51):
Why all of a sudden did they start to accept it.
Speaker 12 (31:54):
I think back then it was how how could this
have happened? But now it's like, we can all see
how this could happen. This could have happened to any
of us. And that's my point to my team, is this,
this could have happened to anyone us. We all make mistakes.
There's no one that's immune to making mistakes in their life.
So I just think there's a greater level of understanding
(32:18):
in our world, on our society now.
Speaker 13 (32:20):
Johnny Holliday has been Maryland's played by play announcer for
forty years. A few others understand the transition toward acceptance
of Len's legacy within Maryland Athletics.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
And it's a whole new ballgame now, a whole new
generation of fans. I've got grandkids that never heard of
Lin Biaus and then they go to YouTube and watch
video highlights and they say.
Speaker 21 (32:40):
Ooh, he was pretty good. I say, yeah, a little
better than pretty good. Well, he could jump, he could shoot,
he could score, he could run. Yeah, And I think
that's the best tribute to him is to see people
walking around at games at other events with number thirty
four and by us from the back of their jersey.
Speaker 13 (33:02):
In early December, Maryland held Len Bias Knight during a
home game against Virginia Tech. It was the first time
Maryland dedicated one game to Bias. Thousands of free Len
Biased number thirty four jerseys were handed out to fans.
Thousands of number thirty four Len Biased jerseys filled Exfinity Center,
Maryland's home court, in a sea of yellow and red.
(33:24):
Bias's name adorned the backs of each jersey was.
Speaker 21 (33:29):
No longer, would the matter legacy forever.
Speaker 13 (33:38):
The Bias family was also recognized during the game.
Speaker 20 (33:42):
Jos on the more time christ the ram fires the.
Speaker 5 (33:48):
Money spiers, Who's.
Speaker 13 (33:55):
As he has done for Maryland since the late nineteen
seventies Johnny Holliday before radio play by play for that game, people.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
Learned the lesson.
Speaker 22 (34:05):
We know it's cost people jobs, we know it cost
a young man's life, but you have to move on,
and you move on by correcting mistakes that were done
years and years ago.
Speaker 5 (34:15):
I think the message is there. What happened tragic, Let's
make sure it never happens again.
Speaker 13 (34:24):
Next online bias and mixed legacy, mandatory minimums, and maximum impact.
Have the death of Bias affected a nation.
Speaker 5 (34:33):
The problem has become a cracked crisis and it's spreading nationwide.
Speaker 13 (34:37):
There was a misperception that crack cocaine was something different
chemically than what powder cocaine was.
Speaker 23 (34:44):
Yeah, before the rest my life was, I thought was perfect.
Everything I did, I did it with my children, boy scouts,
girl scouts, Uh, going to movies. I was working at
the hospital of the nurse, So you know, everything gets
went down a joint at that moment this story.
Speaker 24 (35:00):
There's no checks of balances. Once that prosecutor, prosecutor decides
you're the bad person, it's over for you. And so
that that really tilted the system in a way that
gave the prosecutor too much power.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
So the way lem Bias operated in my head was
it was almost like a fucking ghost. But I didn't
really know who he was until I went to prison.
Speaker 25 (35:23):
I concluded that len Bias's death was the single most
important date in the history of drugs in the United
States since the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in June of
nineteen thirty five.
Speaker 20 (35:39):
Doesn't save lives, doesn't reduce crime.
Speaker 13 (35:42):
So what does it do is passing. It wasn't just
a tragedy that we lost one great person. We lost
a lot of great people.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Respect of this is Dave Ungrady, executive user of this
podcast series US promised at the beginning of this episode,
here is a tribute to the late Russ Potts, who
was featured in this episode and others. It is presented
by Chip Zimmer, a former sports marketing director at Maryland
(36:16):
and the author of the book The Battle of the Potomac,
a century long football rivalry between the West Virginia Mountaineers
and the Maryland Terrapins. Zimmer was also my boss when
I worked as an intern in sports marketing at Maryland
in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 26 (36:34):
In the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies, Maryland's
new athletic director, Jim Keyo made some bold moves to
revive the urp's football and basketball programs. Football hadn't been
relevant since Jim Tatum left in nineteen fifty five, and
basketball had been floundering. New hires Jerry Claybourne and football
and left Uterzell and Basketball helped the programs achieve national prominence.
(36:55):
Within a decade, but perhaps as importantly, Keo in nineteen
seventy hired Russ Potts, a nineteen sixty four Maryland graduate,
as the NCAA's first sports promotion director. Potts became known
as an innovator, a pioneer, and a maverick. If Bill
Veck was the godfather of baseball promotions, then Russ Potts
was as equal for college promotions. He turned Maryland football
(37:17):
games into events for the entire family. Multiple giveaways by
corporate sponsors became the norm. Cannons were fired as the
terps ran onto the field. Paratroopers delivered game ball at
the fifty yard line. The programs resembled telephone books, chalk
full of advertisers, tens of thousands of red and white
go terps, go bumper sticker adorned auto bumpers throughout the
(37:38):
state of Maryland. Dozens of billboards, and hundreds of thousands
of pocket schedules blanketed the state. I had the monumental
task of succeeding Potts as a promotions director at Maryland.
In nineteen seventy nine, he left a poster in my
office that said, quote, something terrible happens when you don't
promote nothing unquote. It's something I'll never get and have
(38:01):
used my entire career.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
This podcast series is based on the book Born Ready
The Mixed Legacy of Lemby's, published by Go Grady Media.
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 Daveon Grady and
edited by Don Marcus. The narrator was Don Marcus, with
additional narration by Jamal Williams. Technical production was provided by
(38:31):
Octagon Entertainment. Production assistance was produced by Kevin mcnelty, Tino Quagliata,
Lauren Rosh, Georgia Brown, Casey Fair, Jamal Williams, Kelsey Mannox,
and enzol Al Varinga. Matt dehers is providing the social
media assistance special thanks to the University of Maryland and
American University.
Speaker 13 (38:50):
For providing inserts.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
The Decision Education Foundation is a content and promotional partner
of this podcast series. For more information, go to Grady
Media and the eighth side note, what was
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