August 4, 2023 • 53 mins
Maryland radio sportscaster Johnny Holliday remembers Len Bias and shares the stories of his unique relationship with Len and his family before and after his death including a personal request from Lonise Bias for Johnny to sing at Len's service. Johnny is interviewed by Dave Ungrady, Don Markus, and Rich Daniel.
Johnny appears across the podcast series and is featured across multiple episodes and highlight clips.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
For more than forty years, Johnny Holliday has been the
broadcast voice of University of Maryland football and basketball. Few,
if any, have seen or heard as much about Terp's
athletics as Holiday, and that includes the death and legacy
of Len Bias. Holiday had a rare view of Len's death.
(00:24):
He has had a front row seat for the struggles, challenges,
and triumphs experienced by Maryland athletics that follow This is
Davon Grady, executive producer of the podcast series Len Bias
A Mixed Legacy. In this raw interview with Holiday, he
offers a unique perspective of the before, during, and after
(00:48):
of the death of Bias. Holiday is interviewed by me
and Don Marcus, another producer of the podcast series, Paul,
what you remember most about Lenn as a person? A
few people have been in this athletic department as long
as you have as a broadcaster, You've seen a lot
(01:10):
of athletes come through. Put his personality as a person
in perspective compared to other athletes, and then we'll talk
about his basketball.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
My recollections of Lynn was, what a nice kid. He
was a soft spoken, down to earth as down to
earth as you could be before you became a superstar,
of course. And I remember going to Northwestern High School
the day he signed is a letter of intent to
(01:44):
come to the University of Maryland and sitting and talking
with him and realizing that, well, this kid's very shy.
His kid's are very quiet. This kid's not going to
be a very good interview. He didn't say anything at all.
He was very very and what he had to say, Man,
I can understand that when you're a high school senior,
you're not going to be over the top. But in
(02:07):
the four years that I saw him and I watched
him play and grow, not only as a basketball player,
but as a just as a kid, he just kept
growing and growing mature wise, maturity wise, and became really
one of the best interviews on the team that I
(02:27):
recall from those days, always with a smile, always with
a nice word. Hello, mister Holliday. How are you just
the nicest, nicest, sweetest kid when he was grown up.
That's what I remember the most about Lamb.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
When you talk about him being one of the best
interviews during that time, was it because of the way
he respected and interacted with you, or some of the
things that he would say, I think it's.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Probably because he started off not bad, but he wasn't
very good because he didn't say anything. I remember the
first year of the first couple of interviews we did
with him, it was like a lot of yes and
no answers, and even sometimes nodding of his head, and
I would stop the recorder to remindle him that this
(03:17):
is rate you're going to have to talk. They can't
see you nodding your head and big smile. Oh okay, okay.
And like all young players, when you stick a microphone
in front of them, they moved back, and I kept
moving in and he'd move back, and I'd move in
(03:38):
and he'd moved back, and it got to be a he.
As I mentioned, he got to be one of the
best interviews, and he was guarded in what he had
to say, because you're not going to throw your teammates
under the bus, and you're not going to throw the
coaches under the bus. But he was always fun to
talk to, always fun to be around.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Was he more of a Was he a practical joker
at all time, at any time compared to Whistle's on
that team. Was he reserved in that way? Was he
someone who would just get up and want to be
the center of attention in your mind, or he would
stay behind and just sort of react.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
As far as practical joker is concerned, I wasn't on
the endside with the team, so I don't know. You know,
when you're with your teammates, you're one way. When you're
with the with the media, you're another way. When you're
with me, the broadcaster for the team, there probably another way.
I probably had better access to him than a lot
of people did because I was with him all the time,
(04:33):
and I think he trusted me and what I had
to say about him and about his teammates, and I
think that opens up the door quite a bit for
a kid to become comfortable with you when he's doing interviews.
But as far as a joker, I don't know about that,
but I know that he was always accessible. He was
never I don't think he ever turned out an interview
(04:55):
that I asked for, And a lot of times I'd
want to get him on, but I couldn't get him
on every single game, even though he was the guy
on that basketball team, not the freshman year, because he
was the backup when he came into Maryland as a
freshman and did not start. Mark Fothergill was the guy
that started. So but as he continued to get better
and better, everybody wanted to have him on with him
(05:17):
and I couldn't do that to him, and I didn't
want to do it to the rest of the players,
and I wanted the rest of the players to get
equal time along with Lenn Bias. But he was He
was a great interviewer.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Let's talk about him as a basketball player. You saw
him evolve. You had a perspective if you had, I
imagine you were practices, you were on trips. You saw
him evolve as a player. What did you see in practice?
When you say, okay, I'm really seeing a difference here,
what did in games? I'm really seeing a difference here.
Over the course of his career. Any little stories that
you saw that really showed flashes of his athletic basketball
(05:51):
brilliance and as.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
He evolved, Well, everybody talks about what a good score
he was, but I think lost in the shuffle was
how athletic he was, what a rebounder he was, and
how even though he would get you fifteen or twenty
points a game, he set everybody else up and he
(06:16):
had great passing ability, he had tremendous speed. If you
looked at him, the first word that comes to mind
for Len Bias is chiseled. He was chiseled. I don't
think there was an ounce of fat like myself on
his body. I mean, this guy, this guy was dynamite.
(06:38):
And Greg Manning was doing the games with me in
those days, and he would continually amaze Greg and I
with some of his moves, flying through the lane, coming
off a pick around the corner of the baseline, stopping
up and firing a three. And he did everything. And
after a game we would say, couple of years, well
(07:01):
this kid is really how could can this kid be?
And that answer, of course was answered by we only
know what happened in Maryland. We all think about what
could have been with the Boston Celtics for many, many years,
and how he could have turned that franchise around, and
I think we all close our eyes and say, what
(07:21):
you would have been great to watch Lynn Bias and
Michael Jordan go head to head year after year after year.
But I think it was his athleticism, his speed, his gracefulness,
his focus, and you could just see on the guy's
face nothing scaredy. He could handle any kind of a situation.
(07:45):
And I think as he continued to progress up the ladder,
the more confidence he got, and his junior and senior year,
I would imagine it's probably off the meter that he
felt he was maybe the best player in America, and
at that particular point he was on the way to
becoming the best player in the country.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Did he ever give you the impression that he felt
he was that good he was? Was his humility taking
over his Oh no, I think I think it was.
If it was, it was underscored. I don't think he
outwardly ever boasted about, Hey, I'm the best, I'm this,
I'm that he was. He wasn't that kind of a
kid at all. Let's talk about your perspective calling games.
(08:27):
You've seen all these games. I mean, it's hard to
find anyone who can put all this in perspective games
you've seen of Len compared to other players. Let's let's
remember h I think it was his senior year against Virginia,
the Olden Polones situation when uh the crowd at Cole
he I think either he blocked Olden shot or something
(08:48):
happened and and the crowds going. One half of Colesfield
House is saying Len. The other other half of call
Field has a yelling bias. It's Len biased Len bias.
Do you remember that incident against Virginia?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Nope?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Okay, how do you remember that? I know I've heard
about it.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I know I've been trying to find But I like
the way you describe that, though I have no recollection.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Maybe maybe Richard and Johnny and maybe Johnny, I'm right
there with you.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
I don't remember it, but these guys are younger, so
I have.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
The guy played one hundred and thirty one games. I
have no recollection of that.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Well, how about the Carolina game? You were in Dean
Dome when he had this is his marquee game, when
he had the thirty four points or so and at
the end of the thirty five Okay, So what try
to describe that experience living through that and seeing that happen.
Anything that that you can recall from that time that
(09:49):
really is that really captures the moment? A lot a
lot has already been said about it. But is there
anything else do you think you can add to that?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Well, that's the first loss they had Dean Dome for
North Carolina overtime game, thirty five points. He won eleven
of eleven at the line. If I recall, in that
particular game, it was overtime and that was the game.
Even though he had thirty five points in Maryland, won
that game in overtime. That's the that's the famous Kenny
(10:19):
Smith thing with Gatlin bounces the ball. That was the
thing people were talking about. But for him to win
down there against probably in the eyes of so many people,
the best team of the country, North Carolina, Uh, that
was incredible. But he also had a pretty good supporting
cast arounding as well. It wasn't just len bias. If
(10:42):
you shut down one guy, you got to contend with
the other guys, and he had some pretty good players
in that team was pretty good.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
He had a good game that game too. Yeah, he
had a good get.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
A good game that game. Yeah. So, but I remember
in that game the fact that the Carolina fans are funny,
and I hate to use the word, I'm going to
use the word. They're kind of like front runners. You know,
when things are going well, they're really going good, and
when things aren't going so good, the big hitters sit
down close to the floor and they got the you know,
(11:12):
the little thing for the glasses and drinks and everything.
They're big, and they were vacant. They started that. People
started to leave it in a game like that, and
Greg and I said, what are you are you kidding me?
What are they what are they doing? I mean, that's
their prerogative to do that. But he silenced a lot
of critics in that particular game. And you know something,
when you talk about Lynn's scoring, I think he only
(11:35):
scored thirty points or more, maybe seven times, six or
seven times in his four years a Maryland what he
averaged twenty something points a game, But each year it
went from seven points as a freshman to eleven to seventeen.
It kept on going up and up and up. And
I think that was one of those games that you know,
(11:55):
you sit back and you say, boy, this kid, I
think he had four you won that year the senior
year against Duke something like that. But it was it
was a game. It's certainly a game to remember, no
question about that.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Is there one game situation that you think stands out
to you in Len's career that he did that you
sit back and that's Lent Have you ever thought about
that or is there one thing you can pinpoint?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
No, the only thing I thought about was every time
I saw him play. It's not that he did something different,
but he did most things consistently. I love the way
he could take off at the top of the key,
at the top of the foul line and just soar
through the air and slam the ball through with one hand.
(12:45):
And he can also as easy as as Don Marcus
could do in his younger days. He could take it
over his head, you know, slam it through. Yeah, I
mean the guy. The guy had so much athleticism, and
that's why there was nobody quite like len Bias, even
though Jordan was spectacular. But I think len Bias caught
(13:08):
the eyes and the attention of everybody in the country
because he was so well rounded he was. I don't
think he had any deficiencies at all. He was a
good defensive player as well. But anytime he went flying
through the air, I think that's what caught our eye
to hear this guy looks like he's just you know,
he's like fifteen feet off the floor soaring through the
air to slam the ball through the net. And that's
(13:31):
what impressed me most about.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Him, by the way, I think don can do that
on a seven foot basket correct on today, back for done,
do you consider of all the well you started working
with Maryland basketball and what you're seventy eight, seventy nine
it was correct? Yeah, do you consider him the best
player you've seen while you've been working Maryland games?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I would say it's tough. It's tough to put in
perspective something like that, because Dixon was pretty good, Basquez
was pretty good, Joe Smith was pretty good, Steve Francis
was pretty good, Steve Blake, I mean, Lottie Baxter, all
these guys I hate, like the Dickens to put anybody
and say this is the best I've ever seen, because
(14:18):
I've seen so many of them, But certainly to be
the number three all time score like he is, behind
Dixon and behind Besquez, that says something like that for
him right there. But also if you look at his
other numbers, if the game's played and his rebounding was outstanding,
his free throw shooting was outstanding, there were there weren't
a lot of deficiencies in his game, but I would
(14:40):
have to I'd probably see in the top ten that
I saw play would be Lynn Bias.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, okay, let's let's go to uh, his death and
the impact on the university. Oh yeah, that's that's a
different topic, different different mood. Uh you go back to
the death and immediate aftermath. You actually you sang. Was
it his memorial service or in the at the funeral
in the church, which at the chapel, at the chapel chapel. Yeah,
(15:07):
tell me about that experience and how that happened.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Uh. His mom asked me if I could sing at
his funeral, and I said, I don't. I don't. I
don't think I could do that. It'd be too emotional,
too difficult to do. And missus Baia said, well, you
do theater, and you sing at theater. It's true. Theater
is one thing, funerals or another thing. And she had
(15:35):
done some research. She knew I'd sang at some other funerals.
And I said, after I thought about it for a while,
I said, you know, this is this, This is quite
an honor to be asked to do something like this
and as emotional as it was going to be, and
it was uh, yeah, I'll try was my response. I'll
(15:59):
try to get through it. And I said, what song
do you want?
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Going to sing?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
The Lord's Prayer? WHOA not an easy song. It's not
the same as a Broadway musical, you know. It's a
little bit more challenging and difficult. So I'm up in
the chapel, up in the top there with the organist,
and as I sang the song to this very day,
I remember thinking about everything, but what I'm looking at
(16:29):
is a casket being rolled down the aisle with the
family just in such an emotional state, following behind the cast.
And I got through the song, and as I looked down,
missus Bias is walking behind the casket and she goes
and that's when it all went to pieces, and I,
(16:52):
you know, I broke down. I got through the song,
though I did it. I did okay, And then I
thought about it and I said, this is this has
really been I'm honored. I'm humbled that she would even
think to ask me to do something like that. And
when I talked to my wife about it, she said, well,
you know something, why are you hesitanting? I said, well,
(17:15):
I'm just the broadcaster for the team, and she said
to me, you know, but you must you must have
made some kind of a connection with Limbia said, his
mom and his dad and his family. For them to
ask you, I wouldn't beat an eye, go ahead and
do it. And that's that's what convinced me.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
What kind of a connection or a relationship did you
have with the family, if any, Did you get to
know them pretty.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Well or no? At that particular time I had. I
would see the mom and dad at a game, and
I would always go over and try to visit with
family members if I could, if I knew where they
were sitting, and always tell them, boy, you've got a
great kid. You have got how proud you must be
of your son. But I did that to all the
players moments, and dads and cousins and brothers who would
(17:59):
come to the game. But I didn't. I didn't really
have a deep relationship with the Bias family at all,
probably more after he died than when he was alive.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
How did that relationship evolve? How close did you get
and what kind of interaction was there and how did
you did you all help each other through the process?
Can you talk of any stories there?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I remember missus Bias came to a game and to
expend on he said her a couple of years ago,
as a matter of fact, and I found out that
she was there and I hadn't seen her, I hadn't
talked with her in years and years since he passed away.
So I went up in the stands and said, missus
bias and she turned around. She said yeah, she said, Johnny,
(18:45):
how are you? And just speaking to her and knowing
what she had gone through gets you really kind of
on edge of becoming emotionally drained, if you can understand that.
And here I was talking to her, fighting back to tears,
knowing what she had gone through, not once but twice,
(19:06):
losing two sons, and thinking, I just can't imagine what
this woman and her husband have gone through no way.
And what struck me at that point was how positive
she was and how it's okay. You can go one
(19:26):
of two ways. You can collapse and fold it up
and become hibernation and do nothing, but you can take
the situation and try to resolve it and make it
better for young people and let them understand the dangers
of drugs, which she continues to do today. And then
I've seen her a couple of other times. We did
(19:47):
a thing Xpinity Center one night with a bunch of
former players, and with the Keith Booth and with Walt Williams,
and with the Missus Bias talking about Lynn and recalling
stories about Lynn and she it was such a positive
attitude and is making to this very day a major
impact on young and old all around the country on
(20:11):
the dangers of drugs. And I think, as she has
said many many times, Lynn Bias has been gone longer
than he was alive. It'll be what thirty six years
coming up pretty soon that he passed away, and he's
probably bigger now in depth than he was in life.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
What do you think drives her frame of mind and
her mindset to be that way. I know she's a
very spiritual person, and I'm guessing from my perspective that's
what has a lot to do with it. From your perspective,
what allows her to be able to be so composed
and so focused and so driven in that regard.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I think, deep down inside it's probably like any mother
who's lost his son cocaine intoxication of Don Bias's death,
and any parent who's lost a child wants to help
other parents and make sure they don't go through the
same thing that she's gone through and if you can
(21:14):
help save one kid, then you've really done your job.
And I think she's driven by his memory number one,
and then she's driven by the fact that how dangerous
drugs can be. And I think that's why she does
what she does. I did an interview with her, I
(21:37):
don't know, maybe a couple six weeks ago, and I
didn't want to touch on certain things for fear it
to bring up it'd be too emotional for her. But
I asked her, I said, remember, was the last time
you saw them? And she said the last time I
saw him was before he went up to New York
(21:57):
to be drafted by the Boston Celtics the seventeenth of June,
and her husband James went with him. She did not
go to New York and they came back, and then
he went to another event in New York the next
day and she didn't go with him, and she said,
(22:18):
the next time I saw him, he was lying dead
on a slab at Leland Memorial Hospital. And that'll get
your attention real quick a comment like that, and I
did ask her. I said, why do you continue to
do what you're doing? And I think her answer was
wouldn't you, and I probably would. I probably would do
(22:41):
exactly the same thing she's doing to spread the dangers
of kids trying drugs. And I think the thing that
she points out, as good an athlete as he was,
as dynamic a player, as charismatic as he was, as
well rounded, as chiseled as he was, it's still a
human being and you make a mistake, and he did
(23:04):
and it cost him his life. So, no matter what
the stature of a person may be, a young person,
don't think that you know you're indestructible, which a lot
of kids feel today. Oh I can do this. I'm
going to get away with that. It's not going to
get me. Blah blah blah. I've been doing this for
a long One spend of the dice and it comes
up the wrong numbers. Oh you're gone. And that's what
(23:26):
happened to my son. I thought that was a great explanation.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And the impact of his death on the University Ethtic
Department start with that. What you saw We write about
a lot in the book how it affected Dick dol Lefty,
Bobby Ross. The restructuring of the program is so much there.
What did you see? Give us your impressions, how you
saw it evolve, what was most impactful, if you can
put that all in perspective.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
I was doing sports in WMAO and I got to
call a little after seven o'clock from a guy who says,
I'm at legal in the More hospital. They just brought
a Len Bias in. We think he suffered a heart attack.
He said, what at twenty two years old a heart attack?
So my boss said, get in the car, go out
to the hospital. On the way to the hospital, I
(24:15):
got a call Len Bias has died. Go to Maryland.
The thing to this very day that strikes me is
when I walked in the hallway at Colefield House, down
the hallway and saw the faces of Dick Doe and
left the Drizsel and Chancellor John Slaughter. It was it
(24:37):
was like zombies walking expressionless, pale. You could almost hear
a pin drop, with people just in total shock that
this cannot be happening. And the end result it cost
a lot of people their jobs, Lefty, Tick Doe, Chancellor.
(25:03):
It was very, very tough, and for many many years,
more years than it should have been, they were always
under a microscope of Lynn Bias's death. Casting a shadow
of the University of Maryland. We're down at wake Forest
getting ready to play a game, and Gary and I
got to do the interview pregame interview, and I'm sitting
there William going to cross the way? Is the ESPN people.
(25:27):
They're doing the tees for the telecast. In the tees
they start off by saying, well, tonight, it's Maryland at
wake Forest, Marylands still trying to bounce back from that
tragic death of Now this is years after Gary said
hold on a second, got up and went all the
way across. It's hey, guys, let's change that intro. We're
(25:51):
not bouncing. We have bounced back. Okay, that's nineteen eighty six.
This is whatever it was, nineteen ninety eight or two thousand, whatever,
Let's get off. He was living and justifiably saw the
visions have left you at the press conference announcing after
(26:12):
they gave him the token job of being an assistant
athletic director or whatever it was that they gave him
for what the amount of time he sent after len
Bias died, and to see him walking out of cole
Fieldhouse with his arms around his wife and daughters, and
that was that was a sad moment to see right
(26:32):
there and then going to Lefty's house and talking with
him and realizing that a coach can't police a person,
a player twenty four hours a day. You can't be
with him twenty four hours a day. Yet he was
the scapegoat along with the athletic director of the president.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, I think Johnny, it comes down a lot to
lend Len was a twenty two year old young adult.
He made a bad decision and left. He took a
lot of brunt Lefty's standard comment and I understand that
you can't watch these guys twenty four hours a day.
You can say this, They're going to make mistakes. So
I understand what you're saying that. I remember I saw
I went to I don't know why. I forgot why
I was there, but I went to visit Lefty when
(27:13):
he was in that position. It's just an ad and
we're walking through the concourse of Colefield House, and you
know when we Lefty would walk around. He walks with
a confident strut and.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
He's John Wayne, John Wayne, Yeah, John Wayne. Oh.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
He was walking. He was walking slowly, his shoulders were
slumped a little bit. I mean it was a different
man as you saw Lefty after that. Did you see
that evolution from him? He came out of it, obviously?
Did you see that evolution of him?
Speaker 4 (27:47):
I did?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I did. I remember going to his house and we
did an interview at his house after he had press
for the press conference, and how he had you know,
he was always full of energy, no energy, and I
just felt so bad for him for what he had
gone through. And he I think he understood that. He
felt the same way. He knew that I felt for him.
(28:11):
And he always said he said that day, he said
as much as a year ago. Another interview I did
a coach about Leonard, Leonard as he always called him.
Leonard was like a son to me, like a sun
to me. And I think I think today probably very
(28:33):
few days go by they didn't. He didn't think about
len bias and what could have been.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I'm gonna have a couple more questions about his legacy
than I'll open it up to Don and Rich. Uh.
How did did the way the athletic department reacted uh
to Len's death and the university? Did that affect how
you could do your job at all? Did it affect
how anything?
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I don't I don't think so. I felt. I felt
as bad as anybody. I can't even remember what the
next broadcast would have been. It would have been football
in September because he passed away in June, or the
first basketball game we did. But I would imagine it
was like everybody else, very emotional, very emotional, and hard
(29:15):
to believe something like that could have happened. And I
think the worst thing of always seeing the people that affected,
who threw no fault of their own this took place. Uh,
they weren't there at two o'clock in the morning, at
three o'clock in the morning, whatever, this thing took place,
and they took the brunt of it, which is unfortunate.
(29:36):
But Maryland has moved on, thank goodness, and they've you know,
Lynn will go on the Hall of Fame and Left.
He's in the Hall of fame and and deservedly so.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Speaking of the Hall of fame, why do you think
it took so long for him to get into the
hall of fame in Maryland?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
For coach z l no for left, for Lent, for Lynn.
I don't know what. I don't know what the voter
think about, to be honest with you, I mean his
numbers spoke for themselves. I would probably think that what
happened the way that he passed away had something to
do with it, although I don't know it did. I
don't think anybody, you know, maybe Marcus would know more
(30:13):
about that than I do.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Well. I talked to some of the board members, if
from a who were involved in that decision over the years,
and their reason was there voting members of the m
club on the board for that committee, who were uncomfortable
still for so many years, how lens death affected the university.
So that was and there, and there was a clause
(30:37):
in the in the criteria if you have caused any
disrepute to the university, disrepute you could be it could
affect your nominations.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
So they were young, they could be shut out. Yeah, sure, sure,
well that's you know, that's their prerogative to do something
like that. But how long are you going to abide
by something like that? Do you eventually have to move on?
Are you're going to be stuck in time and stuck
back in nineteen eighty six and not make any changes
that maybe on a positive nature. So I think finally
(31:15):
when they realized, okay, the statute of limitations is up
the years have passed. Maybe it's a new group of
people on that board now, which I would imagine there is,
and they see things totally different than the old school
guys did, and they're no longer making decisions. And that's
why I think he could be in the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Do you remember when you first started hearing that he
was going to be inducted in when he was inducted
in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
I do not know.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Okay, let's talk about Bob Wade. You saw it was
a tough, tough experience for Bob, tough for the players. Yeah.
What are your recollections of Bob Wade being there, how
the program had to try to adjust to him, and
how it affected the program his tenure there.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Well, Coach Wade and I never had any problems. Well,
we did have one problem. We did have one. Remember
one time, and I guess it was North Carolina or
North Carolina State. He asked Greg Manning and I to
come in the locker room. We want to talk to us.
So we went in there and Coach says, somebody told
(32:25):
me that you said on the radio such and such
and such and such, And I said, yeah, yeah, see
exactly what we said. I think it was to deal
with something like free throws. That Maryland had missed maybe
nine of twelve free throws and they lost by two,
(32:46):
and we said, had they made the free throws, that
they probably won this game. So Greg pipes up and
Greg says, you know, coach, this is early in the seat.
We're on your side. Okay, we're on your side, and
we're not going to hammer you. We're not going to
take shots at you. But we do a pretty honest broadcast.
(33:06):
Sure everybody knows that we're the Maryland broadcasters. We want
Maryland to win every single game, but if the other
team is doing well, you can't ignore that. I'd be
the same. And Marcus is doing the story. You gotta
write what you got, what you're seeing, or elult you
lose any time kind of credibil and coach, Oh no, no, no,
(33:27):
I'm just I said, well, I think Greg got that
jumped in and said, you know, if we want to
bury you, we're going to bury you, coach. Okay, but
we're not going to do that. From that point on,
we had no problems whatsoever. He was as cooperative, he
was as nice, and I would love to see him
come back to a game sometime. He still hasn't come
back to watch any games. And I was in Baltimore
(33:50):
for an event a few years ago and he was
in the audience and we got to talk afterwards and said,
why don't you come to a game? Nah, you know
I don't. I said, Coach, you're gone many many you're
going back in the eighties. This is twenty eighteen nineteen.
Come to a game. They would love to say. He's
an icon in Baltimore still to this very day. And boy,
(34:13):
he could coach at Dunbar too. He could coach. I
remember one of the best wins he ever had was
down in Atlanta. It must have been the ACC tournament
when he went to the hospital after the game and
they kept him over atnight and beat They won that game.
They came back to win that game. He didn't have
a he didn't have a lot of good teams outside
(34:34):
of the Lynn Bias team and Lynn senior year, but
he could coach. I think Coach was a little bit
leary of the media a little bit, and so I
sat down with him one day and I said, you
can either take this for what it's worth or you
can forget it, coach, But I said, the media guys
(34:56):
are here to do the job, do the best job
they can. And if they take if they write something
that's going to be hurtful to you, that's their prerogative.
But they're being honest in their job. It's a very
tough job to do, and if you've got a problem
with a guy, then you got to work it out
because they can They can make you and they can
(35:19):
break you the written line, the spoken word. So you're
going to have to learn how to get along with
the media. It's a big this is a big time program.
It's not done by high school anymore. And uh so
I gave him a list of guys. I said, here's
here's the guys that I like. Here's the guys I
know you can trust. There's a couple of guys that
(35:40):
I'm not really crazy about, but that's that's my prerogative, right.
Marcus was not in that group, of course, he was
in the other group. And and he said, oh really,
I said, yeah, so you like you like these fifteen guys,
I said, you know, I like all these guys and
they're good. They're really good. Okay, Now, whether I helped
(36:03):
his relationship with the media. I have no idea, but
I think I got the point across. You got to
cooperate with it, and he did.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
He did, Don shaking his head though, well, maybe the
marcusy didn't cooperate.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
I can't wait to hear Don's story about this.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
I'll get let him commitment. I'm gonna address something Sue Tyler.
Remember Sue Tyler, the cistin ad at Maryland, a longtime
coach Maryland for many years. She gave us some good
insight here. She said, Bob, almost from the initial day
he would show up, go into his office, and many,
many in the Ethnic department reached out to try to
(36:46):
help him, and he really didn't respond well to that.
He tried to do it on his own, and he
wouldn't sort of come out of his shell.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Did you see that I did not? No, I did?
Speaker 1 (36:56):
I did. I did not.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I I'm not out there every day, so I don't
know what goes on every day. But but as I
said with me, after that first encounter where someone told him,
and I said, hey, I don't like to hear that
someone told you, Uh, you know, when you're listening to
our broadcast or reading a story. Uh, you know, sometimes
what you're reading and hearing isn't exactly what you heard
(37:20):
or read. And so I convinced him. I said, we're
on your side, believe me. And I think from that
point on we had a good relationship. And I hope
that you know, someday soon you'll come to a game
at Maryland And I said, coach, when you walk in
that when you walk in that building, uh, there's going
to be a lot of people that are happy to
see you come back. You know, you were you were
(37:42):
in a very tough situation to take over for coach
Brizelle and then not having a lot of success winning games,
and you know, and then Gary came in and picked
it up and went on with it, and the rest
is history.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
I'll open it up to rich and don don you
want to start with.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Some or no? I mean, uh no, he he he he.
He didn't trust not only the meeting, he didn't trust
anybody really, aside from I used to remember Woody Williams,
his assistant coach.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Well what what he was the guy that told him right?
Speaker 4 (38:20):
So I I used to call Woody. I used to
call him Schultze from Hogan's heroes because I asked him
what he what he you know, what was going on?
And basically his answer was I know nothing. So so anyway,
but but but by the way, the game you referred
to when they beat NC State in the in the tournament,
(38:43):
that was the last game and he got and he
went to the hospital. That was the last game he
ever coached at Maryland. Because that's right after I got fired,
and I remember talking to Tony Massenberg thought, oh, here
we go again. You know somebody they thought he was
going to die of a heart attack. That they was
blood press ye, blood, you know, blood pressure went up
too high. The the when when Maryland went through this
(39:10):
again with Jordan McNair a couple of years ago, when
when the football player Jordan McNair died, how much did
it bring back memories of what they went through with
bias or it was biased? His death completely different on
a different level because of.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
I think, completely different on they're on a football field,
a lot of people are around, a lot of trainers,
a lot of advisors, a lot of strength and conditioning people.
Uh So that was a whole different story compared with Lynn,
who is just with his circle of friends at two
thirty in the morning, totally different. I think and feel
(39:49):
very tragic.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
Yeah, And talking about Lefty, do you do you think
of all the people at Maryland, Dick Dull, doctor Slaughter,
the people who lost their jobs because of the legacy
that left he already had. Do you think that it
impacted him his career and his reputation more than anybody.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
I'm not sure. Don I know that when he went
to Georgia went to James Madison, and the funny story
about him coaching at James Madison when they were doing
television games. He asked if I could do the game
and I said, sure, I can do the game home
team Sports. I think we're doing the games, and how
(40:44):
about can you get Greg to be the analyst? And
I said, yeah, so Greg and I did. I think
we did eight games and they won all eight games
at James Madison. And then the first game that that
they lost with Greg and I do in the game,
that was the last.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Game we did, and he had somebody else. And then
he winds up at Georgia State and Greg Manny is
his boss. Come full circle. You coach the guy.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Now you're you know, you're answering the guy. Uh, I
know how much he loved Maryland, but but I think
he rebounded nicely, had a couple of good coaching jobs.
But I tell you, we were in uh in Atlanta
for the tournament and he's coaching at Georgia State. And
(41:34):
I see him up in the stands, and if I
hadn't talked to coach since he left, since he left
James Madison, and so I sent a young guy up
there to ask him to come on at halftime with us.
And the kid comes back and he said, Coach says, no,
after what Maryland did to him, he's not going to
come on half time.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
No.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
I said, okay, did you did you tell him? Go
back and tell him it's for Johnny. I'll so you're enough.
He showed up and it was I wish I'd saved
that interview. If I can only dig that thing up.
It was emotional, it was nice, he didn't he didn't
have any shots in Maryland and takety she shot out
(42:19):
of him. It was just a good interview and how
much people, how happy people were to see him coaching
again at Georgia State. And then we tend to find
out we're going to you know, in the same tournament
bracket with Georgia State out and where Spokane or somewhere
like that. I don't.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Boise, I think, no, I'm yeah, I'm good. Uh, let's
go ahead. And by the way, it's six feet six
feet baskets. I could not seven.
Speaker 5 (42:49):
Yeah, forward and backward, yeah, and not backward. But just well,
you know you've got time. Yeah, you keep working at it.
One after another, A day of great interview, you asked,
and Johnny, I appreciate your answer where it started off
about Lambying a good kid. You know, That's one of
the things I wanted to ask you about, was just,
(43:10):
you know, your impression of him as a person, more
so than as a player. And I think he answered that.
But if there's anything you might have left or that
comes back after about him as a person, I'd love
to hear that.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
I think rich the first, when I first heard about
the hospitalization, the heart attack, and then day by day
things would start coming out, I found it very hard
to believe that he would do something like that, very
hard to believe because he struck me as not being
the type because of his potential in the NBA. He
(43:49):
was a basketball player. He was always in good shape,
I couldn't imagine someone like him even taking a chance,
but he did. And that was the thing that struck
me out him because I never ever saw him in
the light of doing something like that in that particular
situation two o'clock in the morning. I would have never
(44:10):
imagined that, because in my mind he was just a
great college student athlete and who had a magnificent future,
wonderful personality, nice, kind, congenial and to this very day
I shake my head saying what could have been if
(44:30):
he would have if he hadn't done that.
Speaker 5 (44:35):
I agree one hundred percent with that perspective. I felt
exactly the same from him being around him as a
student reporter and then working at Channel seven and covering
the team doing the Left for Gazelle Show and being
part of that, being part.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Of yours wor Channel seven. Let's let's make that clear.
Speaker 5 (44:54):
Well, her Zog's not on right now, so I'll go
with it. You're my new agent. But you know that
perspective of him as a young man who did grow up.
I remember as a freshman, you know, not so much
the point average versus you know, he was chiseled, but
not to the degree that you are or familiar with
(45:16):
or that he became, right, I mean, he really did
become this as one of our former interviews previous interviews
said he was unguardable in practice.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Unguardable in a practice. Yeah, that's a pretty good description. Yeah, yeah, yeah, unguarded.
I'd say that. Well. I think look at some of
the games he had, he was unguardable when he was
playing at games too.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Jordan, you alluded to that just a bit.
Speaker 5 (45:45):
If we could think about what you did see between
them as rivals, and then let's just imagine for a
minute if it had all worked out with the Celtics,
what you could imagine it would have been in the NBA.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Well, the Jordan and Bias games, even though Michael left
early to go to the NBA. I think if you
take a look at the box scores, they were maybe
Len Bias had better numbers in most of the games
than than Jordan did. I mean, I can't swear for that,
(46:23):
because I haven't got all the box scores in front
of me. Uh. I think probably Jordan did things in
a more spectacular fashion with the windmill stuff and the
flying through the air. But but Lin was Lin was
getting there. He was he was making his own mark
and and he was getting to the exact level that
Jordan would have would have was at at that particular point.
(46:46):
And then when the Celtics drafted him, I'm thinking, Wow,
this is going to be championship after championship after championship.
And it reminded me a little bit of when when
Rick Barry went in the NBA with the San Francisco Warriors,
became the MVP Rookie of the Year in his first year,
(47:07):
MVP of the All Star Game, scoring thirty five points
to thirty six points in the All Star Game. It
brought back visions of Brick and I'm seeing lend Bias
possibly doing the same thing. That will never know what
he could have done, but it would it would It
would have made the Boston Celtics franchise as dominant as
they were, even more so as the years went on
(47:30):
and on.
Speaker 5 (47:31):
You've worked with two people that are tied to lend
Bias in different ways, Greg Manning. Obviously, do you have
any recollections of talking about Len or or anything from
Greg's point of view as you were joined at the
hip for all those years.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Uh, you know, Greg would be a good interview for
you guys to do, because he can tell you from
this perspective what he saw. I think the thing that
we both saw was just how grace he was, how
he just did things so effortlessly. When he was running
up and down the court, it looked like he was
hardly putting anything into it. When he was rebounding and
(48:12):
getting the ball out and streaking down the floor and
getting the hide pass alley oop and slamming it through
with one hand, if he was pulling up and taking
a jumper, it was just we're watching a human highlight
film here with this guy, night after night after night.
And that's the thing that sticks I think with me
the most, about how he impressed me with his overall
(48:34):
skill to do everything well, not well, everything above average
as a basketball player.
Speaker 5 (48:42):
Now you're partnered with the Wizard as we talk about
the university, right, moving through right, what happened with Land
and then then reinvigorating itself, And how do you see
the credit to Walt Williams his perspective. He grew up,
he loved Land, he rooted for Land right. He wanted
to stay at home, and he clearly had an understanding
(49:06):
even as a young man about to some degree the
importance of what he was doing and eventually what he
has done well.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
As Gary Williams has said over and over again, he
saved the program. He could have very easily transferred somewhere
else the schools on probation. He grew up Crossland High School,
always wanted to come to Maryland. He idolized Len Biased,
as did so many other young players coming up, and
he decides to stick it out at Maryland. And people
(49:39):
may have forgotten the fact he never went to the
NCAA tournament because Maryland was on probation, so he could
never gain whatever. All these other guys and Lynn went
to the NCAA tournament four times and twice to the
sweet sixteen when he played. So what Walt did for
this program is and I agree with Gary Williams, well,
(50:01):
he saved it. And he became a revered player at Maryland,
one of the all time greats. And as much as
Greg and I love watching Len Bias play and what
Lynn could do as an individual, Lynn Bias never had
the streak that Walt Williams had with those seven consecutive,
(50:21):
eight consecutive games. It was a seven or eight down
on one of the two where he scored thirty points
or more. Yeah, thirty points or more. And that's that's
pretty tough to nobody's done that sense. Nobody scored that
many points in those consecutive games. Like Walt Williams. He
(50:43):
was the same kind he is the same kind of personal.
Lynn was, big smile, wonderful personality, willing to do anything
for anybody at any time, and to this very day
deserves to have that forty two up there in the
raptors at expe thirty.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
Center, Johnny, as any good producer would know, you mentioned
an hour, and we're coming up on an hour. So
I'll ask you what I think is the last question,
and that is when you look up in the rafters,
which I know you from time to time do, and
you see all those greats hanging up, but more often
you see jerseys of an end bias, probably more than
(51:20):
any other athlete that's ever played at the University of
Maryland that comes back through.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
What does that.
Speaker 5 (51:26):
Invoke in you when you see not only the great
recognition above, but also that continually surrounds, whether it be
Walt or other young people or even fans that are
still there today.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
I think it shows that basketball fans appreciate what a
guy's done for a school. And I think even though
the years have gone by in nineteen eighty six when
he passed away, and they continue to roll by a
year after year, his greatness will never be forgotten. What
he did from Maryland's basketball program put him on the map,
gave them national recognition, and I think people appreciate that.
(52:03):
And it's a whole new ballgame now, a whole new
generation of fans. I've got grandkids that never heard Len Bias,
and then they go to YouTube and watch video highlights
and they say, 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.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
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 Bias in the back of
their jersey.
Speaker 6 (52:37):
Len Bias A mixed Legacy. The interviews was produced by
Daveon Grady and Don Marcus. He ate it all wrong
quick and he was so len Bias A mixed legacy.
It's distributed by the eight Side Network.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
For Greatness of Loss.
Speaker 4 (52:55):
So let you know the all other memories, remember me
I hope,
For more than forty years, Johnny Holliday has been the
broadcast voice of University of Maryland football and basketball. Few,
if any, have seen or heard as much about Terp's
athletics as Holiday, and that includes the death and legacy
of Len Bias. Holiday had a rare view of Len's death.
(00:24):
He has had a front row seat for the struggles, challenges,
and triumphs experienced by Maryland athletics that follow This is
Davon Grady, executive producer of the podcast series Len Bias
A Mixed Legacy. In this raw interview with Holiday, he
offers a unique perspective of the before, during, and after
(00:48):
of the death of Bias. Holiday is interviewed by me
and Don Marcus, another producer of the podcast series, Paul,
what you remember most about Lenn as a person? A
few people have been in this athletic department as long
as you have as a broadcaster, You've seen a lot
(01:10):
of athletes come through. Put his personality as a person
in perspective compared to other athletes, and then we'll talk
about his basketball.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
My recollections of Lynn was, what a nice kid. He
was a soft spoken, down to earth as down to
earth as you could be before you became a superstar,
of course. And I remember going to Northwestern High School
the day he signed is a letter of intent to
(01:44):
come to the University of Maryland and sitting and talking
with him and realizing that, well, this kid's very shy.
His kid's are very quiet. This kid's not going to
be a very good interview. He didn't say anything at all.
He was very very and what he had to say, Man,
I can understand that when you're a high school senior,
you're not going to be over the top. But in
(02:07):
the four years that I saw him and I watched
him play and grow, not only as a basketball player,
but as a just as a kid, he just kept
growing and growing mature wise, maturity wise, and became really
one of the best interviews on the team that I
(02:27):
recall from those days, always with a smile, always with
a nice word. Hello, mister Holliday. How are you just
the nicest, nicest, sweetest kid when he was grown up.
That's what I remember the most about Lamb.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
When you talk about him being one of the best
interviews during that time, was it because of the way
he respected and interacted with you, or some of the
things that he would say, I think it's.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Probably because he started off not bad, but he wasn't
very good because he didn't say anything. I remember the
first year of the first couple of interviews we did
with him, it was like a lot of yes and
no answers, and even sometimes nodding of his head, and
I would stop the recorder to remindle him that this
(03:17):
is rate you're going to have to talk. They can't
see you nodding your head and big smile. Oh okay, okay.
And like all young players, when you stick a microphone
in front of them, they moved back, and I kept
moving in and he'd move back, and I'd move in
(03:38):
and he'd moved back, and it got to be a he.
As I mentioned, he got to be one of the
best interviews, and he was guarded in what he had
to say, because you're not going to throw your teammates
under the bus, and you're not going to throw the
coaches under the bus. But he was always fun to
talk to, always fun to be around.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Was he more of a Was he a practical joker
at all time, at any time compared to Whistle's on
that team. Was he reserved in that way? Was he
someone who would just get up and want to be
the center of attention in your mind, or he would
stay behind and just sort of react.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
As far as practical joker is concerned, I wasn't on
the endside with the team, so I don't know. You know,
when you're with your teammates, you're one way. When you're
with the with the media, you're another way. When you're
with me, the broadcaster for the team, there probably another way.
I probably had better access to him than a lot
of people did because I was with him all the time,
(04:33):
and I think he trusted me and what I had
to say about him and about his teammates, and I
think that opens up the door quite a bit for
a kid to become comfortable with you when he's doing interviews.
But as far as a joker, I don't know about that,
but I know that he was always accessible. He was
never I don't think he ever turned out an interview
(04:55):
that I asked for, And a lot of times I'd
want to get him on, but I couldn't get him
on every single game, even though he was the guy
on that basketball team, not the freshman year, because he
was the backup when he came into Maryland as a
freshman and did not start. Mark Fothergill was the guy
that started. So but as he continued to get better
and better, everybody wanted to have him on with him
(05:17):
and I couldn't do that to him, and I didn't
want to do it to the rest of the players,
and I wanted the rest of the players to get
equal time along with Lenn Bias. But he was He
was a great interviewer.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Let's talk about him as a basketball player. You saw
him evolve. You had a perspective if you had, I
imagine you were practices, you were on trips. You saw
him evolve as a player. What did you see in practice?
When you say, okay, I'm really seeing a difference here,
what did in games? I'm really seeing a difference here.
Over the course of his career. Any little stories that
you saw that really showed flashes of his athletic basketball
(05:51):
brilliance and as.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
He evolved, Well, everybody talks about what a good score
he was, but I think lost in the shuffle was
how athletic he was, what a rebounder he was, and
how even though he would get you fifteen or twenty
points a game, he set everybody else up and he
(06:16):
had great passing ability, he had tremendous speed. If you
looked at him, the first word that comes to mind
for Len Bias is chiseled. He was chiseled. I don't
think there was an ounce of fat like myself on
his body. I mean, this guy, this guy was dynamite.
(06:38):
And Greg Manning was doing the games with me in
those days, and he would continually amaze Greg and I
with some of his moves, flying through the lane, coming
off a pick around the corner of the baseline, stopping
up and firing a three. And he did everything. And
after a game we would say, couple of years, well
(07:01):
this kid is really how could can this kid be?
And that answer, of course was answered by we only
know what happened in Maryland. We all think about what
could have been with the Boston Celtics for many, many years,
and how he could have turned that franchise around, and
I think we all close our eyes and say, what
(07:21):
you would have been great to watch Lynn Bias and
Michael Jordan go head to head year after year after year.
But I think it was his athleticism, his speed, his gracefulness,
his focus, and you could just see on the guy's
face nothing scaredy. He could handle any kind of a situation.
(07:45):
And I think as he continued to progress up the ladder,
the more confidence he got, and his junior and senior year,
I would imagine it's probably off the meter that he
felt he was maybe the best player in America, and
at that particular point he was on the way to
becoming the best player in the country.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Did he ever give you the impression that he felt
he was that good he was? Was his humility taking
over his Oh no, I think I think it was.
If it was, it was underscored. I don't think he
outwardly ever boasted about, Hey, I'm the best, I'm this,
I'm that he was. He wasn't that kind of a
kid at all. Let's talk about your perspective calling games.
(08:27):
You've seen all these games. I mean, it's hard to
find anyone who can put all this in perspective games
you've seen of Len compared to other players. Let's let's
remember h I think it was his senior year against Virginia,
the Olden Polones situation when uh the crowd at Cole
he I think either he blocked Olden shot or something
(08:48):
happened and and the crowds going. One half of Colesfield
House is saying Len. The other other half of call
Field has a yelling bias. It's Len biased Len bias.
Do you remember that incident against Virginia?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Nope?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Okay, how do you remember that? I know I've heard
about it.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I know I've been trying to find But I like
the way you describe that, though I have no recollection.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Maybe maybe Richard and Johnny and maybe Johnny, I'm right
there with you.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
I don't remember it, but these guys are younger, so
I have.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
The guy played one hundred and thirty one games. I
have no recollection of that.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Well, how about the Carolina game? You were in Dean
Dome when he had this is his marquee game, when
he had the thirty four points or so and at
the end of the thirty five Okay, So what try
to describe that experience living through that and seeing that happen.
Anything that that you can recall from that time that
(09:49):
really is that really captures the moment? A lot a
lot has already been said about it. But is there
anything else do you think you can add to that?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Well, that's the first loss they had Dean Dome for
North Carolina overtime game, thirty five points. He won eleven
of eleven at the line. If I recall, in that
particular game, it was overtime and that was the game.
Even though he had thirty five points in Maryland, won
that game in overtime. That's the that's the famous Kenny
(10:19):
Smith thing with Gatlin bounces the ball. That was the
thing people were talking about. But for him to win
down there against probably in the eyes of so many people,
the best team of the country, North Carolina, Uh, that
was incredible. But he also had a pretty good supporting
cast arounding as well. It wasn't just len bias. If
(10:42):
you shut down one guy, you got to contend with
the other guys, and he had some pretty good players
in that team was pretty good.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
He had a good game that game too. Yeah, he
had a good get.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
A good game that game. Yeah. So, but I remember
in that game the fact that the Carolina fans are funny,
and I hate to use the word, I'm going to
use the word. They're kind of like front runners. You know,
when things are going well, they're really going good, and
when things aren't going so good, the big hitters sit
down close to the floor and they got the you know,
(11:12):
the little thing for the glasses and drinks and everything.
They're big, and they were vacant. They started that. People
started to leave it in a game like that, and
Greg and I said, what are you are you kidding me?
What are they what are they doing? I mean, that's
their prerogative to do that. But he silenced a lot
of critics in that particular game. And you know something,
when you talk about Lynn's scoring, I think he only
(11:35):
scored thirty points or more, maybe seven times, six or
seven times in his four years a Maryland what he
averaged twenty something points a game, But each year it
went from seven points as a freshman to eleven to seventeen.
It kept on going up and up and up. And
I think that was one of those games that you know,
(11:55):
you sit back and you say, boy, this kid, I
think he had four you won that year the senior
year against Duke something like that. But it was it
was a game. It's certainly a game to remember, no
question about that.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Is there one game situation that you think stands out
to you in Len's career that he did that you
sit back and that's Lent Have you ever thought about
that or is there one thing you can pinpoint?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
No, the only thing I thought about was every time
I saw him play. It's not that he did something different,
but he did most things consistently. I love the way
he could take off at the top of the key,
at the top of the foul line and just soar
through the air and slam the ball through with one hand.
(12:45):
And he can also as easy as as Don Marcus
could do in his younger days. He could take it
over his head, you know, slam it through. Yeah, I
mean the guy. The guy had so much athleticism, and
that's why there was nobody quite like len Bias, even
though Jordan was spectacular. But I think len Bias caught
(13:08):
the eyes and the attention of everybody in the country
because he was so well rounded he was. I don't
think he had any deficiencies at all. He was a
good defensive player as well. But anytime he went flying
through the air, I think that's what caught our eye
to hear this guy looks like he's just you know,
he's like fifteen feet off the floor soaring through the
air to slam the ball through the net. And that's
(13:31):
what impressed me most about.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Him, by the way, I think don can do that
on a seven foot basket correct on today, back for done,
do you consider of all the well you started working
with Maryland basketball and what you're seventy eight, seventy nine
it was correct? Yeah, do you consider him the best
player you've seen while you've been working Maryland games?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I would say it's tough. It's tough to put in
perspective something like that, because Dixon was pretty good, Basquez
was pretty good, Joe Smith was pretty good, Steve Francis
was pretty good, Steve Blake, I mean, Lottie Baxter, all
these guys I hate, like the Dickens to put anybody
and say this is the best I've ever seen, because
(14:18):
I've seen so many of them, But certainly to be
the number three all time score like he is, behind
Dixon and behind Besquez, that says something like that for
him right there. But also if you look at his
other numbers, if the game's played and his rebounding was outstanding,
his free throw shooting was outstanding, there were there weren't
a lot of deficiencies in his game, but I would
(14:40):
have to I'd probably see in the top ten that
I saw play would be Lynn Bias.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, okay, let's let's go to uh, his death and
the impact on the university. Oh yeah, that's that's a
different topic, different different mood. Uh you go back to
the death and immediate aftermath. You actually you sang. Was
it his memorial service or in the at the funeral
in the church, which at the chapel, at the chapel chapel. Yeah,
(15:07):
tell me about that experience and how that happened.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Uh. His mom asked me if I could sing at
his funeral, and I said, I don't. I don't. I
don't think I could do that. It'd be too emotional,
too difficult to do. And missus Baia said, well, you
do theater, and you sing at theater. It's true. Theater
is one thing, funerals or another thing. And she had
(15:35):
done some research. She knew I'd sang at some other funerals.
And I said, after I thought about it for a while,
I said, you know, this is this, This is quite
an honor to be asked to do something like this
and as emotional as it was going to be, and
it was uh, yeah, I'll try was my response. I'll
(15:59):
try to get through it. And I said, what song
do you want?
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Going to sing?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
The Lord's Prayer? WHOA not an easy song. It's not
the same as a Broadway musical, you know. It's a
little bit more challenging and difficult. So I'm up in
the chapel, up in the top there with the organist,
and as I sang the song to this very day,
I remember thinking about everything, but what I'm looking at
(16:29):
is a casket being rolled down the aisle with the
family just in such an emotional state, following behind the cast.
And I got through the song, and as I looked down,
missus Bias is walking behind the casket and she goes
and that's when it all went to pieces, and I,
(16:52):
you know, I broke down. I got through the song,
though I did it. I did okay, And then I
thought about it and I said, this is this has
really been I'm honored. I'm humbled that she would even
think to ask me to do something like that. And
when I talked to my wife about it, she said, well,
you know something, why are you hesitanting? I said, well,
(17:15):
I'm just the broadcaster for the team, and she said
to me, you know, but you must you must have
made some kind of a connection with Limbia said, his
mom and his dad and his family. For them to
ask you, I wouldn't beat an eye, go ahead and
do it. And that's that's what convinced me.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
What kind of a connection or a relationship did you
have with the family, if any, Did you get to
know them pretty.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Well or no? At that particular time I had. I
would see the mom and dad at a game, and
I would always go over and try to visit with
family members if I could, if I knew where they
were sitting, and always tell them, boy, you've got a
great kid. You have got how proud you must be
of your son. But I did that to all the
players moments, and dads and cousins and brothers who would
(17:59):
come to the game. But I didn't. I didn't really
have a deep relationship with the Bias family at all,
probably more after he died than when he was alive.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
How did that relationship evolve? How close did you get
and what kind of interaction was there and how did
you did you all help each other through the process?
Can you talk of any stories there?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I remember missus Bias came to a game and to
expend on he said her a couple of years ago,
as a matter of fact, and I found out that
she was there and I hadn't seen her, I hadn't
talked with her in years and years since he passed away.
So I went up in the stands and said, missus
bias and she turned around. She said yeah, she said, Johnny,
(18:45):
how are you? And just speaking to her and knowing
what she had gone through gets you really kind of
on edge of becoming emotionally drained, if you can understand that.
And here I was talking to her, fighting back to tears,
knowing what she had gone through, not once but twice,
(19:06):
losing two sons, and thinking, I just can't imagine what
this woman and her husband have gone through no way.
And what struck me at that point was how positive
she was and how it's okay. You can go one
(19:26):
of two ways. You can collapse and fold it up
and become hibernation and do nothing, but you can take
the situation and try to resolve it and make it
better for young people and let them understand the dangers
of drugs, which she continues to do today. And then
I've seen her a couple of other times. We did
(19:47):
a thing Xpinity Center one night with a bunch of
former players, and with the Keith Booth and with Walt Williams,
and with the Missus Bias talking about Lynn and recalling
stories about Lynn and she it was such a positive
attitude and is making to this very day a major
impact on young and old all around the country on
(20:11):
the dangers of drugs. And I think, as she has
said many many times, Lynn Bias has been gone longer
than he was alive. It'll be what thirty six years
coming up pretty soon that he passed away, and he's
probably bigger now in depth than he was in life.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
What do you think drives her frame of mind and
her mindset to be that way. I know she's a
very spiritual person, and I'm guessing from my perspective that's
what has a lot to do with it. From your perspective,
what allows her to be able to be so composed
and so focused and so driven in that regard.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I think, deep down inside it's probably like any mother
who's lost his son cocaine intoxication of Don Bias's death,
and any parent who's lost a child wants to help
other parents and make sure they don't go through the
same thing that she's gone through and if you can
(21:14):
help save one kid, then you've really done your job.
And I think she's driven by his memory number one,
and then she's driven by the fact that how dangerous
drugs can be. And I think that's why she does
what she does. I did an interview with her, I
(21:37):
don't know, maybe a couple six weeks ago, and I
didn't want to touch on certain things for fear it
to bring up it'd be too emotional for her. But
I asked her, I said, remember, was the last time
you saw them? And she said the last time I
saw him was before he went up to New York
(21:57):
to be drafted by the Boston Celtics the seventeenth of June,
and her husband James went with him. She did not
go to New York and they came back, and then
he went to another event in New York the next
day and she didn't go with him, and she said,
(22:18):
the next time I saw him, he was lying dead
on a slab at Leland Memorial Hospital. And that'll get
your attention real quick a comment like that, and I
did ask her. I said, why do you continue to
do what you're doing? And I think her answer was
wouldn't you, and I probably would. I probably would do
(22:41):
exactly the same thing she's doing to spread the dangers
of kids trying drugs. And I think the thing that
she points out, as good an athlete as he was,
as dynamic a player, as charismatic as he was, as
well rounded, as chiseled as he was, it's still a
human being and you make a mistake, and he did
(23:04):
and it cost him his life. So, no matter what
the stature of a person may be, a young person,
don't think that you know you're indestructible, which a lot
of kids feel today. Oh I can do this. I'm
going to get away with that. It's not going to
get me. Blah blah blah. I've been doing this for
a long One spend of the dice and it comes
up the wrong numbers. Oh you're gone. And that's what
(23:26):
happened to my son. I thought that was a great explanation.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And the impact of his death on the University Ethtic
Department start with that. What you saw We write about
a lot in the book how it affected Dick dol Lefty,
Bobby Ross. The restructuring of the program is so much there.
What did you see? Give us your impressions, how you
saw it evolve, what was most impactful, if you can
put that all in perspective.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
I was doing sports in WMAO and I got to
call a little after seven o'clock from a guy who says,
I'm at legal in the More hospital. They just brought
a Len Bias in. We think he suffered a heart attack.
He said, what at twenty two years old a heart attack?
So my boss said, get in the car, go out
to the hospital. On the way to the hospital, I
(24:15):
got a call Len Bias has died. Go to Maryland.
The thing to this very day that strikes me is
when I walked in the hallway at Colefield House, down
the hallway and saw the faces of Dick Doe and
left the Drizsel and Chancellor John Slaughter. It was it
(24:37):
was like zombies walking expressionless, pale. You could almost hear
a pin drop, with people just in total shock that
this cannot be happening. And the end result it cost
a lot of people their jobs, Lefty, Tick Doe, Chancellor.
(25:03):
It was very, very tough, and for many many years,
more years than it should have been, they were always
under a microscope of Lynn Bias's death. Casting a shadow
of the University of Maryland. We're down at wake Forest
getting ready to play a game, and Gary and I
got to do the interview pregame interview, and I'm sitting
there William going to cross the way? Is the ESPN people.
(25:27):
They're doing the tees for the telecast. In the tees
they start off by saying, well, tonight, it's Maryland at
wake Forest, Marylands still trying to bounce back from that
tragic death of Now this is years after Gary said
hold on a second, got up and went all the
way across. It's hey, guys, let's change that intro. We're
(25:51):
not bouncing. We have bounced back. Okay, that's nineteen eighty six.
This is whatever it was, nineteen ninety eight or two thousand, whatever,
Let's get off. He was living and justifiably saw the
visions have left you at the press conference announcing after
(26:12):
they gave him the token job of being an assistant
athletic director or whatever it was that they gave him
for what the amount of time he sent after len
Bias died, and to see him walking out of cole
Fieldhouse with his arms around his wife and daughters, and
that was that was a sad moment to see right
(26:32):
there and then going to Lefty's house and talking with
him and realizing that a coach can't police a person,
a player twenty four hours a day. You can't be
with him twenty four hours a day. Yet he was
the scapegoat along with the athletic director of the president.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, I think Johnny, it comes down a lot to
lend Len was a twenty two year old young adult.
He made a bad decision and left. He took a
lot of brunt Lefty's standard comment and I understand that
you can't watch these guys twenty four hours a day.
You can say this, They're going to make mistakes. So
I understand what you're saying that. I remember I saw
I went to I don't know why. I forgot why
I was there, but I went to visit Lefty when
(27:13):
he was in that position. It's just an ad and
we're walking through the concourse of Colefield House, and you
know when we Lefty would walk around. He walks with
a confident strut and.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
He's John Wayne, John Wayne, Yeah, John Wayne. Oh.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
He was walking. He was walking slowly, his shoulders were
slumped a little bit. I mean it was a different
man as you saw Lefty after that. Did you see
that evolution from him? He came out of it, obviously?
Did you see that evolution of him?
Speaker 4 (27:47):
I did?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I did. I remember going to his house and we
did an interview at his house after he had press
for the press conference, and how he had you know,
he was always full of energy, no energy, and I
just felt so bad for him for what he had
gone through. And he I think he understood that. He
felt the same way. He knew that I felt for him.
(28:11):
And he always said he said that day, he said
as much as a year ago. Another interview I did
a coach about Leonard, Leonard as he always called him.
Leonard was like a son to me, like a sun
to me. And I think I think today probably very
(28:33):
few days go by they didn't. He didn't think about
len bias and what could have been.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I'm gonna have a couple more questions about his legacy
than I'll open it up to Don and Rich. Uh.
How did did the way the athletic department reacted uh
to Len's death and the university? Did that affect how
you could do your job at all? Did it affect
how anything?
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I don't I don't think so. I felt. I felt
as bad as anybody. I can't even remember what the
next broadcast would have been. It would have been football
in September because he passed away in June, or the
first basketball game we did. But I would imagine it
was like everybody else, very emotional, very emotional, and hard
(29:15):
to believe something like that could have happened. And I
think the worst thing of always seeing the people that affected,
who threw no fault of their own this took place. Uh,
they weren't there at two o'clock in the morning, at
three o'clock in the morning, whatever, this thing took place,
and they took the brunt of it, which is unfortunate.
(29:36):
But Maryland has moved on, thank goodness, and they've you know,
Lynn will go on the Hall of Fame and Left.
He's in the Hall of fame and and deservedly so.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Speaking of the Hall of fame, why do you think
it took so long for him to get into the
hall of fame in Maryland?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
For coach z l no for left, for Lent, for Lynn.
I don't know what. I don't know what the voter
think about, to be honest with you, I mean his
numbers spoke for themselves. I would probably think that what
happened the way that he passed away had something to
do with it, although I don't know it did. I
don't think anybody, you know, maybe Marcus would know more
(30:13):
about that than I do.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Well. I talked to some of the board members, if
from a who were involved in that decision over the years,
and their reason was there voting members of the m
club on the board for that committee, who were uncomfortable
still for so many years, how lens death affected the university.
So that was and there, and there was a clause
(30:37):
in the in the criteria if you have caused any
disrepute to the university, disrepute you could be it could
affect your nominations.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
So they were young, they could be shut out. Yeah, sure, sure,
well that's you know, that's their prerogative to do something
like that. But how long are you going to abide
by something like that? Do you eventually have to move on?
Are you're going to be stuck in time and stuck
back in nineteen eighty six and not make any changes
that maybe on a positive nature. So I think finally
(31:15):
when they realized, okay, the statute of limitations is up
the years have passed. Maybe it's a new group of
people on that board now, which I would imagine there is,
and they see things totally different than the old school
guys did, and they're no longer making decisions. And that's
why I think he could be in the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Do you remember when you first started hearing that he
was going to be inducted in when he was inducted
in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
I do not know.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Okay, let's talk about Bob Wade. You saw it was
a tough, tough experience for Bob, tough for the players. Yeah.
What are your recollections of Bob Wade being there, how
the program had to try to adjust to him, and
how it affected the program his tenure there.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Well, Coach Wade and I never had any problems. Well,
we did have one problem. We did have one. Remember
one time, and I guess it was North Carolina or
North Carolina State. He asked Greg Manning and I to
come in the locker room. We want to talk to us.
So we went in there and Coach says, somebody told
(32:25):
me that you said on the radio such and such
and such and such, And I said, yeah, yeah, see
exactly what we said. I think it was to deal
with something like free throws. That Maryland had missed maybe
nine of twelve free throws and they lost by two,
(32:46):
and we said, had they made the free throws, that
they probably won this game. So Greg pipes up and
Greg says, you know, coach, this is early in the seat.
We're on your side. Okay, we're on your side, and
we're not going to hammer you. We're not going to
take shots at you. But we do a pretty honest broadcast.
(33:06):
Sure everybody knows that we're the Maryland broadcasters. We want
Maryland to win every single game, but if the other
team is doing well, you can't ignore that. I'd be
the same. And Marcus is doing the story. You gotta
write what you got, what you're seeing, or elult you
lose any time kind of credibil and coach, Oh no, no, no,
(33:27):
I'm just I said, well, I think Greg got that
jumped in and said, you know, if we want to
bury you, we're going to bury you, coach. Okay, but
we're not going to do that. From that point on,
we had no problems whatsoever. He was as cooperative, he
was as nice, and I would love to see him
come back to a game sometime. He still hasn't come
back to watch any games. And I was in Baltimore
(33:50):
for an event a few years ago and he was
in the audience and we got to talk afterwards and said,
why don't you come to a game? Nah, you know
I don't. I said, Coach, you're gone many many you're
going back in the eighties. This is twenty eighteen nineteen.
Come to a game. They would love to say. He's
an icon in Baltimore still to this very day. And boy,
(34:13):
he could coach at Dunbar too. He could coach. I
remember one of the best wins he ever had was
down in Atlanta. It must have been the ACC tournament
when he went to the hospital after the game and
they kept him over atnight and beat They won that game.
They came back to win that game. He didn't have
a he didn't have a lot of good teams outside
(34:34):
of the Lynn Bias team and Lynn senior year, but
he could coach. I think Coach was a little bit
leary of the media a little bit, and so I
sat down with him one day and I said, you
can either take this for what it's worth or you
can forget it, coach, But I said, the media guys
(34:56):
are here to do the job, do the best job
they can. And if they take if they write something
that's going to be hurtful to you, that's their prerogative.
But they're being honest in their job. It's a very
tough job to do, and if you've got a problem
with a guy, then you got to work it out
because they can They can make you and they can
(35:19):
break you the written line, the spoken word. So you're
going to have to learn how to get along with
the media. It's a big this is a big time program.
It's not done by high school anymore. And uh so
I gave him a list of guys. I said, here's
here's the guys that I like. Here's the guys I
know you can trust. There's a couple of guys that
(35:40):
I'm not really crazy about, but that's that's my prerogative, right.
Marcus was not in that group, of course, he was
in the other group. And and he said, oh really,
I said, yeah, so you like you like these fifteen guys,
I said, you know, I like all these guys and
they're good. They're really good. Okay, Now, whether I helped
(36:03):
his relationship with the media. I have no idea, but
I think I got the point across. You got to
cooperate with it, and he did.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
He did, Don shaking his head though, well, maybe the
marcusy didn't cooperate.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
I can't wait to hear Don's story about this.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
I'll get let him commitment. I'm gonna address something Sue Tyler.
Remember Sue Tyler, the cistin ad at Maryland, a longtime
coach Maryland for many years. She gave us some good
insight here. She said, Bob, almost from the initial day
he would show up, go into his office, and many,
many in the Ethnic department reached out to try to
(36:46):
help him, and he really didn't respond well to that.
He tried to do it on his own, and he
wouldn't sort of come out of his shell.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Did you see that I did not? No, I did?
Speaker 1 (36:56):
I did. I did not.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I I'm not out there every day, so I don't
know what goes on every day. But but as I
said with me, after that first encounter where someone told him,
and I said, hey, I don't like to hear that
someone told you, Uh, you know, when you're listening to
our broadcast or reading a story. Uh, you know, sometimes
what you're reading and hearing isn't exactly what you heard
(37:20):
or read. And so I convinced him. I said, we're
on your side, believe me. And I think from that
point on we had a good relationship. And I hope
that you know, someday soon you'll come to a game
at Maryland And I said, coach, when you walk in
that when you walk in that building, uh, there's going
to be a lot of people that are happy to
see you come back. You know, you were you were
(37:42):
in a very tough situation to take over for coach
Brizelle and then not having a lot of success winning games,
and you know, and then Gary came in and picked
it up and went on with it, and the rest
is history.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
I'll open it up to rich and don don you
want to start with.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Some or no? I mean, uh no, he he he he.
He didn't trust not only the meeting, he didn't trust
anybody really, aside from I used to remember Woody Williams,
his assistant coach.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Well what what he was the guy that told him right?
Speaker 4 (38:20):
So I I used to call Woody. I used to
call him Schultze from Hogan's heroes because I asked him
what he what he you know, what was going on?
And basically his answer was I know nothing. So so anyway,
but but but by the way, the game you referred
to when they beat NC State in the in the tournament,
(38:43):
that was the last game and he got and he
went to the hospital. That was the last game he
ever coached at Maryland. Because that's right after I got fired,
and I remember talking to Tony Massenberg thought, oh, here
we go again. You know somebody they thought he was
going to die of a heart attack. That they was
blood press ye, blood, you know, blood pressure went up
too high. The the when when Maryland went through this
(39:10):
again with Jordan McNair a couple of years ago, when
when the football player Jordan McNair died, how much did
it bring back memories of what they went through with
bias or it was biased? His death completely different on
a different level because of.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
I think, completely different on they're on a football field,
a lot of people are around, a lot of trainers,
a lot of advisors, a lot of strength and conditioning people.
Uh So that was a whole different story compared with Lynn,
who is just with his circle of friends at two
thirty in the morning, totally different. I think and feel
(39:49):
very tragic.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
Yeah, And talking about Lefty, do you do you think
of all the people at Maryland, Dick Dull, doctor Slaughter,
the people who lost their jobs because of the legacy
that left he already had. Do you think that it
impacted him his career and his reputation more than anybody.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
I'm not sure. Don I know that when he went
to Georgia went to James Madison, and the funny story
about him coaching at James Madison when they were doing
television games. He asked if I could do the game
and I said, sure, I can do the game home
team Sports. I think we're doing the games, and how
(40:44):
about can you get Greg to be the analyst? And
I said, yeah, so Greg and I did. I think
we did eight games and they won all eight games
at James Madison. And then the first game that that
they lost with Greg and I do in the game,
that was the last.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Game we did, and he had somebody else. And then
he winds up at Georgia State and Greg Manny is
his boss. Come full circle. You coach the guy.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Now you're you know, you're answering the guy. Uh, I
know how much he loved Maryland, but but I think
he rebounded nicely, had a couple of good coaching jobs.
But I tell you, we were in uh in Atlanta
for the tournament and he's coaching at Georgia State. And
(41:34):
I see him up in the stands, and if I
hadn't talked to coach since he left, since he left
James Madison, and so I sent a young guy up
there to ask him to come on at halftime with us.
And the kid comes back and he said, Coach says, no,
after what Maryland did to him, he's not going to
come on half time.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
No.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
I said, okay, did you did you tell him? Go
back and tell him it's for Johnny. I'll so you're enough.
He showed up and it was I wish I'd saved
that interview. If I can only dig that thing up.
It was emotional, it was nice, he didn't he didn't
have any shots in Maryland and takety she shot out
(42:19):
of him. It was just a good interview and how
much people, how happy people were to see him coaching
again at Georgia State. And then we tend to find
out we're going to you know, in the same tournament
bracket with Georgia State out and where Spokane or somewhere
like that. I don't.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Boise, I think, no, I'm yeah, I'm good. Uh, let's
go ahead. And by the way, it's six feet six
feet baskets. I could not seven.
Speaker 5 (42:49):
Yeah, forward and backward, yeah, and not backward. But just well,
you know you've got time. Yeah, you keep working at it.
One after another, A day of great interview, you asked,
and Johnny, I appreciate your answer where it started off
about Lambying a good kid. You know, That's one of
the things I wanted to ask you about, was just,
(43:10):
you know, your impression of him as a person, more
so than as a player. And I think he answered that.
But if there's anything you might have left or that
comes back after about him as a person, I'd love
to hear that.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
I think rich the first, when I first heard about
the hospitalization, the heart attack, and then day by day
things would start coming out, I found it very hard
to believe that he would do something like that, very
hard to believe because he struck me as not being
the type because of his potential in the NBA. He
(43:49):
was a basketball player. He was always in good shape,
I couldn't imagine someone like him even taking a chance,
but he did. And that was the thing that struck
me out him because I never ever saw him in
the light of doing something like that in that particular
situation two o'clock in the morning. I would have never
(44:10):
imagined that, because in my mind he was just a
great college student athlete and who had a magnificent future,
wonderful personality, nice, kind, congenial and to this very day
I shake my head saying what could have been if
(44:30):
he would have if he hadn't done that.
Speaker 5 (44:35):
I agree one hundred percent with that perspective. I felt
exactly the same from him being around him as a
student reporter and then working at Channel seven and covering
the team doing the Left for Gazelle Show and being
part of that, being part.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Of yours wor Channel seven. Let's let's make that clear.
Speaker 5 (44:54):
Well, her Zog's not on right now, so I'll go
with it. You're my new agent. But you know that
perspective of him as a young man who did grow up.
I remember as a freshman, you know, not so much
the point average versus you know, he was chiseled, but
not to the degree that you are or familiar with
(45:16):
or that he became, right, I mean, he really did
become this as one of our former interviews previous interviews
said he was unguardable in practice.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Unguardable in a practice. Yeah, that's a pretty good description. Yeah, yeah, yeah, unguarded.
I'd say that. Well. I think look at some of
the games he had, he was unguardable when he was
playing at games too.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Jordan, you alluded to that just a bit.
Speaker 5 (45:45):
If we could think about what you did see between
them as rivals, and then let's just imagine for a
minute if it had all worked out with the Celtics,
what you could imagine it would have been in the NBA.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Well, the Jordan and Bias games, even though Michael left
early to go to the NBA. I think if you
take a look at the box scores, they were maybe
Len Bias had better numbers in most of the games
than than Jordan did. I mean, I can't swear for that,
(46:23):
because I haven't got all the box scores in front
of me. Uh. I think probably Jordan did things in
a more spectacular fashion with the windmill stuff and the
flying through the air. But but Lin was Lin was
getting there. He was he was making his own mark
and and he was getting to the exact level that
Jordan would have would have was at at that particular point.
(46:46):
And then when the Celtics drafted him, I'm thinking, Wow,
this is going to be championship after championship after championship.
And it reminded me a little bit of when when
Rick Barry went in the NBA with the San Francisco Warriors,
became the MVP Rookie of the Year in his first year,
(47:07):
MVP of the All Star Game, scoring thirty five points
to thirty six points in the All Star Game. It
brought back visions of Brick and I'm seeing lend Bias
possibly doing the same thing. That will never know what
he could have done, but it would it would It
would have made the Boston Celtics franchise as dominant as
they were, even more so as the years went on
(47:30):
and on.
Speaker 5 (47:31):
You've worked with two people that are tied to lend
Bias in different ways, Greg Manning. Obviously, do you have
any recollections of talking about Len or or anything from
Greg's point of view as you were joined at the
hip for all those years.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Uh, you know, Greg would be a good interview for
you guys to do, because he can tell you from
this perspective what he saw. I think the thing that
we both saw was just how grace he was, how
he just did things so effortlessly. When he was running
up and down the court, it looked like he was
hardly putting anything into it. When he was rebounding and
(48:12):
getting the ball out and streaking down the floor and
getting the hide pass alley oop and slamming it through
with one hand, if he was pulling up and taking
a jumper, it was just we're watching a human highlight
film here with this guy, night after night after night.
And that's the thing that sticks I think with me
the most, about how he impressed me with his overall
(48:34):
skill to do everything well, not well, everything above average
as a basketball player.
Speaker 5 (48:42):
Now you're partnered with the Wizard as we talk about
the university, right, moving through right, what happened with Land
and then then reinvigorating itself, And how do you see
the credit to Walt Williams his perspective. He grew up,
he loved Land, he rooted for Land right. He wanted
to stay at home, and he clearly had an understanding
(49:06):
even as a young man about to some degree the
importance of what he was doing and eventually what he
has done well.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
As Gary Williams has said over and over again, he
saved the program. He could have very easily transferred somewhere
else the schools on probation. He grew up Crossland High School,
always wanted to come to Maryland. He idolized Len Biased,
as did so many other young players coming up, and
he decides to stick it out at Maryland. And people
(49:39):
may have forgotten the fact he never went to the
NCAA tournament because Maryland was on probation, so he could
never gain whatever. All these other guys and Lynn went
to the NCAA tournament four times and twice to the
sweet sixteen when he played. So what Walt did for
this program is and I agree with Gary Williams, well,
(50:01):
he saved it. And he became a revered player at Maryland,
one of the all time greats. And as much as
Greg and I love watching Len Bias play and what
Lynn could do as an individual, Lynn Bias never had
the streak that Walt Williams had with those seven consecutive,
(50:21):
eight consecutive games. It was a seven or eight down
on one of the two where he scored thirty points
or more. Yeah, thirty points or more. And that's that's
pretty tough to nobody's done that sense. Nobody scored that
many points in those consecutive games. Like Walt Williams. He
(50:43):
was the same kind he is the same kind of personal.
Lynn was, big smile, wonderful personality, willing to do anything
for anybody at any time, and to this very day
deserves to have that forty two up there in the
raptors at expe thirty.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
Center, Johnny, as any good producer would know, you mentioned
an hour, and we're coming up on an hour. So
I'll ask you what I think is the last question,
and that is when you look up in the rafters,
which I know you from time to time do, and
you see all those greats hanging up, but more often
you see jerseys of an end bias, probably more than
(51:20):
any other athlete that's ever played at the University of
Maryland that comes back through.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
What does that.
Speaker 5 (51:26):
Invoke in you when you see not only the great
recognition above, but also that continually surrounds, whether it be
Walt or other young people or even fans that are
still there today.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
I think it shows that basketball fans appreciate what a
guy's done for a school. And I think even though
the years have gone by in nineteen eighty six when
he passed away, and they continue to roll by a
year after year, his greatness will never be forgotten. What
he did from Maryland's basketball program put him on the map,
gave them national recognition, and I think people appreciate that.
(52:03):
And it's a whole new ballgame now, a whole new
generation of fans. I've got grandkids that never heard Len Bias,
and then they go to YouTube and watch video highlights
and they say, 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.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
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 Bias in the back of
their jersey.
Speaker 6 (52:37):
Len Bias A mixed Legacy. The interviews was produced by
Daveon Grady and Don Marcus. He ate it all wrong
quick and he was so len Bias A mixed legacy.
It's distributed by the eight Side Network.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
For Greatness of Loss.
Speaker 4 (52:55):
So let you know the all other memories, remember me
I hope,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!