Thursday Throwback: Len Bias Draft Tragedy

As Bill Simmons astutely observed in a 2001 ESPN.com article, 1986 was a time when Michael Jackson did not yet look like an alien, Gretzky and the Magic/Bird combination were the kings of sport, kids were playing Atari, and, most importantly, Ronald Reagan had his hand on the button.

However, not all was blue jeans and apple pie in the sports world of America. In fact, professional basketball lost one of its most promising young talents, and the NCAA embarrassed itself with a precedent that is virtually unattainable.

With the NBA draft this evening, I came upon a sad story that requires as much social commentary as it does sports commentary.

Lenny Bias may not be a household name for my generation (or those younger than me) as my peers and I were merely infants at the time of his death. However, to mature college basketball fans at the time, Bias was going to challenge the second year player by the name of Jordan and continue the dynasty in Boston by becoming the fourth leg of the Bird-McHale-Parish triumphant trio that had just produced yet another championship banner in the Boston Garden the previous season.

He had raw skills that resembled a more powerful James Worthy capable of jumping with anyone in the league even that young MJ in Chicago. He naturally played with a playground swagger before the affront that is the current player who plays with nothing but brash arrogance rather than the cool confidence Bias oozed.

But in the end the bottom line, Bias overdosed on cocaine. Less than 48 hours after the biggest day of his life when he was drafted as the #2 overall pick in the NBA Draft, who was going to the defending champions where he would eventually take over the reins from Bird and continue the Boston glory, Bias was dead and the bright star had his future snuffed out prematurely. While sad, we must garner what lessons can be learned from such a tragedy.

First, there is an even larger lack of leadership in the athletic community at all levels today than in 1986. Far too many coaches, like Lefty Driesell, are far too quick to cover up the transgressions of the star athletes rather than hold them to a higher standard as extraordinarily talented people who dominate an illuminated public stage (see John Calipari/Derrick Rose).

As a high school coach I see this, on a lesser scale, far too often. Those in a position of leadership for the young men in our country often take the easy way out of disciplining their players. Opting instead to make excuses for the superstars. Just as Driesell directed teammates to hide the drugs in Bias’s room on Maryland’s campus, a coach at the high school level may lie to the team regarding the reasoning behind a player’s absence from a team workout or attempt to bully a faculty member to inflate a grade or overlook a disciplinary action.

Coaches are supposed to set the example, not allow inexcusable behavior to fester.

This being said, the NCAA’s laughable knee-jerk reaction in 1986 deserves tough scrutiny as well. The NCAA had no need to level any sanctions against the Maryland Terrapin basketball program, much less, come within a step of issuing the dreaded “death penalty”, reminiscent of the SMU football scandals that was based on actual NCAA violations.

The public scrutiny of the admissions process and academic oversights would have been enough to modify processes by the individual institution, such as the ability of the admissions department to view and hand down judgments on transcripts for athletes before they were able to sign a letter of intent (Nakamura and Asher, Washington Post 1996). Rash decisions, and punishments made by governing bodies are very rarely wise ones. The NCAA condemnation of Maryland was no different.

The final lesson to be garnered from such a tragic turn of the sports world is one of the disintegration of the black family. Even as we as a country embark on a new era of governance under the governance of an executive branch led for the first time by a person with a black skin color, the average black family is stuck in a rut of social decay and poverty.

Undeniably, even to the Democratic New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, it can be traced back to the policies of government put in place by The War on Poverty program under the Lyndon Johnson presidency.

These same federal interventionist policies are now trying to be grown exponentially by President Obama’s administration. They can be expected to have the same outcome, where black families are not encouraged to pursue self improvement under their own hard work and determination. Instead, the same types of excuses that are made by today’s coaching profession lead to further socially deviant behavior and prejudice by those trying to lead lives in the American spirit of freedom and self-improvement.

While this is neither the forum nor time to directly address these issues, it must at least promote the thought and discussion of matters such as drug abuse and the seemingly continuous cycle of poverty that enshrines the American black family.

In the end, as we watch the NBA draft tonight, we must stand up and address the issues addressed above with the memory of such a tragic event in the forefront of our thoughts.

A league so dominated by pseudo-father figures of coaches from AAU teams to the NBA, to the sports world governing bodies led by Myles Brand and David Stern, as well as the current political climate and policies that affect so many athletic supernovas not so unlike those of the dimmed glow of Len Bias and his tragic death.

Heisman

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