Nearly Year After Len Bias’ Death, Some Lives Are Changed

Lonise Bias stares at the rows of faces, young faces she has seen in hundreds of high school audiences in the 12 months since her son passed from All-American to American tragedy.

She explodes in a burst of evangelistic fervor.

“I am on a mission from God!” she shouts.

It is a mission, she explains, to rescue America’s children from the drugs that took her son, and from the lack of self-esteem and love she sees at the core of the problem.

“The greatest love of all is the love you have for yourself,” she says, paraphrasing a popular song.

The crusade by this former assistant bank manager began shortly after last June 19, when Len Bias, an All-American forward made the second pick in the National Basketball Assn.’s 1986 draft by the Boston Celtics, died in a cocaine-induced seizure.

The talk Lonise Bias gives this night at Northwestern High School, Len’s alma mater, is similar to the 25 she delivers monthly around the country.

“But Mrs. Bias,” she shouts, imitating critics. “If you know all the answers, why couldn’t you save your own son?”

Again, the pause. Again, the explosion.

“I know Len Bias was part of a plan,” she says. “Here was the No. 2 player going to the No. 1 team. What better way to get attention?

“Len Bias had to go!”

In the year since Bias died, the dangers of drugs have become a national chant. Cities stage “Say No to Drugs” days. Television networks play similar messages in prime time.

Four months before Bias’ death, 2% of the people questioned by The Gallup Poll picked drug abuse as the most important national problem. A month after his death it rose to 8%. This April, it was 11%.

This month has been hard for Lonise Bias. The recent trial of Brian Tribble, who was acquitted of providing Bias with drugs, included testimony that Bias was a frequent user who supplied others.

“It’s been a year since my baby’s been dead, and people are wondering how I am standing with the things that are going on,” she said. “But I’m fine. God has given me divine strength.”

She is not discouraged by publicity given drug use by such athletes as guards Mitchell Wiggins and Lewis Lloyd of the Houston Rockets and pitcher Dwight Gooden of the New York Mets, or by the cocaine-related deaths of defensive back Don Rogers of the Cleveland Browns and basketball star Hernell (Jeep) Jackson of the University of Texas El Paso.

Just as she is convinced that her son had to die to show the problems of drug abuse, Bias believes these cases are a reminder the problem still exists.

“There is no progress or change without struggle,” she said.

Charles (Lefty) Driesell’s new office at the University of Maryland’s Cole Field House is a cramped rectangle of ersatz wood paneling between offices for women’s volleyball and men’s soccer.

Basketball coach at Maryland for 17 years and a powerful figure in the Atlantic Coast Conference, Driesell resigned in the uproar over Bias’ death. Now, as assistant athletic director, he oversees public relations, promotion and sales.

Last season was the first in three decades that Driesell was not on the sideline.

“I missed it, sure,” he said. “You don’t do something 31 years and don’t miss it.”

There have been offers and rumors of offers. But at 55, Driesell says he isn’t in any hurry to move. “It would have to be the right job,” he said. “I don’t necessarily have to coach to fulfill my ego.”

Driesell defers questions about Bias’ use of drugs, about supervision of a player who after four years of college was 21 credits short of graduation. But he does say he hopes something of value will come from his star player’s death.

“I think it woke up not just the drug users but the general public to the fact that drug abuse is a big problem in our society,” he said. “Now there’s youngsters who think if it killed Leonard Bias, who was a great physical specimen . . . “

And he will talk about Bias, whom he calls “the greatest athlete I’ve coached.”

“Sometimes I can’t hardly believe that Leonard is gone,” he said.

In Driesell’s former offices, Bob Wade is rebuilding Maryland’s tattered basketball program.

A successful high school coach in Baltimore, Wade came to Maryland with seven previous starters ineligible or under suspension. His team consisted of two freshmen, two sophomores and a junior.

The team won no ACC games but finished with a 9-17 record.

“I was very, very proud of them,” he said. “They wanted to show people they could compete regardless of what had happened in the past.”

The past was hard for players to put behind them, Wade said.

“The first few weeks of class there was constant talking behind their backs, little groups making slurs like, ‘That’s one of those basketball players, you know, the drug addicts,’ ” he said.

But the scorn gave way to admiration for the team’s determination.

“I think a lot of the team made an oath within themselves,” he said. “They wanted to do well for Lenny.”

John Slaughter, chancellor of the university, calls the last year “a very, very intense and unenjoyable period.”

The death of Bias made the school the focus of debate on the excesses of college sports. Ironically, Maryland was not a big offender. The school has graduated basketball players at a rate slightly higher than the average for male students.

Yet Bias’ death brought change. Driesell and Athletic Director Dick Dull resigned. The school instituted tough admission and eligibility standards, including the requirement that seniors have a 2.0 grade-point average to play.

Ask Red Auerbach if Len Bias was really that good, and the Celtic president closes his eyes and nods.

“He was a hell of a player,” he said softly. “Six-foot-eight with the speed of a backcourt man. Jump out of sight. Good touch. Very good competitor.”

Auerbach believes the big power forward would have made the Celtics’ run to another NBA Eastern Conference title a lot easier. The team made it through the season with injury after injury and an aging club.

“If we’d had Len Bias, we would have been a much better ballclub,” Auerbach said. “He was a good kid. A hell of a kid.”

But down on the floor of Boston Garden, Larry Bird had a different opinion when asked what might have been with Bias in Celtic green.

“I really don’t know,” he said. “You can sit here and think about it, but if he was on drugs, and obviously he was, he could have destroyed our whole team.”