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Speaker 1: Raised six.

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Speaker 2: Okay, Welcome to Len bias A Mixed Legacy. The Interviews

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Speaker 2: June nineteenth, March thirty seven years from the death of

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Speaker 2: former University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias. He died

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Speaker 2: of a heart failure following a cocaine overdose. Born Ready

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Speaker 2: A Mixed Legacy is a sixteen episode podcast series that

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Speaker 2: captures the rich and compelling legacy of Bias, who many

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Speaker 2: consider to have been comparable to the superb talents of

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Speaker 2: Michael Jordan. In this episode of the Interviews, we relive

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Speaker 2: the immediate reaction of his death by some of those

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Speaker 2: very close to Bias. They include his mother, Lenise Bias,

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Speaker 2: as well as his teammates Jeff Baxter and Derrick Lewis.

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Speaker 2: To start, here's Linise Bias.

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Speaker 3: It's ivon if you won't believe us. But I never

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Speaker 3: got to see him before he died. I didn't know

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Speaker 3: I was out, and when I had gotten back, and

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Speaker 3: when I had come back home, they said he had

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Speaker 3: just laughed. And I's always teasing about long like. I

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Speaker 3: said that long like.

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Speaker 4: Rappel could have waited for me.

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Speaker 3: And then you know, we went on and you know,

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Speaker 3: they said all he said, he's going to be back tomorrow,

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Speaker 3: and you know, we're gonna do this, that, and the other.

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Speaker 5: We're laying there in bed on June nineteenth and a

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Speaker 5: call comes and I can What I remember clearly about

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Speaker 5: that morning is that the room was filled with so

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Speaker 5: much sunlight till it was almost like your eyes watered

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Speaker 5: when you opened your eyes. The sun was so bright.

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Speaker 5: And uh. It was early in the morning, about six thirty.

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Speaker 5: The phone rang and it was someone saying that Lynn

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Speaker 5: was sick. He's at the hospital. I said what, and

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Speaker 5: so I told my husband he said what, And we

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Speaker 5: got up and we went to the hospital. We got

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Speaker 5: there and I saw the players outside crying and torn up,

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Speaker 5: and media all over the place, and I was saying, well,

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Speaker 5: what's going on. And when we got in, they said

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Speaker 5: that Lenn had gotten sick, something that happened to him.

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Speaker 5: And I asked the the nurse. She said, we have

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Speaker 5: him on life support. I said, well, is he breathing

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Speaker 5: on his own? She said no. I said, is his

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Speaker 5: heart beating? And she said no. And it was one

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Speaker 5: other thing I asked. I said, well, he's gone and

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Speaker 5: she said no, he's not gone. The doctor isn't here yet.

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Speaker 5: And in my spirit. I felt what I actually went through,

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Speaker 5: what I had been thinking all of that time, what

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Speaker 5: was in my spirit, It wouldn't happen. So it was

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Speaker 5: almost a sense of not a relief, but a release.

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Speaker 5: And he gave the official declaration, if you will, that

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Speaker 5: he's gone. And then everything fell, the pieces, everything, everything

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Speaker 5: went crazy. And we went in and we looked at

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Speaker 5: him and lying there and my husband, Uh torn up,

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Speaker 5: just torn to pieces. And God had given me a

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Speaker 5: strength to stand there to look and to rub his

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Speaker 5: head and to get home. And then when we were done,

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Speaker 5: we got home, everybody was tore up from the floor.

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Speaker 5: I mean people were coming from everywhere crying. People could

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Speaker 5: not believe it. I mean when I got home, people

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Speaker 5: our little house was loaded with people in there, just everywhere.

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Speaker 5: People couldn't believe it. I can remember seeing Adrian's branch,

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Speaker 5: his dad on the front porch when we got there.

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Speaker 5: He was like, what is it true? Is true? Is

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Speaker 5: it true? And then trying to get my children together,

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Speaker 5: Jay and Michelle and people in the house. It was chaotic.

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Speaker 2: Here's Jeff Baxter. He begins recalling being woken up early

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Speaker 2: on June nineteenth by teammate David greg after Bias suffered

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Speaker 2: a seizure.

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Speaker 4: He told me that some come come. Then he fell out.

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Speaker 4: Of course, I'm kind of delirious, not figuring out what

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Speaker 4: he's talking about.

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Speaker 1: So I go, look, he's in the living room, Laius

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Speaker 1: lazy living room. Was unconscious, Yeah, crawled out of the floor.

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Speaker 1: David was kind of like in the background. So he

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Speaker 1: really wasn't right there because I'm looking at him and

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Speaker 1: kneel down, and I'm still looking at her, afraid to

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Speaker 1: touch him, afraid to lean listen to his heart, any

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Speaker 1: of that.

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Speaker 4: Just like right there was he was he breathing at

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Speaker 4: that point, I wasn't breathing as he was unconscious.

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Speaker 1: My whole time when he was unconscious, I was thinking

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Speaker 1: that the necklace, the gold chain he had on his neck,

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Speaker 1: was the cause of it. So I reached and was

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Speaker 1: trying to move the necklace. And as I was actually

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Speaker 1: kind of trying to do that, the paramedics came. There's

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Speaker 1: the weirdest.

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Speaker 4: Thing, you know, Why would I think that at that point?

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Speaker 1: Who knows, but I was thinking of that that that's

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Speaker 1: what the cause was. So weird, Noah, Man, because you know,

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Speaker 1: you think guy he was perfectly salty so always big guns,

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Speaker 1: you know, just perfectly salty didn't need to get me

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Speaker 1: bigger at all. And it was strong, and how could

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Speaker 1: he be laying out on the floor dead. So what

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Speaker 1: I did I immediately once the paramedics, I couldn't find

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Speaker 1: the keys to my car to save my life. I

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Speaker 1: don't know where they were. Sometimes literally dropped my car.

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Speaker 1: I dropped his car, so I always do where his

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Speaker 1: keys were. That's it, hey, Finally, so I grabbed this keys.

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Speaker 1: I jumped in his car and I ran every light.

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Speaker 1: But this is unknown me. This is what I didn't realize.

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Speaker 1: I ran a life to talk. Actually I got near

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Speaker 1: the hospital maybe about eight. I don't even know how.

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Speaker 1: I don't know how I actually got there in the

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Speaker 1: sense of just reading in life. My mind was in

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Speaker 1: a whole different man. I get there. Everything's going on.

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Speaker 1: Teammates there, Keith is in one corner.

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Speaker 4: Just fry. I mean, we're just we're losing. I can't

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Speaker 4: forget what's going on. Rugs.

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Speaker 1: But I'm just saying he was my mindset. I've never

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Speaker 1: seen when he used the drugs, so my mind set

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Speaker 1: was run drugs. So I grabbed David Gregg six ten,

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Speaker 1: six nine sixteen, and I'm grabbed him by his jacket

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Speaker 1: and I pulled him to another part of the houspital

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Speaker 1: at the time, so I asked him he fell out?

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Speaker 4: He found he fell out? He said why. I kept

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Speaker 4: asking what that?

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Speaker 1: So I finally said it it was a drugs and

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Speaker 1: David started falling.

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Speaker 4: I mean he asked him. He screamed, screamed what whaling

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Speaker 4: to squealing And at that point I knew drugs fall

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Speaker 4: but he never told you that.

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Speaker 1: You just knew what from Yeah, he never he never

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Speaker 1: he never really excited, never really excited. He screamed out,

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Speaker 1: but he never verbally sat at all. At that point,

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Speaker 1: I knew it was drugged. And I was just actually

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Speaker 1: dropped to the floor myself, crying, just trying, just crying, trying.

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Speaker 4: To figure this whole thing out.

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Speaker 1: I do remember this biased though, coming out, kind of

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Speaker 1: hugging and consolant, and she's just as calm.

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Speaker 4: It's David Greg just.

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Speaker 1: Us just just hugging and it's going to be all right, rubbing.

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Speaker 4: Everybody or a few are trying to get well.

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Speaker 1: I remember maybe a fear. I don't know if it's everybody.

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Speaker 1: I do know, I do know she was calm as hell. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm very.

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Speaker 4: Knowing how you got to know her pretty well?

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Speaker 1: What I did, I got to know her pretty well.

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Speaker 1: That surprised me, not because of her persona, but it's

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Speaker 1: surprised me because of the event that happened at that point.

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Speaker 1: I don't know how you can can be as calm

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Speaker 1: as she was. Again, not because of her personality. He

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Speaker 1: was like very yeah, a very strong woman. He was actually,

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Speaker 1: uh you know true Matrox out of the family. She

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Speaker 1: controlled that family without a doubt, without a doubt, she

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Speaker 1: was She was the glue.

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Speaker 2: Here's Derek Lewis, a sophomore on the Maryland team. He

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Speaker 2: was walking to class that morning when he found out

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Speaker 2: something had happened to Lenn Bias.

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Speaker 6: It was seven maybe seven twenty seven twenty five, and

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Speaker 6: then someone chased me down.

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Speaker 4: Across the chased me down across the small.

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Speaker 6: And call me to come back. I was like, man,

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Speaker 6: I was like, I believe you though I'm was studying

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Speaker 6: all night for this test. I'm going to go past

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Speaker 6: his test and said, now it say something happened to Linny,

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Speaker 6: So you know, I went back and like, man, what's

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Speaker 6: what happened to hear his leg playing basketball, is what

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Speaker 6: I'm thinking. They said, no, he say he's in the hospital.

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Speaker 6: That wasn't in any hurry to get there, like you know,

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Speaker 6: you know how sprain ankle or something. Oh, I'm gonna

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Speaker 6: rust for that. So I think I remember driving by myself,

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Speaker 6: and when I get there, see there's people walking around

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Speaker 6: looking crazy over over what I thought was a sprain

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Speaker 6: or or an a c L.

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Speaker 4: Tay or something like that.

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Speaker 6: Man his career, it's best bread and these people walking

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Speaker 6: around and I didn't. I didn't know him. So like

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Speaker 6: that day they said, well he's uh, he's not he's

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Speaker 6: not breathing, so he's not that. It's not meaning he's

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Speaker 6: the he's laying down.

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Speaker 4: He would he wouldn't move when they brought him.

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Speaker 6: In here, Jeff talking to Terry or David and saying,

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Speaker 6: you need to tell him. You need to tell him

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Speaker 6: what's wrong, tell what happened. Because Jeff didn't.

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Speaker 4: He said, you need to tell them what happened.

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Speaker 6: You know, I'm still thinking of a c L for me,

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Speaker 6: And uh, yes, I just started to find out. They

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Speaker 6: said he was just unconscious, so I said, that can't

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Speaker 6: be a need. I thought maybe had a harder type

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Speaker 6: of trouble, you know. Then his mom came out and

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Speaker 6: I was sitting in the room there and sparking.

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Speaker 4: She said, he's.

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Speaker 2: Going len Bias A Mixed Legacy. The interviews was produced

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Speaker 2: by Davon Grady and Don Marcus. Clips of Lenise Bias

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Speaker 2: were provided by Howard University. Len Bias A Mixed Legacy

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Speaker 2: is distributed by the Eighth Side Network.

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Speaker 1: Just for greatness of laws, let you know them, all

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Speaker 1: of her memories, remember me.

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Speaker 4: I hope they do the same.