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Speaker 1: This podcast is based in large part of the book

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Speaker 1: Born Ready, The Mixed Legacy of Lembois. Some quotes are

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Speaker 1: narrated by Davon Grady, a podcast producer and the author

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Speaker 1: of the book, from interviews done for the book. Recordings

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Speaker 1: for these comments were not available.

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Speaker 2: This segment is dedicated to the memory of Russ Potts,

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Speaker 2: the pioneering sports marketer for Maryland Athletics, who passed away

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Speaker 2: in December. Potts is featured in several episodes of the series,

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Speaker 2: including this one. A short tribute to Potts can be

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Speaker 2: heard at the conclusion of this episode.

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Speaker 3: Maryland is one of the most puzzling situations I've ever seen.

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Speaker 3: There's no institutional memory, and without institutional memory you can't

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Speaker 3: understand what got you there and what you need to

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Speaker 3: focus on but to keep you to at the top.

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Speaker 4: It was significant for the first year. I think it

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Speaker 4: was really oppressive on all of us for about a year.

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Speaker 5: It's just unbelievable. I mean how it affected.

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Speaker 6: It changed the entire university for for mega years.

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Speaker 7: Nobody ms Weller had little in nine jobs for us

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Speaker 7: to do so we can generate money for the teams

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Speaker 7: to one time, Miss Waller tried to get us the

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Speaker 7: mow grass for people we don't know how to mow grap.

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Speaker 8: So if you take out the track game pretty much

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Speaker 8: to eliminate my door sports we were we were in

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Speaker 8: for UH. I mean that's just say.

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Speaker 9: A couple of years trying to fight off the UH

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Speaker 9: themost get or remind.

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Speaker 10: I'll tell you how bad it was. I'm from Boston

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Speaker 10: and when I went home, if I wore anything that

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Speaker 10: said Maryland on it, I was a pariah.

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Speaker 11: Doug Tessen was kind of laughed at by every university

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Speaker 11: in the country. And then when len Bias died, all

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Speaker 11: of a sudden it became more of just like any

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Speaker 11: other medical procedure. There's more checks and balances.

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Speaker 12: I think back then it was how could this have happened?

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Speaker 12: But now it's like, we can all see how this

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Speaker 12: could happen. This could have happened to any of us.

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Speaker 5: We've learned the lesson, but you have to move on.

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Speaker 12: Now you've seen really like a full circle. We we

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Speaker 12: embrace it and we're proud of it. And Lenin is

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Speaker 12: a legend and an icon in the athletic department.

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Speaker 5: Now I think the message is there. What happened tragic

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Speaker 5: let's make sure it never happens again.

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Speaker 1: Up next on Lundbia's and Mixed Legacy, A Dark Lass,

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Speaker 1: a game he made him a name at.

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Speaker 13: In the last five months of nineteen eighty six, the

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Speaker 13: University of Maryland athletic department had been dramatically transformed. Its

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Speaker 13: athletic director was gone, so was its men's basketball coach

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Speaker 13: and football coach, all victims of the fallout from the

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Speaker 13: death of Lambias. At the time, Frank Costello was a

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Speaker 13: strength coach from Maryland. He was an All American high

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Speaker 13: jumper in the nineteen sixties and was the school's head

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Speaker 13: coach of the track and field team in the late

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Speaker 13: nineteen seventies. He saw firsthand how changes altered the character

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Speaker 13: of Maryland's athletic department.

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Speaker 6: It was a job and a family kind of atmosphere

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Speaker 6: working at the university. But then after Lenny died, of

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Speaker 6: course you got this tragedy and like you said that

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Speaker 6: Dominos just fell. Plus you had this shadow of falling

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Speaker 6: over or what happened to Lenny, so it was a

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Speaker 6: lot different.

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Speaker 13: Russ Potts was the athletic department's first marketing director.

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Speaker 3: Maryland needed a healer, They needed a person with compassion

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Speaker 3: and love and kindness and that kind of personality. And

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Speaker 3: I felt that they could have built on the people

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Speaker 3: who were loyal to the program and worked their way

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Speaker 3: out of that. But it has been one massive challenge

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Speaker 3: after another at Maryland, which saddens me. Saddens me a

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Speaker 3: great deal, and they've run through so many coaches and

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Speaker 3: so many administrators, many of whom don't have any idea

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Speaker 3: about the heritage there.

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Speaker 13: Heritage was not on the mind of Robert Startz when

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Speaker 13: he took over as interim athletic director on November two,

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Speaker 13: nineteen eighty six. Starts worked previously as a university vice

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Speaker 13: chancellor for administrative affairs. A big part of his mission

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Speaker 13: was to suggest changes within the athletic department. Many were made.

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Speaker 13: By the end of January of nineteen eighty seven, seventeen

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Speaker 13: staff positions were eliminated. Those moves were a result of

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Speaker 13: an independent department review done by Michigan Athletic Director Don Cannam.

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Speaker 13: He focused on the department structure and efficiency. Among those

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Speaker 13: acts was Jim Deach, part of that Maryland family within

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Speaker 13: the department, he was a former Maryland athlete. Deitch was

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Speaker 13: also a lacrosse and soccer coach at Maryland. Further, he

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Speaker 13: led the academic support unit when Bias died and was

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Speaker 13: soon after moved to the ticket office. Also removed the

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Speaker 13: department's former marketing director, members of the sports information office

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Speaker 13: and maintenance staff. Sue Tyler was an assistant athletic director

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Speaker 13: at Maryland and a coach for women's field hockey lacrosse.

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Speaker 4: During that first year ere it was just such a

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Speaker 4: crisis time. All worry about your own space, and so

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Speaker 4: we were all worried about our own team and our

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Speaker 4: own existence and our own survival for a little bit,

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Speaker 4: I would have waited about two and a half years.

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Speaker 4: Two years, I'd say it was significant for the first year.

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Speaker 4: I think it was really oppressive on all of us

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Speaker 4: for about a year.

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Speaker 13: The moves helped the department deal with a one million

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Speaker 13: dollar deficit from that year. About a quarter of that

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Speaker 13: amount came from payouts to basketball coach left to Giuzel

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Speaker 13: and athletic director Dick Dahl. There was also a reduced

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Speaker 13: revenue for football and basketball games. Into that challenging environment,

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Speaker 13: step Bob Wade, Maryland's new basketball coach. Wade left one

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Speaker 13: of the best high school programs in the country. Dunbar

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Speaker 13: in Baltimore, Sue Tyler noticed the ghost of former coach

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Speaker 13: left to Gizelle lingered during the transition.

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Speaker 4: I think it was a really tough situation for him

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Speaker 4: to walk into, And it was a tough situation coming

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Speaker 4: from such a high pro file high school program and

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Speaker 4: thinking that it's going to be similar to what you

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Speaker 4: had in high school and it's dramatically different. All the

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Speaker 4: things going on. There were people that were so still

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Speaker 4: behind Lefty that anybody the next anybody would have been,

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Speaker 4: had a tough time.

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Speaker 13: Derek Lewis was a junior on the team that year

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Speaker 13: at Maryland.

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Speaker 4: I think anyone coming in with the has situation with

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Speaker 4: em bias is going to be in over the head.

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Speaker 13: Molly Glassman covered Wade as a high school coach and

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Speaker 13: at Maryland while she was a reporter for the Baltimore

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Speaker 13: Evening Sun.

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Speaker 14: Bob is a very proud man, very strong in his

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Speaker 14: belief in himself. He accomplished a hell of a lot

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Speaker 14: at Dunbar, and I think as time went on at Maryland,

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Speaker 14: the frustration of not being his not being.

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Speaker 15: In control of everything, did lead him to kind of,

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Speaker 15: you know, sequester himself apart from the rest of the department.

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Speaker 13: Wades tumultuous three years at Maryland are explained in more

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Speaker 13: detail and segment two of section two in this series.

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Speaker 13: That segment explains the evolution of Maryland basketball, from the

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Speaker 13: tragedy of Lenbias's death to the triumph of the Turps

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Speaker 13: winning their first national title in two thousand and two.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to Lemby's The Mixed Legacy on the Eighth

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Speaker 1: Side Network.

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Speaker 13: A couple of months after Wade completed his first year

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Speaker 13: at Maryland, the athletic department had a new athletic director.

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Speaker 13: It was Low Perkins, and he appeared to be a

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Speaker 13: good fit. Perkins had served in the same role at

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Speaker 13: Wichita State University. There, he guided the program through an

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Speaker 13: NCAA probation caused by recruiting violations from its basketball teams.

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Speaker 13: When he was introduced as Maryland's new athletic director at

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Speaker 13: a press conference, Perkins said he planned to institute an

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Speaker 13: extensive policy manual for coaches to read and sign. Tyler

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Speaker 13: remembers that Perkins asked each coach to assign the manual

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Speaker 13: as an agreement that they understood its content.

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Speaker 4: Some people thought it was an annoyance, and then it

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Speaker 4: was a cost that wasn't necessary.

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Speaker 5: You know.

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Speaker 4: It was a I think a couple hundred pages of

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Speaker 4: things how to how to navigate different issues. Here's an

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Speaker 4: outsider telling us how to operate. We've been operating here

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Speaker 4: for fifteen, twenty years or whatever. But I think all

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Speaker 4: in all it was a it was a good idea.

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Speaker 4: I think it pretty much laid it out very clearly,

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Speaker 4: so that if somebody didn't do a step, you could say, wow,

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Speaker 4: did you missed step three?

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Speaker 5: Already missed?

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Speaker 4: You missed step three, four and five.

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Speaker 5: And you just went to the end.

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Speaker 4: Was very wordy and very long, but it means something

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Speaker 4: like that needed to happen.

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Speaker 13: The manual was one of many changes instituted at Maryland

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Speaker 13: during Perkins's time as athletic director. Standards for current athletes

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Speaker 13: were tightened. Athletes had to maintain certain grade point averages

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Speaker 13: to remain eligible. Admission for athletes who were considered at

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Speaker 13: risk academically were cut by more than half. Further, the

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Speaker 13: ceiling for special admissions for football players was reduced from

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Speaker 13: thirty to ten. Restrictions were clearly affecting the quality of

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Speaker 13: players Maryland could recruit. The nineteen eighty seven season began

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Speaker 13: one of the worst stretches in the one hundred and

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Speaker 13: nineteen year history of Maryland football, with the Terrapins recording

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Speaker 13: a winning season just once in eight seasons. Podcast producer

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Speaker 13: dave Onngrady recalled the story that Joe Kreebak, who took

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Speaker 13: over as a team's football coach when Bobby Ross left

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Speaker 13: following the nineteen eighty seven season, told him for his

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Speaker 13: book about len Bias.

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Speaker 16: Maryland prepared to play Penn State in early November in

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Speaker 16: nineteen ninety one. Penn State was ranked number nine in

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Speaker 16: the country at the time. It was during Kreevak's final

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Speaker 16: year as head coach. The Terms had a two and

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Speaker 16: six record. Krevak found out Monday before the game that

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Speaker 16: a few of his players had not maintained the grade

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Speaker 16: point average minimum. They were ruled ineligible. Krevak appealed to

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Speaker 16: athletic director Andy Geiger, he had replaced Perkins in nineteen

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Speaker 16: eighty nine. Krevac said, quote, I asked him, what are

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Speaker 16: we doing this for. It doesn't violate any NTAA rules,

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Speaker 16: He said, Coach, you just have to.

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Speaker 3: Live with it.

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Speaker 16: But he didn't have to play the game on Saturday.

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Speaker 16: Maryland lost the game forty seven to seven, and then

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Speaker 16: they lost their last two games to finish two to nine.

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Speaker 16: It was Krevak's worst record as head coach.

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Speaker 13: Tyler, the assistant athletic director, recalls a somber mood prevailing

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Speaker 13: within athletics during the early years of the transition.

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Speaker 4: I know some folks did say that he felt like

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Speaker 4: they didn't want to go in any more.

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Speaker 3: Day to day.

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Speaker 4: They just wanted to go to their field or the

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Speaker 4: jam and go home. We used to do a lot

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Speaker 4: of things as coaches together and that a while to

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Speaker 4: get that back of, you know, going someplace for a drink,

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Speaker 4: set up Halloween party one time and half the department

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Speaker 4: was there, and we have Christmas parties, and we didn't

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Speaker 4: do that. We didn't do that for a couple of years.

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Speaker 4: We did get together as coaches and party, we didn't

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Speaker 4: didn't get together. It just didn't happen. We just all

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Speaker 4: were doing our own thing. But prior to that, we

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Speaker 4: had we had been a good, fun, fun loving staff

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Speaker 4: and wed as I said, going to parties and had

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Speaker 4: parties and supported each other by going to each other's games.

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Speaker 4: I don't think that we went to other people's games.

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Speaker 13: The somber mood extended to the athletes as well. Here's

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Speaker 13: as a Zugen outdoor rah Uf, a senior receiver on

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Speaker 13: the football team. The year after Bias died.

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Speaker 5: You know, and the cartoon minus who walked around with

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Speaker 5: the cloud.

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Speaker 7: That was it.

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Speaker 5: That's what you felt like.

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Speaker 13: As the football team struggled, the men's basketball team was

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Speaker 13: enduring NCAA sanctions caused by coach Bob Wade. The sanctions

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Speaker 13: took effect after Gary Williams's first season taking over from Wade,

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Speaker 13: and the Terps could not play in postseason games the

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Speaker 13: next two years. This, along with the football team's continued mediocrity,

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Speaker 13: reduced Athletic department revenue by nearly three million dollars. As

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Speaker 13: a result, the department endured a major restructuring, affecting mostly

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Speaker 13: non revenue sports. In May nineteen ninety, Perkins placed all

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Speaker 13: sports in four tiers. He also reduced scholarships in eight

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Speaker 13: of its twenty three varsity sports and reduced scholarship money

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Speaker 13: by seventy percent in five others. Perkins blamed the moves

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Speaker 13: on the NCAA sanctions against the men's basketball team.

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Speaker 4: Luper Perkins was hired because he had a background and

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Speaker 4: a knowledge of NCAA rules, regulations and academic support and

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Speaker 4: that he did that that was and he was also

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Speaker 4: given finances and resources in order to make those things happen.

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Speaker 4: And so the new academic support and the increase in

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Speaker 4: number of coaches of assistant athletic directors so that there

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Speaker 4: was more supervision of coaches, more supervision of student athletes,

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Speaker 4: more paperwork, but just more accountability.

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Speaker 8: In general.

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Speaker 13: The teams most affected with those in the lowest tier.

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Speaker 13: They included men's and women's indoor and outdoor track and field,

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Speaker 13: men's golf, women's gymnastics, and men's and women's tennis. Those

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Speaker 13: teams offered no scholarships and competed locally except for acc competition.

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Speaker 13: By this time, a once familiar mood within athletics was gone.

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Speaker 13: A sense of self preservation took over. Frank Costella was

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Speaker 13: Maryland's track coach in the mid and late nineteen seventies.

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Speaker 13: He was later Maryland's first strainth coach until nineteen ninety.

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Speaker 6: It took years to get any type of smoothness going,

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Speaker 6: and the just the attitude around the athletic department was

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Speaker 6: just not the same well, maybe sadder or bleaker, or

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Speaker 6: just not as joyous to be around.

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Speaker 13: Bob Nelligan, the head coach of women's gymnastics, remembered an

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Speaker 13: uncomfortable discussion with Perkins about the fate of his program.

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Speaker 10: Louke Perkins called me in and said, you know what,

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Speaker 10: you're on contract through the next year. You don't have

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Speaker 10: to coach. I'll find something for you to do.

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Speaker 4: Just let it ride.

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Speaker 10: And I said, I'll have to get back to you

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Speaker 10: on that, and the kids said, no, we're fighting.

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Speaker 7: So that was.

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Speaker 10: All of a sudden. This all the other teams jumped on.

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Speaker 10: Everybody started going around and lobbying.

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Speaker 2: How close were you to losing the program.

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Speaker 5: After lent two?

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Speaker 10: That was with Perkins, and then when Geiger came in,

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Speaker 10: we were under the gun again.

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Speaker 13: Nelligan is referring to Andy Geiger, who succeeded Perkins as

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Speaker 13: athletic director in the early nineteen nineties. Despite posting a

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Speaker 13: string of winning records, including his best team in nineteen

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Speaker 13: eighty nine, he and his gymnasts had to think of

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Speaker 13: clever ways to raise money and keep the program alive.

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Speaker 10: We parked cars for football, We would go out in

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Speaker 10: the rain with flags and escort cards to this to

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Speaker 10: their spots.

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Speaker 17: We cleaned cole Fieldhouse after every basketball game, and believe me,

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Speaker 17: when Nachos came on board, that was the worst ever.

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Speaker 10: We we did everything that there was to do. I

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Speaker 10: can remember one year the football team had gone to

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Speaker 10: the Cherry Bowl all of these nylon jackets that had

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Speaker 10: Cherry Bowl on the chest, and they were smalls and

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Speaker 10: extra smalls, and he was, now, what the heck am

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Speaker 10: I supposed to do with these things? And we put

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Speaker 10: a big Maryland patch over the Cherry Bowl patch, and

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Speaker 10: my kids thought it was the greatest thing since slice bread.

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Speaker 10: That was a part of their warm up.

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Speaker 13: Sports guester Bonnie Bernstein was an academic All American when

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Speaker 13: she competed on the gymnastics team from nineteen eighty eight

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Speaker 13: to nineteen ninety two.

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Speaker 18: We didn't really think about how tedious some of the

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Speaker 18: tasks we were doing. We just knew that ultimately it

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Speaker 18: was helse in cash in the team's collective pocket that

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Speaker 18: we wouldn't have had otherwise, whether it was cleaning stadiums,

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Speaker 18: working parking lots, working NCAA tournament games at Colefield's house.

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Speaker 18: Whatever we needed to do to earn a little extra money,

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Speaker 18: we were going to do because it was really all

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Speaker 18: about teams.

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Speaker 13: Bernstein felt the impact of the cuts directly. She made

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Speaker 13: the team as a walk on freshman and had hope

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Speaker 13: for scholarships soon after, and.

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Speaker 18: That was all of a sudden off the table. I

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Speaker 18: had to figure out a way to make the finances work.

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Speaker 18: So I was working three different jobs and going to

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Speaker 18: school and competing.

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Speaker 13: Bernstein considered transferring. Then she wrote a letter to athletic

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Speaker 13: director Andy Geiger.

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Speaker 18: We went up there for a meeting and Andy said,

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Speaker 18: I read your letter. It's sitting here on my desk,

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Speaker 18: and I'm scared to death because I'm thinking he's going

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Speaker 18: to somehow take offense to my having to leave.

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Speaker 7: And he said, You've.

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Speaker 18: Got your scholarship. To this day, I have no idea

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Speaker 18: how it was funded, but it truly saved me from

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Speaker 18: having to transfer. It made it realize that we have

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Speaker 18: to find a way to survive, and the only way

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Speaker 18: to survive is to stick together and to be gwitty

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Speaker 18: and to be resourceful.

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Speaker 13: Despite being in the top tier of the athletic program

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Speaker 13: in one of the country's perennial top twenty teams. Women's

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Speaker 13: basketball also needed to find creative ways to stay fully funded.

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Speaker 13: One was to have players sell programs at football games,

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Speaker 13: an idea that was not embraced by many members of

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Speaker 13: the team. Two top players transferred after their freshman year because,

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Speaker 13: according to coach Chris Weller, they felt the work was

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Speaker 13: beneath them. Vicky Bullet was an All American from Maryland.

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Speaker 13: She was among those on the team that referred to

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Speaker 13: themselves as survivors.

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Speaker 7: Ms wellerhead little in nine jobs for us to do

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Speaker 7: so we can generate money for the team. Well, one time,

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Speaker 7: it's will to try to get us the mow grass

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Speaker 7: for people we don't know how to. She just wanted

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Speaker 7: us to get sweaty.

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Speaker 2: And work out.

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Speaker 13: Bill Goodman was an Atlantic Coast Conference triple jump champion

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Speaker 13: from Maryland in the mid nineteen seventies. Through that decade,

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Speaker 13: Maryland was the dominant program in the ACC, winning twenty

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Speaker 13: five consecutive conference titles. As a track and field coach,

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Speaker 13: after Bias died, Goodman was forced to lobby Perkins to

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Speaker 13: keep the team intact. To support his cause, he made

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Speaker 13: the point that there were more minority students on his

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Speaker 13: team than in any other non revenue sport.

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Speaker 8: So if you take out the track team, pretty much

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Speaker 8: to eliminate minorities for non revenue sports, we were we

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Speaker 8: were hitting fats for I mean just just say a

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Speaker 8: couple of years, trying to just play off the most

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Speaker 8: you know, or resiminated. You know, it's like trying to

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Speaker 8: fight off a battle and you get rid of all

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Speaker 8: your change and then you get rid of all your prosucas,

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Speaker 8: and you get rid of all your rifles and found

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Speaker 8: the mission. You know, it's just you get worse and

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Speaker 8: worse and worse and worse.

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Speaker 13: During the lean financial times and the restructuring after the

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Speaker 13: death of Bias, the mood of the coaches was a

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Speaker 13: stark departure from earlier times, and it reflected the mental

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Speaker 13: state department. Jack Jackson, Maryland's baseball coach for some three decades,

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Speaker 13: had a meeting with Perkins soon after he took over

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Speaker 13: as athletic director. Here's podcast producer Dave Ungrady we talked

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Speaker 13: with Jackson for his book about len Bias.

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Speaker 2: Jackson told me we started talking about loyalty. He said,

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Speaker 2: there ain't such a thing as loyalty. Anymore. He said,

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Speaker 2: anybody who stays at a job more than five years

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Speaker 2: is lazy. I said, how about the guy who likes

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Speaker 2: his job, what does he do?

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Speaker 13: Jackson retired as coach in nineteen ninety. The wrestling team

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Speaker 13: failed to win the ACC title only once from nineteen

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Speaker 13: fifty four to nineteen seventy four, and was starting to

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Speaker 13: again show signs of prominence shortly after Bias died. The

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Speaker 13: nineteen eighty seventeen featured three All Americans. Still, the team

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Speaker 13: had its scholarship aid reduced by fifteen percent. John McHugh,

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Speaker 13: Marylyn wrestler, was the coach at the time.

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Speaker 16: John McHugh told me we were finally rolling and able

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Speaker 16: to recruit the big time guys. Then all of a sudden,

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Speaker 16: they cut our legs out from under us. For three years,

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Speaker 16: I didn't sign anybody.

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Speaker 13: Still, the team avoided a losing record in the early

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Speaker 13: nineteen nineties and finished second twice in the conference during

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Speaker 13: that time. The death of Bias also impacted the image

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Speaker 13: of Maryland athletics well beyond College Park. Gymnastics coach Bob

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Speaker 13: Nelligan recalled uncomfortable reactions he faced in his hometown.

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Speaker 10: You've got to remember we were under the spotlight for

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Speaker 10: a long time. I'll tell you how bad it was.

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Speaker 10: I'm from Boston, and when I went home, if I

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Speaker 10: wore anything that said Maryland on it, I was a pariah.

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Speaker 10: Lenny Bias was the savior of the Boston Celtics. He

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Speaker 10: was the lifeblood that was going to hold that program

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Speaker 10: to national prominence. And they never let us forget that.

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Speaker 10: They would do everything but spit on you.

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Speaker 9: What kind of.

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Speaker 10: Drug school do you have going on down there? You know,

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Speaker 10: I just you know, tough stuff.

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Speaker 13: At the time of Bias's death, scrutiny of jerky use

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Speaker 13: among athletes in the United States was escalating. The NCAA

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Speaker 13: announced its new drug testing plan in the summer of

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Speaker 13: nineteen eighty five. It began in the fall of nineteen

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Speaker 13: eighty six. Maryland had been testing its athletes since nineteen eighty.

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Speaker 13: JJ Bus, athletic trainer at Maryland since nineteen seventy two,

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Speaker 13: started the program along with the university's health center. They

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Speaker 13: copied protocols from programs at the University of Florida, among others.

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Speaker 13: Here's Bush.

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Speaker 19: It was totally random. We just at the time, you know,

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Speaker 19: we just sort of gave every kid a number and

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Speaker 19: then picked the numbers out of a hat, and if

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Speaker 19: your number came up, your coach or in the basketball case,

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Speaker 19: our director of operations was sent.

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Speaker 8: A list.

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Speaker 19: So and so needs to report to the health center

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Speaker 19: between such and such a time on such and such

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Speaker 19: a date. If it was a positive, they would do

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Speaker 19: a second test to make sure sure it was not

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Speaker 19: a false positive. And then if the person was positive,

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Speaker 19: the coach was notified by the director of the health center.

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Speaker 19: The first positive, you had to go to a counseling session.

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Speaker 19: If you came up with a second positive, you had

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Speaker 19: to sit out a period of time from practice or

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Speaker 19: beat away from the team, maybe a week, I forget exactly.

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Speaker 19: And then the third time that was it.

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Speaker 2: You know you were done.

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Speaker 13: Bush recalls only one athlete testing positive amongst the four

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Speaker 13: teams he worked with after testing started. As he said

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Speaker 13: in Abdoor, Rohov played his final season with the Maryland

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Speaker 13: football team after Lenn Die. To him, the drug test

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Speaker 13: was not very complicated.

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Speaker 5: I mean, there was a urine test.

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Speaker 1: You go into bathroom and you bring a cup out

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Speaker 1: and you hand the two to the tester and you're

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Speaker 1: out of there.

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Speaker 13: It's pretty simple. Former Maryland gymnast Bonnie Bernstein feels the

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Speaker 13: testing may have steered athletes away from abusing drugs.

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Speaker 18: There was a lot of random drug testing going on.

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Speaker 18: The reality is when you're dealing with eighteen to twenty

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Speaker 18: two year old kids who are being independent and many

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Speaker 18: of whom who were away from home for the first time,

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Speaker 18: that you're gonna experiment and you're going to party and

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Speaker 18: you're gonna roll your eyes at a lot of the

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Speaker 18: coaches messaging about being clear of drugs, But the fact

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Speaker 18: that we always had to be on alert about random

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Speaker 18: drug tests, I think probably kept more student athletes honest

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Speaker 18: than you you might think.

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Speaker 13: Gary Williams saw a change in drug testing procedures while

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Speaker 13: coaching at Ohio State. When Bias died.

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Speaker 11: Drug testing was kind of laughed at by every university

440
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Speaker 11: in the country, and then when Len Bias died, all

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Speaker 11: of a sudden, it became more of a just like

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Speaker 11: any other medical procedure. There is more checks and balances

443
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 11: things like that on the procedure. You know, you're almost

444
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:47,359
Speaker 11: forced into it if you're an NCAA Division one power

445
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 11: conference school. Because everybody saw what it did to the

446
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 11: University of Maryland and so obviously you want to avoid that.

447
00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:58,920
Speaker 11: So they really stepped it up, and I think that's

448
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 11: the biggest benefit to come out of the unbiased situation.

449
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 11: I'm sure that helped a lot of kids around that

450
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:11,720
Speaker 11: time get on the proper path towards success.

451
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 13: The death of bias and the fact that Marylyn was

452
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:19,120
Speaker 13: drug testing as athletes also impacted recruiting for more than

453
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 13: a decade. Opposing coaches used bias as death as a

454
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:25,679
Speaker 13: weapon to persuade parents just not send their children to

455
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 13: College Park. Here's Nelligan.

456
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:34,399
Speaker 10: It just was thrown at us. It was hard making

457
00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:39,720
Speaker 10: a positive as a coach and a recruiter. How do

458
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:44,920
Speaker 10: I tell a parent that, oh, yeah, if your daughter

459
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 10: comes to my school, she's just going to be drug

460
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 10: tested several times a year. Why would I want to

461
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 10: send my kid there.

462
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:56,879
Speaker 13: According to Gary Williams, opposing coaches would make sure to

463
00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 13: remind top players that Maryland was a school where it's

464
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:01,959
Speaker 13: best basketball player died from drug abuse.

465
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 11: It was a very difficult time and people were really

466
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:13,159
Speaker 11: suspicious of the University of Maryland in basketball programs. So

467
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 11: you know, I know, recruits that we were trying to

468
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 11: recruit were made aware of just about every article that

469
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 11: was ever printed. You go into a home and there'd

470
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 11: be articles on the Washington Post in say North Carolina

471
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 11: or whatever, sitting on the coffee table, and obviously they

472
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:37,120
Speaker 11: were sent by someone you were recruiting against another university.

473
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 1: You're listening to lembis the Mixed Legacy on the Eighth

474
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 1: Side Network.

475
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 13: Current Maryland head football coach Mike Losley grew up in Washington,

476
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 13: d C. He was a senior in high school when

477
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 13: Biased Die Locksley worked as an assistant to Ralph Frigent

478
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:55,600
Speaker 13: in the early two thousands.

479
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 20: And so, as what typically happens when there's tragedies and

480
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 20: there's corrections, sometimes you overcorrect. The tough part for us was,

481
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 20: you know, being able to get a marginal student in.

482
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 20: So now you're recruiting against other schools that don't have

483
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 20: these standards where they limit how many you know, marginal

484
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 20: students you can bring in. And for us, now it

485
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 20: makes recruiting that much harder because you have to recruit

486
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 20: a guy, but then you have to also find a

487
00:29:22,320 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 20: guy that has the grades to get in without you know,

488
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 20: being considered a marginal student, which would you know, then

489
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 20: put them in a place where they had to come

490
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 20: into it through a bridge program and take extra courses,

491
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 20: and there were a lot of people that were turned

492
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 20: away that were good players that we couldn't get into

493
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 20: school because of this. The how the standards had changed

494
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:49,719
Speaker 20: to push our academic standards up a little bit.

495
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 13: Still, Maryland Athletics has managed to thrive in many ways

496
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 13: in the decades following the death of Bias. Led by

497
00:29:56,520 --> 00:30:00,720
Speaker 13: combined twenty championships from field hockey and women's lacross turps,

498
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 13: teams have won twenty nine national championships since nineteen ninety two.

499
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 13: They include titles by men's and women's basketball, and a

500
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 13: few by the men's soccer team. It would take decades

501
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 13: for Maryland Athletics collectively to finally accept the legacy of Bias.

502
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 13: He was not inducted into Maryland's Athletics Hall of Fame

503
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 13: until twenty fourteen. We will explain that in more detail

504
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 13: in a later episode. Lefty Grizelle, Maryland's coach when Bias died,

505
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 13: finally earned his Maryland Athletics Hall of Fame honor in

506
00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 13: two thousand and two. That was sixteen years after he

507
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 13: left the program. Maryland Athletics featured pictures of Bias on

508
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:40,520
Speaker 13: promotional materials when it celebrated one hundred years of basketball

509
00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 13: in twenty nineteen. That would have seemed unimaginable just ten

510
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:49,480
Speaker 13: years earlier. Brett Nelligan was five years old when Bias died.

511
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 13: At the time, his father, Bob, was Maryland's gymnastics coach.

512
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 13: Brett returned to Maryland in two thousand and three as

513
00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 13: an assistant to his father on the team. He took

514
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 13: over as head coach in two thousand and nine. He

515
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 13: has seen a transition to the acceptance of the Len

516
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 13: Biased legacy within Maryland Athletics.

517
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 12: When I when I came back, it just wasn't spoken about,

518
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 12: you know, we just that was a part of our

519
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 12: history that was I think still difficult for us as

520
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 12: an athletic department, as a fan base, as a as

521
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 12: a community. It was just too hard for us to

522
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 12: really embrace to talk about. But now you've seen really

523
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 12: like a full circle. We we embrace it and we're

524
00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 12: proud of it. And Len is a legend and an

525
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 12: icon in the athletic department now, and the bottom line

526
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 12: is he's still I think one of the greatest athletes

527
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 12: to ever wear Maryland jersey. And there's there's nothing that

528
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:49,080
Speaker 12: can change that.

529
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 2: What do you think changed it?

530
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:53,840
Speaker 16: Why all of a sudden did they start to accept it.

531
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 12: I think back then it was how how could this

532
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 12: have happened? But now it's like, we can all see

533
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 12: how this could happen. This could have happened to any

534
00:32:01,880 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 12: of us. And that's my point to my team, is this,

535
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:09,160
Speaker 12: this could have happened to anyone us. We all make mistakes.

536
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 12: There's no one that's immune to making mistakes in their life.

537
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:17,360
Speaker 12: So I just think there's a greater level of understanding

538
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 12: in our world, on our society now.

539
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 13: Johnny Holliday has been Maryland's played by play announcer for

540
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 13: forty years. A few others understand the transition toward acceptance

541
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 13: of Len's legacy within Maryland Athletics.

542
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:32,760
Speaker 5: And it's a whole new ballgame now, a whole new

543
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:36,400
Speaker 5: generation of fans. I've got grandkids that never heard of

544
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 5: Lin Biaus and then they go to YouTube and watch

545
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 5: video highlights and they say.

546
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:44,960
Speaker 21: Ooh, he was pretty good. I say, yeah, a little

547
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 21: better than pretty good. Well, he could jump, he could shoot,

548
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 21: he could score, he could run. Yeah, And I think

549
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 21: that's the best tribute to him is to see people

550
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 21: walking around at games at other events with number thirty

551
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 21: four and by us from the back of their jersey.

552
00:33:02,760 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 13: In early December, Maryland held Len Bias Knight during a

553
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 13: home game against Virginia Tech. It was the first time

554
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 13: Maryland dedicated one game to Bias. Thousands of free Len

555
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 13: Biased number thirty four jerseys were handed out to fans.

556
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 13: Thousands of number thirty four Len Biased jerseys filled Exfinity Center,

557
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 13: Maryland's home court, in a sea of yellow and red.

558
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 13: Bias's name adorned the backs of each jersey was.

559
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 21: No longer, would the matter legacy forever.

560
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 13: The Bias family was also recognized during the game.

561
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 20: Jos on the more time christ the ram fires the.

562
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 5: Money spiers, Who's.

563
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:58,479
Speaker 13: As he has done for Maryland since the late nineteen

564
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 13: seventies Johnny Holliday before radio play by play for that game, people.

565
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 5: Learned the lesson.

566
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 22: We know it's cost people jobs, we know it cost

567
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:10,759
Speaker 22: a young man's life, but you have to move on,

568
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:14,399
Speaker 22: and you move on by correcting mistakes that were done

569
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:15,399
Speaker 22: years and years ago.

570
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:20,239
Speaker 5: I think the message is there. What happened tragic, Let's

571
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 5: make sure it never happens again.

572
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 13: Next online bias and mixed legacy, mandatory minimums, and maximum impact.

573
00:34:29,200 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 13: Have the death of Bias affected a nation.

574
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 5: The problem has become a cracked crisis and it's spreading nationwide.

575
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:40,840
Speaker 13: There was a misperception that crack cocaine was something different

576
00:34:41,040 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 13: chemically than what powder cocaine was.

577
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 23: Yeah, before the rest my life was, I thought was perfect.

578
00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:50,520
Speaker 23: Everything I did, I did it with my children, boy scouts,

579
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 23: girl scouts, Uh, going to movies. I was working at

580
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 23: the hospital of the nurse, So you know, everything gets

581
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 23: went down a joint at that moment this story.

582
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:03,680
Speaker 24: There's no checks of balances. Once that prosecutor, prosecutor decides

583
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:06,799
Speaker 24: you're the bad person, it's over for you. And so

584
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 24: that that really tilted the system in a way that

585
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:12,320
Speaker 24: gave the prosecutor too much power.

586
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:17,200
Speaker 1: So the way lem Bias operated in my head was

587
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:19,800
Speaker 1: it was almost like a fucking ghost. But I didn't

588
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:22,240
Speaker 1: really know who he was until I went to prison.

589
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:28,040
Speaker 25: I concluded that len Bias's death was the single most

590
00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 25: important date in the history of drugs in the United

591
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 25: States since the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in June of

592
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,319
Speaker 25: nineteen thirty five.

593
00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 20: Doesn't save lives, doesn't reduce crime.

594
00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 13: So what does it do is passing. It wasn't just

595
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:52,240
Speaker 13: a tragedy that we lost one great person. We lost

596
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:53,280
Speaker 13: a lot of great people.

597
00:35:54,480 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 2: Respect of this is Dave Ungrady, executive user of this

598
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:04,960
Speaker 2: podcast series US promised at the beginning of this episode,

599
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:07,799
Speaker 2: here is a tribute to the late Russ Potts, who

600
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:11,960
Speaker 2: was featured in this episode and others. It is presented

601
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:15,800
Speaker 2: by Chip Zimmer, a former sports marketing director at Maryland

602
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 2: and the author of the book The Battle of the Potomac,

603
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:23,759
Speaker 2: a century long football rivalry between the West Virginia Mountaineers

604
00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:28,359
Speaker 2: and the Maryland Terrapins. Zimmer was also my boss when

605
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:31,880
Speaker 2: I worked as an intern in sports marketing at Maryland

606
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:34,280
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy nine.

607
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:37,680
Speaker 26: In the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies, Maryland's

608
00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:40,759
Speaker 26: new athletic director, Jim Keyo made some bold moves to

609
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:44,440
Speaker 26: revive the urp's football and basketball programs. Football hadn't been

610
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:47,440
Speaker 26: relevant since Jim Tatum left in nineteen fifty five, and

611
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:51,360
Speaker 26: basketball had been floundering. New hires Jerry Claybourne and football

612
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:55,320
Speaker 26: and left Uterzell and Basketball helped the programs achieve national prominence.

613
00:36:55,320 --> 00:36:59,320
Speaker 26: Within a decade, but perhaps as importantly, Keo in nineteen

614
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 26: seventy hired Russ Potts, a nineteen sixty four Maryland graduate,

615
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 26: as the NCAA's first sports promotion director. Potts became known

616
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:11,200
Speaker 26: as an innovator, a pioneer, and a maverick. If Bill

617
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 26: Veck was the godfather of baseball promotions, then Russ Potts

618
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 26: was as equal for college promotions. He turned Maryland football

619
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:21,680
Speaker 26: games into events for the entire family. Multiple giveaways by

620
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 26: corporate sponsors became the norm. Cannons were fired as the

621
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 26: terps ran onto the field. Paratroopers delivered game ball at

622
00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:31,839
Speaker 26: the fifty yard line. The programs resembled telephone books, chalk

623
00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:35,240
Speaker 26: full of advertisers, tens of thousands of red and white

624
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 26: go terps, go bumper sticker adorned auto bumpers throughout the

625
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 26: state of Maryland. Dozens of billboards, and hundreds of thousands

626
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 26: of pocket schedules blanketed the state. I had the monumental

627
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:49,560
Speaker 26: task of succeeding Potts as a promotions director at Maryland.

628
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:52,600
Speaker 26: In nineteen seventy nine, he left a poster in my

629
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:56,279
Speaker 26: office that said, quote, something terrible happens when you don't

630
00:37:56,280 --> 00:38:00,840
Speaker 26: promote nothing unquote. It's something I'll never get and have

631
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:02,280
Speaker 26: used my entire career.

632
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:11,320
Speaker 1: This podcast series is based on the book Born Ready

633
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:14,560
Speaker 1: The Mixed Legacy of Lemby's, published by Go Grady Media.

634
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:17,480
Speaker 1: The series is produced by Go Grady Media in partnership

635
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:21,280
Speaker 1: with Octagon Entertainment. This segment was produced by Daveon Grady

636
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 1: and Don Marcus. It was written by Daveon Grady and

637
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 1: edited by Don Marcus. The narrator was Don Marcus, with

638
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: additional narration by Jamal Williams. Technical production was provided by

639
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:35,839
Speaker 1: Octagon Entertainment. Production assistance was produced by Kevin mcnelty, Tino Quagliata,

640
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:41,760
Speaker 1: Lauren Rosh, Georgia Brown, Casey Fair, Jamal Williams, Kelsey Mannox,

641
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 1: and enzol Al Varinga. Matt dehers is providing the social

642
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 1: media assistance special thanks to the University of Maryland and

643
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 1: American University.

644
00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 13: For providing inserts.

645
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 1: The Decision Education Foundation is a content and promotional partner

646
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:58,880
Speaker 1: of this podcast series. For more information, go to Grady

647
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 1: Media and the eighth side note, what was