40 for 34 #3 - May 18

Showing Potential

Len Bias developed into the intimidator on his youth basketball team.

It took a while for Len Bias to grow into his body and develop his superior talents. “When he was young kids used to laugh at him when he played basketball,” said Lee Madkins, the director of the center during Bias’s youth, in a Washington Post report published soon after Len Bias died. “They never picked him on a team. Then he ended up with everyone wanting him on their team.”

It took only a couple of months for Bias to adapt to the physical play, and soon he became the intimidator on Columbia Park’s 16-and-under traveling team. In order to set the tone at the beginning of each game during his first summer with the team, he played a role: Columbia Park purposely let opponents win the opening tip so Bias could block or goal-tend their opening shot. 

As teammate Brian Waller remembers, it helped Columbia Park win every game that summer. Bias also showed his athleticism for his age by finishing off alley-oops. He was the only player on the team who had the leaps to complete the play. Columbia Park felt so confident that players on the bench would read the newspaper toward the end of runaway games. “At that age, we didn’t think it was embarrassing for the other team,” says Waller.

Excerpted from the book,

Born Ready: the Mixed Legacy of Len Bias

Buy autographed copies

as a Father's Day Gift

The audio for this post was narrated by the author,

Dave Ungrady.

And listen to more about Len's early life in Episode 2 of the narrative podcast series, Len Bias: A Mixed Legacy