40 for 34 # 19 - June 3

Len Meets Tina

In the fall of 1985, Len Bias met the mother of his son.

Tina Maynard first saw Len Bias play basketball in 1982 when she was in the eighth grade. Bias was playing in the Maryland state high school basketball championship game. Maynard attended the game to watch a friend play on the opposing team.

Maynard met Bias a few years later when Rena Watson, a friend since childhood, began attending the University of Maryland. Early in September 1985, Maynard went to visit Watson at her room on campus. Here’s an opportunity to meet Len, she thought.

On a Saturday, Maynard and Watson attended a party at a sorority, thinking that Bias might show up. Watson and Maynard had been enjoying the lively music and large crowd for about an hour when Bias made an entrance worthy of his status on campus. “You could tell he was the star,” Watson says. “He had an entourage of guys. Some people were whispering, ‘Len Bias is here.’ Some guys were like, ‘Len, Len. Mr. Bias,’ trying to get his attention.”

Maynard acted like a giddy school girl when she first spotted him. “She said, ‘There he is, there he is,’ ” says Watson. “She grabbed my arm and took me over to him.” Watson knew Bias through a friend of her basketball-playing brother but did not share Maynard’s level of interest. She kept the introduction simple. “I said, ‘Len Bias, this is Tina Maynard. Tina Maynard, this is Len Bias,’ ” she says. “And then I walked away. Five minutes later, they left. I didn’t hear from her for two weeks.”

Maynard gave birth to Len's son, Michael Bias, some two weeks after Bias died.

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