40 for 34 #26 - June 9

Get that S--- Out of Here

Len Bias made an emphatic statement in his last home game as a Terp.

After Maryland beat Virginia at home in the last game of the regular season in early March, 1986, Virginia coach Terry Holland called it “Lenny Bias night”. 

Bias had extra motivation in the game. In a game against Virginia earlier in the season, Olden Polynice blocked a Bias shot. He then pointed at Bias as he lay on the ground.  Bias got his revenge late in the first half in the rematch in College Park.

Kevin Sheehan is a Washington, D.C. native who attended the University of Maryland. Now a prominent sportscaster, Sheehan attended that game and explains what happened, "and you hear Leonard go up and snag it in midair and say, "get that s--- out of here'  We saw Len Bias intimidate Polynice’s first shot, then block the next one, just to let Polynice know who did it."

Click this to watch the play (it starts at 32:35 of the video)

Said Bias after the game - "I had to block his shot and put it in his face. After the last game everybody had asked me why I let him do that to me." 

Bias scored 22 points in the game. 

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.

Some content provided from Episode 2 of the narrative podcast series, Len Bias: A Mixed Legacy.

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