40 for 34 #34 - June 14

Enjoying the Fringe

Benefits of Stardom

Len Bias received gifts from fans, and he was often generous in return.

According to Johnnie Walker, Len's Bias' mentor, Len received money and gifts from fans. He recalled the time one summer when Bias called someone on the phone saying he needed money.

“He’d throw out a random number,” says Walker. “I sat in the car while he talked to the guy, who gave him all crisp $100 bills. We would go from there to spend money on clothes. He had no problem spending up to $500, $600, $700 on clothes. If he was spending money, he’d never say it was drugs. It was clothes.”

Walker recalled free lunches in College Park with Bias and the time they walked into a Circuit

City store to buy a stereo and walked out with a receiver, speakers, cassette deck and turntable, for free. But there was a catch. “The guy comes up, says ‘Hey man, you Len Bias?’ ” he says. “ ‘Hey man, give me some tickets to the Carolina game and I’ll give you the stereo. Pull around to the loading dock and we’ll load up your car.’Whether he took care of the tickets, I don’t know. He was a free spirit. We had a lot of good times.”

Maryland teammate Jeff Baxter remembers Bias being generous with his money. “I do know he always had cash,” he says. “I don’t know where he would get it from, if it was boosters-related or not. If I needed something, he would get it for me.”

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