40 for 34 # 23 - June 6
- Dave Ungrady
- Jun 6
- 2 min read
Frustrations With Stardom
Toward the end of his Maryland career,
Len Bias struggled with some aspects of his stardom.
Len Bias’s senior season was showing flashes of brilliance on the court, but he at times he felt frustrated with the pressures of becoming one of the top college players in the nation.
Myriam Leger, a college friend with whom Bias often talked about their mutually strong interest in Christianity, remembers noticing that as he approached his senior year, he wasn’t as happy-go-lucky as he once was. “He didn’t say hi the same way,” she recalls. “He seemed burdened.”
Media reports referred to a more-surly Bias in his dealing with the press. Bias addressed the pressures in a Washington Post story in March 1986. “People are always talking about my attitude, but they never put themselves in my place,” he said. “A lot of players are doing the same things I am. It’s just more magnified because I’m an all-America. And the publicity gets hard. It makes me uncomfortable and I feel bad for my teammates, who are helping us win as much as I am. ”
Throughout his college career, Bias stopped by Northwestern High School to visit his high school coach Bob Wagner. Wagner noticed Bias becoming more concerned about the pressures during his senior year. “We’d walk the halls and not talk about basketball,” Wagner says. “I just let him talk. The media and other people started to absorb his time and attention.”
“The one thing Len valued was his privacy,” Wagner said in the Post story. “You know: ‘I want
to be myself.’ Some reporters said he didn’t want to talk to the press. But people had to realize he wasn’t a good loser. If he didn’t have a good game, he didn’t want to talk about how this happened or how that happened.”
Walker, Bias’s mentor, recalled that Bias struggled to find joy during the season, due in part to some interest in turning pro after his junior year. “He didn’t want to stay his senior year,” says Walker. “They weren’t as good as his junior year. He just pretty much wanted it to be over. That team didn’t pan out like they were supposed to.”...’ ”
Excerpted from the book,
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
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