Len Bias: A Mixed LegacyLen Bias: A Mixed Legacy | Remembering Lefty Driesell
In remembrance of Hall of Fame Basketball Coach Lefty Driesell, the producers have aggregated clips from the series that tell the story of Lefty Driesell, his relationship with Len Bias, and his up and down history with The University of Maryland, where many argue, including Lefty himself, that he put the program on the map in the college basketball universe.
Legendary Maryland basketball coach Lefty Drizzel died recently at the age of ninety two, and this week on March four, a memorial service was held for Drizzel. Drizzel leaves behind a complex and complicated legacy as a basketball coach. He was a head coach at four Division one colleges, most notably at the University of Maryland. He started there in nineteen sixty nine and through nineteen eighty six. Drezell built the team into a prominent national program. When he began as Maryland's coach, Drizzel famously stated that he would make the Terps the UCLA of the East, a reference to what was then the most dominant college men's program. Drizzel departed Maryland more dramatically than when he started. He was removed as coach as a result of his actions following the drug related death of Maryland Starleine Bias. Still, Drizzel was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in twenty eighteen. This is Dave Ungrady, author of the book Born Ready The Mixed Legacy of len Bias. From the book, we have produced a sixteen episode podcast series titled Len Bias a Mixed Legacy. Coach Drizzel played a major role in Len's legacy and is featured prominently throughout the series. True recognized Rorizzel's legacy related to Bias. We present here a compilation of content about the coach as it is presented in the series.
In April nineteen eighty six, the life of Len Bias was in transition. He expected to be a top pick in the NBA draft. Two months later, Lenz said he wanted to complete his degree, that he wanted people to know that he had graduated from the University of Maryland. He would consider it and accomplish, he said. But an academic advisor told his coach, Lefty Drizzl that Lenn was struggling that semester. Drizzell said Bias should consider dropping some courses to avoid failing grades.
Listen, if he had passed, He's fifteen and I might have been taking eighteen the last semester, right, he would have been six credits short. Told him, I said, Linda, you ought to drop drop all the courses or take incomplete, but don't fail.
Bias said no, he wanted to pass them.
He said, well, I'll fast coach. I know all these professors, they'll pass me. I know I've been missing a lot of plans. And he flunked the ball. Do you know that he was paying his way to go to summer school because I had a rule a couple of years before because a lot of my players were flunking a course or one, you know, one course or something, so they would have to go to summer school to get their degree. And I said, look, if you flunk a course because you uh and went to class and took a jam and everything and you still flow, I'll pay your way to summer school. But if I called to the professor and he said the guy didn't come to Clay and take the exam, I'm not paying your way and go to summer school. He just didn't go to class.
Football was fun for Maryland fans in the early nineteen eighties. That's when Bobby Ross led the Turps to three straight ACC titles and the women's basketball team went to its first Final Four in nineteen eighty two. With all that, in the context of Maryland athletics, basketball was king. It started when Laftigerzell became head coach in nineteen sixty nine. He led the Terps the ACC Tournament championship game five times before finally winning it in nineteen eighty four. The MVP of that tournament team was a rising sophomore star named Lun Bias. Molly Glassman covered Bias his entire college career for the Baltimore Evening Sun.
SER's and he carried them to the ACC Championship. And of course it was Lefty's huge accomplishment after all those years of not winning the ACC. And you know Lefty bragging after the game that he was going to take the trophy and stick it on the hood of his car and drive through North Carolina, drive across Tobacco Road one end to the other, thinking at the time, well, what he really should do is put Leonard out in front of his car and drive Leonard from one end of the of the Tobacco Road to the other. Because Leonard Bias earned Lefty that trophy that year.
Two years later, Driselle was no longer Maryland's head coach. Ross was gone too, so was the school's athletic director, Dave Dole, and one Bias was dead. The next decade or so was the darkest in the history of Maryland athletics. Bob Nelligan was the women's gymnastics coach at Maryland from nineteen seventy nine to two thousand and nine.
We were all.
Just numb from the fact that how could somebody who was an absolute specimen, incredible athlete with God given abilities?
And I think it really took everybody, but like, how could this happen? So the initial phase was this isn't happening, And then as the reality started to set in, he had all.
The finger pointing where did this go wrong?
Well, Lefty, should you have known this?
You know those are your boys?
Uh It.
It was like a house of cards that were crumbling and there was no way to stop it.
Molly Glassman covered the death of Bias for the Baltimore Sun. She recalled suspicions about the cause of Bias's death changed during a press conference by Maryland coach Lefty Grisell.
No, I don't think there was any suspicion at that point, but that day we were talking to a reporter from Boston who had gone to Lefty's press conference, and Lefty and Lefty sort of danced around a lot of things in the press conference. Yes, and that's where he became suspicious. Is that when you started to think, Okay.
They're finding something. I didn't know what it was, but that's when the first thought of drugs comes to your mind. They're not saying you know, well, the doctor say you know that. You know he was he had these issues, not being specific about anything. You're right, he danced around a lot of things.
There was just an edge to everything.
You know. They weren't, especially the seniors. It was like, what are they avoiding talking about that day? I recall that evening especially we went to bias house and kind of staked it out, and it was just incredibly guarded.
Thing. It wasn't as if somebody Lenny had had passed from natural causes.
Marilynd Coach left to Gerselle held a press conference shortly after the death of Bias.
I really don't know if I'm up to this, but I guess leona of a woman to say something. You know, he's a I've known Lena since you was in about the sixth grade, and he's like a son to me. So I think you can the difficulty the way I feel right now.
Here's Lefty Drizzelle speaking a day after Bias died about his drug use.
Well, I would be very, very surprised because Leonard just had an examination by the Boston Celtics and the Golden State Warriors and the New York Nicks, and you know, I'm positive there were no drugs in those examinations, and he's completely out of character for him to do anything like that. That's one thing that I told Rid and all the teams that were interested in him, they didn't have to worry about him with drugs or alcohol. He was born again Christian and a great person.
In the immediate months after the death of his oldest son, Lynn, James Bias acted like any father would, with a mix of grief, anger, confusion, and resolve. During a memorial service for Len a few days after he died, James spotted Len's two most prominent coaches, while Wagner from high school and left you yourself from college. Here's Wagner recalling the.
Incident at the wake. I was deeply hurt by this. At the wake, I rode down with Lefty because we didn't know where we were going. We come into the church and I know mister Bias was still hurt and upset, but Lefty walks over to give his condolences, and mister Bias says something like to Lefty like, you stay away from me.
You killed mich saw this.
Oh I'm staying right and you too, and pointed to me. I just took that very personally. I never said anything to him. I thought there were times when I thought about just driving through Columbia Park and maybe talking to mister Bias and seeing you know, like you know, I'm sorry about what happened.
Throughout the Bias fallout, coach Lefty Griselle maintained that he had done nothing wrong. He claimed his athletes were good students. He claimed he was not aware of drug use on the team. He spoke publicly again and again after Bias died, defending his in the team's honor that ultimately led to the end of his Maryland career. Slaughter wanted to resid out as coach because he felt Drizzel did not provide the leadership needed by the team.
At the time, John Slaughter told me, my conclusion was we were not going to turn that around unless a change was made. I thought we needed to change coaches for a variety of reasons. I could come up with a whole lot of reasons but I consider that a closed chapter. I don't want to open it anymore. I like Lefty a great deal. I'm not sure it's reciprocated at the moment. When asked about his feelings towards Slaughter, Drizzell told me no comment. I have a lot of feelings about Slaughter, but I'd rather not say.
Tom McMillan was an All American at Maryland and was coached by Drizzel in the early nineteen seventies. He has been heavily involved with the university ever since, serving for a term on the Board of Regents. He feels Slaughter made Lefty the fall guy for Bias' death.
It was.
Horrific. It was probably the worst brand destroyer ever.
Others also believed Drizzell was made a scapegoat for the death of Bias. Here's Derek Lewis, a Marilyn sophomore when Bias died.
And they see him walk out of Colchree House that day after announcing he was giving a retired stepping down.
That was good.
That was that was past. That that that more than anything, pissed you off. You know, you you're mad about the about many and what happened, But that that was Nothing's supposed to do?
What was it was?
Nothing supposed to be there and did do him at two in the morning. Was supposed to be watching me see what I was doing across the hall. Was supposed to be in a jets room. I mean, you can't you can't be heavy with it. So I had a big I had a big pob with that.
Here's JJ Bush, an athletic trainer with Drizzel in the nineteen seventies.
Left he didn't put the cocaine in Lenny's nose. He didn't buy the cocaine for Lenny or any of that stuff. Lenny, you know, was over the age of consent. He was an adult, and he did that on his own accord. But Lefty caught the fall out.
Payne gave Greg a ride to the house of coach Lefty Brizel.
You know, Lefty let me in just like I was a part of the team, and so we were we were just sitting there and you know, Lefty came in and he started talking. He started talking to the team and telling them about you know how you know tragic this is, but you know Lynn was ready. You know, Lynn was a good, good guy. He's a Christian, He's he's okay, and you know, we know that this is going This is is very shocking and hard to deal with. You know, we're going to have people for you guys to talk to if you need it. Just going kind of back and forth because you know, at this point Lefty doesn't know the story. He doesn't really know what's happened himself.
After Bias died, Lewis struggled largely with the blame given US coach Lefty Brazil for the death of Bias with.
Because they were they were blaming with eVisa.
It was his fault in that control one left.
It can't be with us twenty hours a day, sure, and as twelve was, and it's ridiculous and.
They made a mistake.
Goes you know, thiss day.
I'll understand when he did that.
And that's what gives me all the motion.
It would take decades for Maryland Athletics collectively to finally accept the legacy of Bias. He was not inducted into Maryland's Athletics Hall of Fame until twenty fourteen. Left to Grizzel, Maryland's coach when Bias died, finally earned his Maryland Athletics Hall of Fame honor in two thousand and two. That was sixteen years after he left the program.
Lefty Drizzel came to Maryland in nineteen sixty nine. He turned a team that had a pension for losing and made them a national power where they were always winning.
Maryland he had nothing for why I got you. I'm called right, absolutely nothing.
That's a clip from a video about former Maryland head coach left to Drizzl, produced by a Washington, DC area television news station in nineteen eighty six. Perhaps it's a bit of hyperbole to say Maryland basketball had nothing before Drizzel became the school's basketball coach, but there was not a whole lot to Bragabelle. Maryland had only four winning seasons in the nineteen sixties, along with no national rankings. By the early nineteen eighties, Trizzel had built a well deserved reputation as a pioneer and a pretty good self promoter among college basketball coaches.
One of the winningest coaches in ACC and NCAA history is our next legend from Maryland, with seven hundred and eighty six career wins, Arriving in College Park in nineteen seventy. He built the Terrafins into a national power and twice was named ACC Coach of the Year. His nineteen seventy four Terrafins played NC State in the ACC Championship Game, which even today many consider the greatest game in conference.
His that clip came from an Atlantic Coast Conference Legends brunch in two thousand and eight. In another video released shortly after he resigned as Maryland's coach, in nineteen eighty six, a local television network aired a tribute to Drizzl. It featured a typical confident comment from the coach.
I'll like to brag. See that's why y'all don't think I can coach. But I'm bragging today, Okay, because I don't like to talk about what I do and what I don't do. But don't ever say that I can't coach. I may not be a good speaker, I may not be intelligent as some of these other coaches. I may not throw you a whole lot of x's and oh crap, But I can coach.
We were in the top ten my whole career. How many Maryland teams are in the final top ten?
That was Tom McMillan, a three time All American at Maryland in the early nineteen seventies, and the answer only five teams that did not include McMillan have finished in the top ten in the final Associated Press National poll. Over the court of Some seventy years after Lembias died, the perception of Drizzel had changed dramatically. In the mind of his critics, Drizzel had morphed into a coach who was at worst indifferent to the academic needs of his players and at best blind to their off court mishaps. This all made Drizzel a prime target of blame for the death of Bias. Russ Potts is a Maryland graduate from the nineteen sixties. He was also the first marketing director for Maryland's athletic department. Potts took that position one year after Drizzel started at Maryland.
Whenever you have a tragedy, whether it's Pearl Harbor or nine to eleven or whatever, you're going to always have a fall gap. And so they tried to make the lefty the fall guy. Well, poor Lefty had no more to do with that than you r idea unfortunately, and it was he was in the row long place at the wrong time, and it was a tragic happening that still to this day affects the University of Maryland.
Here's McMillan.
It really bothers Lefty that his tenure at Maryland ended this way. It was really it was very tragic for him because he did so much for Maryland and then they have this one incident, which was a terrible mistake.
That mistake Lent Bias abusing cocaine and then dying transformed Drizzel from a Maryland basketball icon to a maligned and minimized figure by those who struggled to understand the death of Bias. It was a situation few could foresee at the start of Drizzel's Maryland career. By the early nineteen seventies, sellout crowds with a norm at Maryland's home arena, cole Fieldhouse, some fourteen thousand fans to watch a trio of eventual All Americans, as well as impact players in the NBA McMillan, Len Elmore, and John Lucas. Early in his career, Drizzell boldly promised to turn Maryland into the UCLA of the East. If not for two teams, he just might have done so. One was the real UCLA, which continued to dominate college basketball. The other was North Carolina State, which interrupted UCLA's championship run in nineteen seventy four, but the Terps were still among the best teams in the country. In four different regular seasons between nineteen seventy and nineteen eighty, Drizzell's team reached number two in the rankings. Four times they finished in the top ten. In his seventeen years as Maryland's head coach, Drizzell won only one acc Tournament title, and it was with Bias in nineteen eighty five. Four Bias, then a sophomore, won the tournament's MVP Award. Bias praised Brizel's influence on him in a nineteen eighty six Maryland basketball recruiting video.
He told me the things that I could do, and he put a lot of faith in me and told me that I will be able to score and I will be able to rebound. Now I can do it. And when you got a coach that puts confidence and faith in you like that, you can't go out but play.
Here's Drizzl in that same recruiting video, of.
Course, having len Ad Biased being the player of the Year in the ACC and make first Team All ACC and First Team of AP and first Team up is all American. You know, you know, in my opinion, he was probably player of the year in the country.
Criticism toward Drizzel replaced praise for him after the death of Bias. Some of it came from the Bias family. Bob Wagner, Len's high school coach and a friend of Drizel, remembers a moment of hostility from Len's father. It was at Bias's wake. Once there, Drizzl and Wagner walked over over to James Bias to offer condolences.
At the wake, I rode down with Lefty because we didn't know where we were going. We come into the church and I know mister Bias was still hurt and upset. But Lefty walks over to give his condolences and mister Bias has something like the Lefty like, you stay away from me. You killed myself.
Media reports claimed Drizzel instructed a coach to clean the room in which Bias died before police arrived. Dursel admitted that he instructed the coach to clean the room, but the coach, Oliver Parnell, did not do so in part due to a police presence. Assistant coach Jeff Atkins went to the room with Parnell. Atkins told me that when they reached the Washington Hall dorm, where Bias's suite was located, police would not let them pass a secured area. Trezell is not charged with a crime. During this time, Drizell indicated he would not back down from the challenges facing him.
If you know me, I do the best when my back's up against the wall, right. I like for people get me in a corner and get me around the neck. Then I like to get out of there, you know.
But the forces against Drizel grew too strong. Chancellor John Slaughter felt that Drizzel had not provided the leadership needed At the time he removed Brizzel's coach. Slaughter told me my conclusion was we were not going to turn that around unless the change was made. I could come up with a whole lot of reasons, but I consider that a closed chapter. I don't want to open it anymore. I like Lefty a great deal. I'm not sure it's reciprocated. When asked about his feelings towards Slaughter, Drizzell told me no comment. I have a lot of feelings about slaughter, but I'd rather not say. Mally Glassman was a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, covering Mayor on basketball. At the time.
He was a chancellor who was very concerned about the reputation.
Of himself and the school, and the reputation was in tatters, as you say, academically when the revelations came out that these kids weren't going to class. And this wasn't the first year that this had happened, that there was a history of lefties players not staying in school, not graduating.
But lefty he wouldn't have gone.
He wouldn't have left of his own accord, and he fought it till the end.
Triseau claims he was asked to remain as coach for one more year and then resigned with nine years left on his contract. Drissel told me, my lawyer said, we can fight this thing and you can keep your job, but I'd be working for free because his fees would be so big. I said, let's settle. It was a great seventeen years at Maryland except for my last year. To Risel's lawyer was famed Washington Defense attorney Edward Bennett Williams russ Potts, Maryland's first marketing manager, was a good friend of Durzel. He reached out to Williams after it became a parent that Brazil's future employment at Maryland was in jeopardy.
I called Ed Williams and I asked Ed Williams if he would represent Lefty in this terrible mess at Maryland. And I played it with him and I said, please please represent him because he has no idea in what's going to happen. Get Lefty to call me tonight. And so I said, you need to call Ed Williams at home tonight, and he did, but he said, Lefty affective. Immediately this very second, if you say one word about this case, if you so much just say a comma or a sema, coleman, I will not represent you effective Immediately you shut up. I do all the talking. And that was a hell of a challenge for Lefty go Getting Lefty to shut up was not easy, and they had a meeting with Williams and the president and the university attorney.
Drizzel resigned on October twenty nine, nineteen eighty six, and received a comfortable settlement He was paid one hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year for nine years, the remainder of his tenure coaching contract, and he could continue his basketball camps at the school for the same length of time. Drizzell collected the full salary even after he left. As Pots recalls, Williams took a hard stance with Maryland while representing Brazell. He recounts the following story from a conversation he had with Williams shortly after the meeting.
And the Maryland attorney arrogantly walked into the room and he laid a contract on the desk. Left he had eight and a half years left on his contract, and Maryland offered him a year and a half. They laid that on the table and ed Williams looked at it. He jumped up, He grabbed the contract. He tore it to shreds in front of me said I'll see you in hell. Before we'd ever signed this. You want to go to war, We'll go to war the next day. The next day they called Williams and gave Lefty all eight and a half years.
Brazila added more context to the negotiation on a phone call in the summer of twenty twenty.
So Slaughter called back tomorrow. He said, your contract is good. We've got your pay left before it nine years and he can stay here as an athletic director for two years and he will get the same salary he will be making as the head coach. He can also have his basketball camp and use the dorms free and a gym free. And that was the deal. Ed Williams said, Look, you can take at it if you want to. You ain't got to work for seven more years, and or you can go ahead and coach. Take the deal he's offering it, and forget it. Forget coaching. That's what I did.
As part of the deal, Drazell transition to an assistant athletic director who oversaw the department, sports information and marketing departments. He also helped manage the Maryland Educational Foundation, which raised money for scholarships and other department needs. When asked in twenty ten what the Athletic Department wanted him to do in his new role, Dazelle paused for a couple moments, laughed, and then said, quote hide end quote. Part of Drizzel's job was to convince the elderly to place their life insurance policy in their will and make the athletic department the beneficiary when they died. Trizelle told me, I was getting ready to do that, but never got that much involved. When I took the job, then athletic director Luke Perkins said, just come on over when you want and do what you want. Trazelle left Maryland in nineteen eighty eight to become head coach at James Madison University. In nineteen ninety four, he became the head coach at Georgia State, where he stayed through two thousand and three. Drizelle retired with the fourth most wins in Division one history, with seven hundred and eighty six. In the summer of two thousand and two, Drizzell returned to Maryland's campus for the first time since taking the job at James Madison. He attended his induction ceremony into Maryland's Athletics Hall of Fame.
For his accomplishments during his coaching career. At his successful tenure at the University of Maryland, coach Charles Lefty Drizzl is tonight being inducted into the University of Maryland Athletic Hall of Fame.
Drizell returned the next winter when the Terrapins honored his retirement from coaching during halftime of a game against Enci State at the Comcast Center, Maryland's new basketball arena. Drizzel stopped by Maryland's arena again in twenty seventeen for another special ceremony, brizl The crowd was loud as Drizzel flashed the familiar victory sign with his right hand pointing to the rafters. It must have felt as if he were back in Colefield House, in the building where he helped develop Maryland basketball into a nationally respected program, ready to lead his Maryland team to another of its many victories. John Lucas played for Drizzel from nineteen seventy two to nineteen seventy six. He departed Maryland as a three time All America and was the top pick in the nineteen seventy six NBA draft. He offered perhaps the most balanced assessment of Drizzel's personality, which endeared many and irritated others at Maryland. Lucas told me, coach was genuine to a fault. What you saw was what you got. He doesn't have any gray areas presenting Lefty for enshrinement are Mike Ruschevskiy, George Raveling, John Thompson, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Charles Lefty Drizzl.
In twenty eighteen, at the age of eighty six, receive the highest honor for a basketball coach, induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
I'm so happy to be here. This is probably one of the happiest days in my wife, my life and my wife whatever. And look, is anybody in here eighty six years old? Raise your hand, will you? So? So if I screw up, So look if I if I screw up, wait till you get eighty six. And I made the statement, then we're gonna be the UCLA at the East again. I was kind of drunk or someone I said that. And so I've been lucky to be able to coach, and to be able to coach and recruit at four great at two great high schools, and for division win universities.
I had a conversation with Drizl in the summer of twenty twenty. He was typical Lefty, engaging, curious, and combative, and he expressed some frustration when the topic of bias came up.
Do you say that anything you do? What there about his death? If you look back at direct and what was Marylin in basketball before I got damned?
Drizzel finds comfort in his story he has told about Bias. During the early summer of twenty ten, the man approached him as they walked out of church near Drizzel's home in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The man explained that shortly before Bias's death, he had reached a personal love, losing his job and his family due to a cocaine addiction. When friends told the man that Bias had died, he immediately stopped abusing cocaine. The man told Grisel that Bias was one of his favorite players and that Bias saved his life.
I bet eeveral people tell me that they've never used drugs, they've died.
At a press conference shortly after Bias died, Drizel expressed a connection between the two of them, a connection that he feels is eternal.
As my wife said, He's in a better position right now than we are. He's he's at home with the Lord, and I really sincerely believe that. I mean, I'm sad, but I'm not even worried because I know where Leonard is. I know he's in heaven and I'm going to miss him, and I know everybody else here will pise me. I really can't say a whole lot more such I love you, Leonard and our mission. I've seen Evan one.
Day, Len Bias. A Mixed Legacy. The interviews was produced by Davon Grady and Don Marcus. He had it all strong, quick, and he was so lain biased. A mixed legacy is distributed by the Eighth Side never before, just for greatness and loss.
Let you known them all other memories, remember me.
I hope they do the same
